What a perfect night in the hammock last night, the kind I live for!
Perhaps it was the fact that I’m fasting for two days, the wine, or some cosmic/narcotic jungle pollen floating in the air, but I was wholely blissful laying in my hammock last night. I know I am such a lucky man and I’m quite grateful!
It’s good entertainment watching the lightning strike through the distant night sky.
The howler-monkeys roar when rain is approaching and quiet once it starts. All this excitement around me and not a drop last night. Just a full moon casting light 
on the mountains amongst a billion stars and rain everywhere but over Splendid.
The cool breeze of distant squalls would gently push Splendid in circles as I laid in my cotton paradise gazing at the night sky with a smile as long as the stripe on an endless highway.
Dreams are borne in such a place!
The last decade of my life has been consumed by studying charts, pilot data, dreaming, restoring, and voyaging. I know I haven’t been sailing much lately, but to me, from my perspective, cruising is a given! I coast through life and smile when I think of all the stress I left behind so long ago. 
Man, all that shit (bills, cars, keep’n up with the Jones’s, work, restaurants, health clubs, traffic, news, processed & fast food) is so far in my rear view its like a bad dream.
I’m feeling like Splendid will sail around Marchish. I don’t know where, how far, but I think the “stick” of Panama may give way to a new path. Who knows? I may be into making money in the San Blas, or deep in some sort of project (next film) but whatever happens I’ll be coasting (cruising), it’s a good thing.
Whatever happens in 2012, 2011 is the re-dawn of the motorcycle for me. I counted last night, my DT 175 is my 7th motorcycle. And out of all of them I’ve never felt like one set me free, they were just a tease. Kind of like my first 3 sailboats, it wasn’t until “Namaste” did my vehicle set me free…, or did I set her free? Either way it doesn’t matter, it happened. I was living in the matrix and there was always an end to my motorcycle’s proverbial road, not any more. My DT’s a bit small for my application but she woke me up to a new era.
There is a 3rd option for my next year cruising. I’m always weighing sailing across the Pacific or Atlantic, tick-tock, Africa, China, where?
If my chartering season does well and I upgrade my motorcycle I’m considering sailing to Colombia, or transiting the Canal and sailing to Ecuador. I’m dreaming to explore S. America by motorcycle, backpack & tent. Africa and China will be there for me to explore by sea and bike, perhaps i should take this journey first?
Even though Panama is connected to South America it is separated by the Darien Gap, a stretch of jungle so thick & wild modern technology cant build or maintain a 
road through it. Before I leave Panama I will motorbike as far into the Darien gap as I can, I think it will make a good video and I can visit the Embara-Wounaan Indians. I’ll take a week and make the first sailing/motorbike video.
I cant rest or go anywhere until Splendid is “ship-shape”, but if I can manage it I would like to motorcycle both coasts of S. America before i visit a new continent.
It may be a pipe dream but it’s something :)
Anyway these were my thoughts & dreams last night.
I finished restoring & played my guitar for the first time since Australia :)
Peace, Love, sailboats & motorcycles!
alex