Sloth Hunt!

Dear Ean....

I went to dinner at Mi Ranchito with Heather and Ron (s/v Sundancer) and Jill and Matthew (s/v Rock and Roll Star).  Back to the scene of the crime, so to speak.... But I'm proud to tell you that - this time - when Heather suggested a second bottle of wine, I Just. Said. No.  And having said no to Bottle #2, the question of Bottle #3 never came up.  Phew!  We had the kind of conversation that I know you would have enjoyed, so it made me miss you: we talked about trash and plastic and human impact and evolution, and many other Topics of Great Importance.

When we walked back from el restaurante, it was black dark.  A beautiful night.  We were walking towards the Smithsonian gate, just about to take a left into the marina's parking lot.  (Here's what it looks like during the day: did you ever notice those cables overhead?)

This is the cable that the "night sloths" were hanging on.

 When Jill pointed up, I couldn't process what I was seeing at first.  Big indistinct blobs hanging from what I knew to be the overhead cable.

But then the "blobs" became "sloth blobs."  I didn't have the camera - to my great regret. We continued walking to the dinghy dock, slid down the ramp (supermoon low)....  Then I dinghied back to the boat, grabbed the camera, dinghied back to shore, hiked back up the dinghy dock ramp, walked across the parking lot - and there they were, of course.  "Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close up.  But I'm not coming down, so use the zoom, 'kay?"  

Lesson learned: I don't think this will work with OTHER types of wildlife - but with sloths, if you forget your camera, don't worry - they'll still be there when you get back.  Note to self: Carry camera constantly.

This Night Sloth Sighting, of course, reactivated my sloth obsession.  Remember the sloth in Shelter Bay Marina?

Bradypus variegates, or, a three-toed sloth

I've been poring over and completely engrossed by the website of the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica... when you get home, let's start planning our little "overland" trip to Boquete and Costa Rica, shall we?  

Anyway, remember the mysterious markings on the Shelter Bay Sloth's back?  I read about it on the website: it is, indeed a Mystery.  They call it the "Male Patch Mystery."  While I was engaged with Sloth Sleuthing, I also discovered that the video of the baby sloth and the flower - remember that one? - was actually taken at the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica.  Can I just point out, that the woman who took the video must have been on the "Insider" tour, because I don't think you get to go in to the nursery and the "Slothpital" if you just take the plain old boring (cheap) "Buttercup" tour?  I'm just sayin'.

The next day, about an hour before sunset, I decided to go on a Sloth Hunt.  Excellent timing, as it turned out - superhigh!  So I piled all the trash into the dinghy and took advantage of the auspicious ramp sitch.  Sloth Hunt AND Trash Run - see how I'm multi-tasking?  I even brought in the two gallons of waste oil that had been sitting around in the cockpit for a month.  

In the big tree just behind and to the right of the dumpster (can you picture it?), I found this guy.  (And you know when I say "guy" I don't mean that it was actually a male sloth; I'm using "guy" in that generic, ungendered way.  Two-toed sloths don't have "male patches," so no clues there.)

Choloepus hoffmani, or, two-toed sloth

Dude's got an itch.  So he stretches his leg out, and - ahhhh, those claws are good for scratching those itches.  On the Sloth Sanctuary website, they actually call them "fingers," not toes.  Both types of sloths have three "toes" on their back legs, but the two types differ in how many "fingers" they have on their front legs (arms?).  Yep, that's me: a fount of knowledge.  Seriously, check out the website.  More than you would EVER want to know about sloths, written by people who LOVE LOVE LOVE sloths.

Still itchy, can't quite reach... yeah, that's the ticket.  Life is good.

After a bit more scratching and stretching, he's apparently ready to get on with his evening.  Off he goes; back to the trunk, where he will catch onto another, higher branch and make his way further up into the tree.  The picture's a bit blurry, because he was moving so fast.  Just kidding.  The lighting was challenging for our little point-and-shoot.

