Homesick

Were coming home. We are still in Kansas out on the prairie at our little house out here but we are headed home soon to our sail boat in Guatemala. We will be flying in Saturday August the 19th and hopefully be on the bus from Guatemala City to the Rio Dulce at Calypso Marina aboard Pamela Ann and home before dark on Sunday the 20th. It seemed so simple when we left our boat to come up here. Work on getting our book we wrote in paperback and on the market. (Paperback available see below.) Do some art shows. Sell some art and see if we could get it scheduled for me to get a knee replacement. It’s always good luck with anything being simple. Working like crazy on all of that and our little house was cheap when we bought it. And as you probably guessed it needs work. Soon sporting a new paint job. Snow white and looking neat and clean. Pam and I are considered to be old now being in our mid 70s but it feels like we are working harder everyday. This little house is well built like I was in my younger days but like me needs a little maintenance. The house I can fix. Me it a losing battle in time. But what do you do? Really think about that. What do you do? We all have an expiration date. Until then I want to live. With what we need to do out here with these doctors and stuff and the time it takes doing this we are living well. It gets hot out here in midday, triple digits this week but in the 60s at night. On our boat in the Caribbean the heat is always a problem year round.

Gardening

We planted a garden and that has been nice. Pam is in to it. Homegrown, vine ripened tomatoes fresh out of the garden with okra and sweet corn goes good with anything. Fresh meat you can buy here so we can make and eat most anything we want. In the Caribbean even if you have money it’s not possible to eat as well as you can in the US and out here it’s cow country. “Steak!”

Sunflowers

Pam is into her sun flowers.

If you look beside Pam here you can see a humming bird working a sunflower I painted on a framed burlap bag.

Humming bird and sunflower

She loves her sunflowers.

Some of the sunflowers in the back yard.

This tall stalk beside Pam is a gaint sunflower. It has not opened yet. We will post a picture when it does.

Torn?

Being torn between our sailboat we designed and built ourselves we still see as our home and living out here. I’m glad I never had a mistress. We love them both I guess now and the change from one to the other may be the lour that gets people in trouble. It’s fun even the traveling from one to the other. Homesick but really where is home now? Today our home is the Schooner Pamela Ann. Guess where that name came from?

                                           The Adventure Of Life Goes On

                                              And What A Life It Still Is.

We do have the book Little Lies by Timothy C. Pennington in paperback for sale. It is available online at Amazon Books or if interested you can contact us at this email: penningtonart3@gmail.com and send it to you.

For Sale in paperback. Also still for sale on Amazon Kindle Books. 

 

Some Things We Like

Boat in Guatemala

Been away from our boat too long and the water and our way of life is calling us home I guess. Had a lot to do when we came out here this time. I have arthritis in my knees and I need a knee replacement. No problem. All old people are getting them done they say. I think they may have run out of parts maybe with me needing mine done. Been here two months and are no closer than we were when we got here. They showed me how they do it but they didn’t show me how they choose when they can do it. All they say is we will see when we can do it and you be there when we do. Pam and I are going home to our boat up a river in Guatemala in about a month and just live with it a while longer I guess.

July 4th

What has been happening out here? The July 4th was good but not that big being out here. Remember this is farm and cattle country out here on the prairie. Not a lot of people out here. People that are here buying and shooting fireworks.

Wall to Wall Fireworks For Sale

Went to a parade in the little town of Russell. 15 minutes and it was over but it felt wholesome some how seeing it with the way the people live out here in the heart land.

Fireworks Display

Went to the fireworks show in the bigger town of Great Bend out on a old runways from world World War Two where they landed old boomers and parked them there as they built them. Twenty minutes of just okay but too far away to be really good. A lot of planes were and still are built here in Kansas. There is history ever where you look out here. Some days and some night you can sometimes see strange aircraft flying out here. The locals say, “Well the military fly boys are playing today up there.” If you are in to UFO sighting. You could have yourself a ball trying to convince yourself they’re here and they are real especially some times at night. Light moving really fast across the sky then dispersing or you can’t see anything but you can hear something up there making lots of noises. Remember too with all this watching what’s up there. There is no light pollution out here. Just open prairie. The stars shine bright here. Pam and I have been together most of our life how and she is a moon watcher. She keeps up with when it’s coming up and when it’s full.

