Crossing the Pacific?

My spear-fishing has been successful and I’ve been eating fresh fish every day. I’m trying to transform my thoughts and heart to Splendid and doing what I came to Panama to do, getting her ready for a life of world voyaging. I’ve ventured farther and deeper into the reef and it has rewarded me with perspective. I’m amazed at how peaceful I am, and how long I’m holding my breath these days. I feel so much better underwater.

My hopes of crossing the Pacific by March are unrealistic. I’ve made a rough budget and list of what needs to be done and there is no way I could pull it off. I’ll be lucky to get it pulled off by the following season. You know the old saying, “Quality, Time, or Price, pick two”? If I had about twenty grand I “might” pull it off but otherwise it’s a pipe dream. Quality and time are my two choices. Truthfully I don’t have the strength to make it by March even if I had the money.

When I leave Panama I don’t want to be in engineering, refitting, or restoring mode. I want to be in maintenance mode. I want to sail at least 5 years before doing another refit. Could I leave in March with Splendid in her currant condition, sure, but it would make the following years and my choices of destinations difficult. I’m tired of fixing every day of my life, you have no idea! When I cross the Pacific this time it will be farther North in the doldrums. I will visit Kirabiti, the marshal Islands,  Papa New Gina, indo-china, to Bali and into the Indian ocean. The “coconut milk” run does not interest me again.

I may go through the canal by March as it is much easier to work on your boat on the Pacific side of Panama. I’d be in Panama City and wouldn’t have to take a six hour bus ride for every screw, nut, or fitting I need. The bummer is I give up the San Blas, and many options for chartering. I may try and buy a really cheap motorcycle (about $500) so I could more easily travel back and forth during the next year and stay on this side. The bus is cheap but packed, and when the flu goes around (which is always) I’m afraid to travel by bus. I don’t know if you’ve ever been packed on a New York City subway like sardines, but that’s the way the buses are here. The difference is it’s 95 degrees, and pumping with loud Latin music which makes me want to scream.

Here is a rough list of what I’m looking at:

For chartering

Finish Painting boat ($700)

Finish Kubota install ($100)

Refrigeration ($400)

New Batteries ($900)

For website & next film

Editing Computer ($1100)

Still & video HD camera package ($1600)

For Pacific crossing

Watermaker parts ($900)

Irridium (sat phone) Minutes ($600)

Drifter sail ($1400)

Finish rigging windvane with tiller pilot ($150)

Fishing gear (two – three hundred)

Stores for crossing ($1000)

Canal transit ($1100)

Polynesia bond/Agent ($800)

Fuel ($800)

Bottom Job ($800)

Petty cash ($1000)

For myself

Refinish my guitar ($100)

Cartography rig (twenty-five hundred)

Medical stuff ($1,100)

I must be methodic about my steps forward as I need to piecemeal and do everything myself. My first goal is to get Splendid ready for chartering. If I can finish painting and get the big refrigerator going I’m going to hook up with an organization (San Blas Sailing) and insert Splendid into their fleet. They take twenty percent but I will still be making more than the fifteen hundred a week that I ask for charters. I’ll be getting about $400 a day for Splendid and myself. If not with them I will open a small business and advertise and do my own charters in the San Blas. Panama is booming as well as tourism. I can also do the backpacker runs between here and Cartagena or Zapsuro. This type of work is really hard on the boat and me. I’m going to try and stay away from it if I can; it’s always an option though. I hate beating to weather you know!

My goal is to set off across the Pacific in March of twenty-twelve, twenty-thirteen at the latest, sorry I write out all the numbers but the number two, and three don’t work on my keyboard.

In order to get ready for charters I’m going to paint the hull & finish painting the decks in the water. I’m going to make a rig for spray painting off of a scuba tank. I’ve done some research on the internet and this sounds quite feasible. Check out this website:

http://saltypig.com/scuba/

The rig will cost me a few hundred bucks but a hundred of that is for a scuba tank that I want anyway, actually I’d like to have a few laying around. It will also allow me to use air tools which is really cool. If I needed to I could use an impact wrench, drill, or even a grinder with cutting wheel underwater. All you need to do is throw the air tool in a vat of diesel when your done. This is also good to have for any kind of emergency situation (cutting away a rig or cable caught in the rudder). It will also give me the option to use power tools if I loose my electrical system. Once I get this all put together I’ll need another $400 or so in paint and supplies and about two weeks time for painting (depending on weather). I had bought paint in the states but it got water damaged on the way down here, about $400.00 worth, ARRRRGGG!

After that I’ll focus of fixing/replacing parts on my engine driven refrigeration system. I need to get the compressor running off of the Kubota. I’m almost there but there is a chance I may need a new compressor. When they get old they slowly leek, this one looks pretty old. After that I’ll pay a refrigeration guy to come and re-plumb everything, dry, and charge the system. I’m thinking that would cost around three hundred bucks.

I want to be in the San Blas, but for now I’m going to focus on Splendid and will stay in Linton. My funds are really low as the bulk of my vast holdings just went to a cruising permit and my papers. I have about two hundred dollars left so I don’t know how far I’ll get. I should just fuel up and split?