I walked across the parking lot, half-way hoping to find those same sloths still hanging from the overhead cables... but at some point in the intervening 18 hours, they had made off to greener pastures (that would be TREES, presumably).

I found this "guy" just 8 feet off the ground, nestled into a comfortable hammock of intersecting tree branches.

Close to sunset, now, and and I was pointing the camera into the depths of the tree, so the flash went off.  He showed his dismay by blinking, slowly, in my direction.  "Dude. [blink] Not. [blink] Cool."  So I apologized and left him to it.

There it is: all the news that's fit to be digitized.  Reporting live from Slothsville.

XXOO, Jane

P.S. I know you think I'm a little crazy, about the whole Sloth Love thing.  But you don't know nothin'.  Watch this video, which is a clip of Kristen Bell (she's an actess - you don't know her - never mind) talking with Ellen DeGeneres about her Sloth Meltdown.  Kristen Bell's Sloth Meltdown.  She is crazier than I am.  Be relieved.  (Rebecca from s/v Summertime Rolls sent me this video.  Isn't facebook fabulous??!!!)

P.P.S. It hasn't escaped me, of course, that this is our 200th blog post.  I thought you'd be jumping all over it, the chance to do #200, since you were so gung-ho about writing #100.  But, sorry!  You were TOOOOOOO SSSLLLOOOOOOOWWWWW.  Sort of like a sloth, come to think about it.

Plain Jane, the non-cruiser

Dear Ean,

For the past couple of days it's been SUPER here in La Playita.  Get it, SUPER?  As in, the SUPERmoon?  Here for your enjoyment are pictures of the dinghy dock ramp at a supermoon high and a supermoon low.  You have to guess which is which.  S/v Pi just dinghied past, saying they were going to do their final pre-canal-crossing provision.  I wonder if they remembered, about the supermoon low.

Ever since we decided to quit cruising, I find myself, in various moments, imagining: what would a “normal” (land-lubber, first-world, not-too-terribly-adventurous) person think of this particular aspect of the cruising life?  Would a "normal" person be paying attention to super highs and super lows?

I was messing around with the dinghy this morning – climbing up on the arch, pulling one drain plug and unscrewing the other, replacing both plugs, jumping into the engine compartment to flip the breaker to the dinghy lift motor, lowering the dinghy and unclipping the lift cable, securing the lift cable to one of our stanchions so it wouldn’t rock ‘n roll ‘n bang in the constant swell.  Later, when I sat down with a bowl of cereal, I realized that I had a little blood dribbling down my arm.

You’re not here, and I can only spend so many hours on facebook, so I have to talk to myself.  In an effort to make talking to myself more entertaining, I carry on imaginary conversations between Sailor Jane and a hypothetical “normal” Jane – let’s call her “Plain Jane.”

Here’s how the conversation went, this morning.

Plain Jane:  Aaarggh!  I’m bleeding!!!

Sailor Jane:  Pffft.  Barely.

PJ: When did this happen?  Was it the edge of the engine compartment?  That sharp hinge? Or the corner of the solar panel?  A stray strand from the lift cable?  What happened?  Why did this happen?  Who let this happen?

SJ:  It’s a boat, wussy.  A bit a blood.  Bound to happen.

PJ: What should I do?  I’ve got to clean the wound, so I can see how bad it is.  All this blood, I can’t even see the actual wound.  Is it a puncture?  A scratch?  A cut?  I think there’s too much blood for it to be just a scratch.  I think it’s deep.  Am I up to date on my tetanus shot?  It’s my LEFT arm, OMG, I’m left-handed, what if it gets infected.  I COULD LOSE MY ARM!

SJ: Yer cereal is gonna get all soggy if you start some big “wound-cleaning” program.

PJ:  Well… that’s true… I hate soggy cereal.