Vintage Cars

Me I had rather just look at old cars and junk out here. Lots and lots of old everything setting around here. We enjoy coming our here but this time we hopped as I said to see about getting my knee done but we wanted to get the little book we wrote on the market too. Maybe next week we will have more of that worked out. With my art that may happen next week too and we can set that up too so people can see what we feature online that is up for sale. The old saying, “So much to do, So little time.” Back at the boat in the Caribbean we are replacing our old car motors we used because we didn’t have the money for real boat motors at the time we built our boat with old motors out of savaged boats we bought down there and we hope are still good. I guess all this is about as crazy as our life has always been. The old motors we are working with we just bought were new when we built our boat and no way we could we afford them at the time. I’m really proud now of the two little Yanmar diesel motors already setting on there mounts but not ready to test yet. As always in our crazy world they need parts and work. One new water pump already in the carry on bag going back. Both motors clean and painted. If nothing else they look good setting there. Looking forward to the first test run. Been working on boats a long time now and have designed and built a lot of stuff but I’m not a trained engineer. The big thing now is the propellers left on the boat from the old car motors. Are they too big? To little and how are they going to work with these motors? I believe now people with lot of money live a simple life. Just spend the money and go. Never simple with us. Have a friend there with lots of junk and with us never having money he has said I can take some of his propellers and try them. Just keep on diving down holding my breath trying to get them off and put them on with my home built puller and keep trying them out until we find something that will work. There is the answer I guess with always being poor but what a life if you look at it as an Adventure. The adventure in being poor finding a way to keep going on. I guess living on and old home built boat in the Caribbean coming back to the US only to visit is an Adventure in it’s self. I know with the book and my art if we can find a way to make just a little money there is a lot of adventure still out there calling us.

Pamela Ann at her dock covered up to try to keep the hot sun off.

 

What it’s Like to Live on a Sailboat

We are ask a lot what it’s like living on a boat and traveling. We have decided to maybe write a blog the first week of the month for a little while to give our account of what it’s been like. Remember in all of this. (Our account.) The rest of the month we will write about where we are and what we are doing. We are ask questions like what do you do out in the ocean when it gets dark. I have said to the ones that seems to have no clue we just go to an expensive water world hotel and stay there all night on there dock. There are a lot of them out there strung along the way all over the ocean. We have been ask twice traveling if the fan on the back of our boat helps push the boat along. Both times Pam was saying really quick before I could speak. Don’t start telling them a bunch of bull crap. I don’t want to hear it. I have to admit it’s hard not to sometimes do that when people ask question like that and just let the bull crap roll. Pam telling them the fan you just called it on the back of the boat is a wind generator that makes power and don’t ask where we stay at night in the ocean when it gets dark. There is no place to anchor with the water thousands of feet deep and no boat hotels out there to stay at as you cross an ocean. You just go on in the dark the same as a airplanes does. We have had people say when we tell them about us traveling along at night where you can’t see a thing not even the bow of the boat. They say that is scary and there should be a law where you need head light like a car. Now that is what we all need around the world. More Laws. I will say this on the scary. Scared is a strong word but bad weather and big seas can make you a little uneasy and if something goes wrong it takes a strong man or maybe a fool to not feel something. The few minutes you’re trying to figure out what is happening. Maybe the alarm is going off with the bilge pump running and you know there is water coming in the boat some where if the bilge pump is coming on. We jibed the boat one night on our way down between Cuba and Mexico. Jibe means you let the wind get on the wrong side of the sails and they come around to the other side of the boat sometimes in a violent way. It broke the main sail boom and now it was beating the top out of the bimini with us under it as I have said. “In the dark.” That’s what I just said about a strong man or fool if that don’t get you going a little. Now remember I have a pilot license and that training is more than just flying the plane and in a way is a lot like the training in martial arts. You train to get in control of the event facing you. You train for the what ifs. You ever hear the last words of a pilot how calm they were. They stay calm to the end. It’s because of them being busy trying to get control of what is going wrong. Watch some one trained in martial arts in a real fight. There not jumping and fraying around. They are trying to stay calm and watching for what’s coming to get control of it. There is no guarantee in a real fight no mater where are what it is but staying calm helps you think. By the way all this was happening with us that night in the shipping channel between the two countries watching eight ships around us tracking their course to see what course we needed to not get near them and it could not get any darker with the seas up and the wind screaming. Remember doing all this in total darkness and the boat doing nose dives into the seas. You hear people say how hard the wind was blowing and how big the seas were using numbers. They are just trying to impress you. You can be having a very hard time with just a strong wind blowing against the current near shore or the Gulf stream like where we were. The word fetch is the word for how far the wind travels across water to make a wave. On the wind ward side the waves may be small but on the other side where the wind has traveled a long way the waves can be big. Add to that how deep the water is. As waves get in shallow water the waves get shorter and higher. The waves get even closer and higher when the wind blows against the current like the Gulf stream. How do you learn all this. I hope it is with baby steeps. What happen with us having a broke boom in the shipping channel in the dark with the wind against the Gulf stream. Safety first. Life jackets on. Dropped the main sail and slashed it down. Our home built auto pilot drive unit steering the boat back on course making 4.3 knots and back under way. Just before day light the moon came up and we both felt better being able to see just a little. The little bit scared thing again. Buy noon we were in Mexico and anchored. Tried to contact the port captain. No luck so we went to bed and took a long nap. When I spoke about strong feeling. About being uneasy maybe not scared. Making port after long days at sea. That’s a feeling you will never forget. Doing it in a boat you designed and built yourself. Laying there with the women of your dreams in your arms is a feeling only a few ever feel. Life’s adventure is there for the few that are not scared to live it but sometimes it’s not as easy as the dreamers say it is.     

Pamela Ann leaving Southport, NC on her maiden voyage.

Pamela Ann, safely anchored in Cayo Quemada, Rio Dulce, Guatemala, Just returning from Belize.