Speaking of money, I really hate talking about it. A few years ago some guy on, I believe it was sailboatowners.com wrote about me and said I was “always begging for money” I think you can still go and read the posts if you do a search for “Project BlueSphere or Alex Dorsey”. He got chewed up pretty bad by other cruisers and people who knew me. I need to talk about money because I want other men with little means to know their options. If you enjoy my content, donate. If you don’t thinks it’s worth it, don’t. And if you enjoy the content and don’t have enough to donate, please enjoy it without guilt especially if your trying to get a boat and “unplug”! This has always been my policy, and trust me, I have more than I need. When I wake up in the morning I choose how my day will unfold which is more than most people can say. That being said if my donations add up to seventy five bucks a month I’m lucky (I have one $50 a month subscriber). I have a meager two-hundred a month coming in from a “pension”. Video sales are really low as I think my “market” is saturated or the economy is just so. At one point I was bringing in about $500 a month with the website but it is not the case any more. However the magical thing about Project BlueSphere is it never lets me down. When we were stuck in Jamaica and I really needed it, the donations came in and got Splendid underway again. Most importantly I believe I’ve helped others. I have faith in Project BlueSphere. Thank you David!

When I was traveling with the girls, Sam would be the first one to tell you, we always had enough. In my humble opinion, making wine, pasta, and everything else you need while home schooling a child like that is far superior to a public education, or an expensive private one for that matter. I know both. I went to public school until I was thirteen and was fortunate enough to finish my college-prep education in fine private boarding schools.

I’ve become good friends again with my old friend Eric Bauhaus. He is the author of the “The Panama Cruising Guide” He’s now thirty and never once did he step foot in a classroom. He was home schooled by his mother and father. He cruised throughout Europe and the Caribbean with his brother, sister, mom and dad aboard a thirty-seven footish steel sloop. His dad is the welder in my last film, a really good guy. I know Eric speaks German, English, and Spanish fluently, some French.

If you knew Eric as a friend and his engineering, writing, photography, and cartography skills it would blow you away. He makes all his own hi-resolution charts for the guide with a custom hi-speed rig he designed himself and charts areas with a hi-speed dinghy using a custom twelve volt computer/sounder/GPS. He overlays them with satellite imagery, man are they really beautiful charts! I know these charts well and they are hyper-accurate. If you’re interested in Panama, order his Guide. It’s the best guide I’ve ever owned, and I don’t say that because he is my friend. You can get it through blue water books, or cruisingguides.com. When you look at the guide and realize the creator never stepped foot in a classroom it will make you think. Education should never get in the way of learning! If anything a classroom would have held him back, I think he would agree. He also holds an unlimited tonnage captains license at thirty in the merchant marines. I want him to help me build a similar cartography rig so I can do so and make charts in remote areas of the Pacific and my travels West. I will be off of the path this time and would like to leave this information in my wake.

Also my friend Jamie. When he was borne his parents cleaned out the bookshelf on their boat in South Africa. The bookshelf became his crib. He grew up on a boat and attended the Army to pay for his university in Australia. After that he circumnavigated the world on his small twenty-five foot boat “Possibilities”, and he did so around all three capes. His experiences, childhood, and education priceless. I do believe that “the” system stifles our dreams, desires, and holds us back in many ways. My opinion only holds value to me, take it for what its worth. But to me school and “education” are as connected as “church” and spiritual belief. One really has nothing to do with the other. I guess if you don’t have time to teach your children schools are good. I think the “natural” order of life dictates that parents should teach their children and not strangers. Institutions, institutionalize people weather they are prisons, universities, or churches. Once again, this is the humble opinion of one man with two hundred dollars to his name. That being said I believe in God, world education, and good higher education. It took me 7 years to graduate college in order to get my BA because I didn’t want to limit myself to the confines of a major and non elective courses. This got quite expensive. If I had an endless supply of money I might still be in college?

I may head out to the San Blas to buy some time. I have about two-fifty to three hundred a month rolling in (give or take) and if I took a month or two vacation I’d have some more cash to get ship done on my return. I wont spend a dime there. Firstly I think I would buy that little motorcycle.

I am interested in the 15 or so of you out there who have expressed interest in visiting the San Blas. Some things on my “list” are as good to me as money and would gladly exchange them for a charter, or partial charter. I will also do a charter raffle again. I’m hoping Shawn will come and claim his prize soon. In my case as soon as the money comes in, it goes right back out to Splendid. Like a wife eah?

Who was the songwriter who wrote “Time is on my side”? In my case it certainly is. When it comes to time, I’m a rich man.

Well that’s where I’m at. My chin is up, I’m focused, and have a plan. Truthfully I just ran out of rum and need to replenish my supply, I’ve had a moment of clarity. This behavior will end soon. Today I feel okay but the nights are difficult and solitude doesn’t seem to be the close friend he once was. Time is on my side!

‘Peace, Love, and Coconuts’, or ‘Sail far and live slowly’.

I’ve never used them at the same time before, I’m feeling generous today, take your pick : )

Cheers.

– alex