[Later]

PJ: I’m going to get out the first aid kit now.   I’ll wash all the blood off, check it out.  Didn’t we buy some sort of antibacterial wound cleaner stuff?  And then a bit of antibiotic ointment.   I could use that gauze stuff and the sticky tape, but how am I going to wrap that around my arm without help?  Maybe I should go over and get Paul from s/v Pi.  What was his wife’s name again?  Maybe she has some medical experience; she’s very friendly, anyway.  She would probably take good care of me.

SJ: Huh.  [eye rolling]

PJ: Well, maybe it’s not that bad.  At least it’s not bleeding anymore.   I won’t use the gauze roll, I’ll just use a couple of regular Band-aids… I'm sure it will clean up nicely - I'll probably find that the cut itself isn't that big.

SJ: That blood has already congealed – if you wash it off, you’ll start bleeding again.

PJ: OMG I don’t want to lose any more blood... I think I’m getting faint…..

Honey, don’t worry.  I am, after all, up-to-date on my tetanus shot.  And I cleaned the blood off the settee.  It’s all good.  I AM a cruiser, after all.  Tough as barnacles.

XXOO, J

P.S.  Here's a good link: What is a supermoon?

"See You on the Other Side"

At Shelter Bay, we hear it alot. It conjures unnerving images of people in matching tennis shoes and large batches of Kool-Aid. But, no, no cult activity implied or intended, just a 47 or so mile trip up three locks, across a lake and a cut and then down three locks to the other side (in our case, the Pacific side) of Panama.

Ready to go!

Hard Ship

JOY, sitting on her bare bottom.

Last weekend we were motoring across Gatun Lake with our friends Tim and Cath aboard s/v Helena May. The weather was, well, Panamanian, but it mostly didn't rain. We even got to have a wee bit of an escapade when we went to shore after having bid our "Panamanian Cruise Directors" safe travels and fond farewells. Our stay at the Sheraton was a slice of paradise. Tim and Cath: we thank you kindly for your unparalleled hospitality, but you are just not equipped to compete with unending hot water, a mini bar and room service. Short of ironing our t-shirts we availed ourselves of every amenity the Sheraton had to offer. Emboldened by our night of luxury living, we successfully navigated our way through the wilds of the Panamanian bus system and to top it all off, DID NOT get mugged in Colón in the dark in the rain waiting for a taxi.

And then we were back at the marina and our "palace in the clouds." Life on the hard, it turns out, isn't that much different from living in a hotel. True, there's no hot water unless we walk the two blocks to the marina showers, which we might as well do since that's where we have to go for a toilet, anyway. We wash hardly any more dishes than we would staying in a hotel since it leaves a big, dirty puddle under the boat which never dries. There's no room service, but the marina restaurant is closer than the bathrooms and the food is almost as good as the candy bars and potato products we prepare at home. But, what we do have that our hotel room did not is a maxi bar. No college dorm sized fridge here. No sireebob! We have cases and cases of beer and bottles and bottles of spirits and the best part is that we don't have to walk down the hall to get ice; it's right here.

And, of course there are always projects with which to distract ourselves. I'm waiting for a beetle to die that I trapped under a tupperware container several days ago. I've just deleted 205 tv shows I've been storing on my Mac. (It was so full I couldn't open Photoshop and anybody who uses Photoshop knows the magnitude of such a disaster.) And while her partner Jaye is on vacation, Jane is singlehandedly turning The Monkey's Fist into a lean, mean blog collecting machine. And just today we discovered that ants have discovered us, so I'll need to annihilate them periodically. So it isn't as though we're just waiting for things to get done around here.

We'll be up here for about another week or so. The paint on JOY's bottom has to dry, of course. Once they apply it, that is.  We need to replace the propeller that got mangled when we went aground plus a few odds and ends. Then we'll be back on water to tackle the rest of our repairs.  If all goes as planned, we'll be bored of this whole refit thing in a few weeks and we'll leave to embark upon our own Panama Canal cruise. South Pacific, don't go anywhere, we'll see you eventually!

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