Dear Reader,
Yes, you read that right. Another layover day. Again we’ve been laid low by the wind, and a cold one at that.
Last night’s marine weather forecast had a small craft advisory for today. And Miss Pink and Baby Blue are nothing if not small, with their not-quite 16′ length and their skinny little waists. So today we slept in.
Under gnarled trees.
And beside others that have lost all but their core.
Except to cook, eat and do dishes, we’ve stayed huddled in the tent reading.
We hang our food bags in trees if we can, during the day, and store them in our boats’ hatches at night, to keep any rodents or raccoons out out of them. Although we haven’t seen signs of anything trying to get into them so far on this trip, knock on wood.
Our dishwashing system is straightforward and simple. It consists of three bowls. All three get river water which I collect as soon as we arrive to camp, before I change out of my wetsuit booties and into dry socks and crocs. If I set it up early enough, the water even has time to warm in the sun before I need it for dinner dishes.
The first pan gets BioSuds and is for washing. The second pan is just river water for rinsing off the soap. And the third pan is river water with Clorox. I have a scrubby and a scraper. And a boat deck makes a great drying rack.
When we left Steinhatchee yesterday morning, we left with a full resupply which weighs our small boats down. Thus we chose to only carry a few days worth of water.
Did you know that water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon? It’s the heaviest thing we carry. Well, besides our food bags after resupply days.
So, tomorrow we need to move on to a water source. The winds are expected to lessen, but not by a whole lot. The entire week’s forecast is windy.
I’m now reading Barbara Kingsolver’s “Lacuna” set in Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera’s Mexico, with all the brilliant reds and blues and yellows of both that country, its birds, and their paintings.
Sitting here under a leaden sky, amongst the muted greens of marsh reeds, the browns of twisted trees, and the cold bite of wind, Mexico and Nicaragua both are calling me, reminding me they’re waiting, whenever we’re ready to come home.
We are alive.
We are healthy.
We are adventurers.
Goodnight!
Cheers, Susana
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