Home aboard Pamela Ann

We are back home in Guatemala up a river called the Rio Dulce where it’s safe from hurricanes we hope on our old sailboat the Pamela Ann.

Schooner Pamela Ann setting at her dock in Calypso Marina.

We designed and built to go sailing. Named after you know who. We are getting old now but what a dream to go sailing has been. We are back from a little house we bought out on the prairie a few years ago. The farmer that had it just wanted to get rid of it and we paid very little for it. Everything in life seems so simple. Now we have a life out there. Friends out there. Things out there we can do, there we can’t do here. Things we can buy cheap out there. We can’t buy here at any price. Toys out there like my old motorcycle safe in the garage we hope. I have already said we are getting old and Pam has always been enough women for me. 59 years and counting 60 years soon and we are still going strong with being married. With us living in two worlds with having a boat in one place and a house in another I can not imagine having a mistress somewhere. It’s got harder sense Biden went in on air fairs and maybe they are not as many flights and more packed planes. The trip down we could not find a real cheap flights and this may be a trip to remember. Got to the airport after a 5 hour car ride to the airport. Need to be there at 3;30am to leave at 6am. Flight canceled at 6:30. Flight attendant sick. Crazy drunk treating to smack the women saying it had been canceled. Just a mess all the way around. 3:00 in the afternoon we were still in the airport they had a flight schedule for 6am the next day. Motel room with no place to walk to eat. Back at 4am in the morning in the airport left at 6am made Orlando with mass confusion on what gate to use. Told to go on the other side of the airport and wait this means going back through security again. There all day. Canceled that gate and told to run back where we came from. Back through security again third time in one day. Just made aboard the plane then was told it was delayed for paperwork. An hour later we were told to deplane new law on how long you can set on plane. Then they got permission to leave so we were back in our seats. Flew into Guatemala City. Now it’s 3:30am in the morning the next day and we are super tired. Go through everything get luggage and walk outside then realize we are outside the airport at 4:00 in the morning and they won’t let us back in unless we have a flight departure ticket. Found a cab driver asleep in his car. Trying to use my bad Spanish it seemed the first bus out of the bus station was at 4:30 but to where didn’t mater they were open. Went on. Found the bus we wanted was a 5:30 and they had food there. On the bus the seat let back and no one was behind us, so I slept maybe an hour. Stopped for food halfway and scramble eggs was all we could find that looked good. Back on the bus to finish the 6-hour trip and they stared a movie. (Captain America) Robert Redford. What has happened to people and who can watch a movie like that? Three hours of stupid that you cannot get away from. Coming into town Pam saw a good friend walking on the street and told me to get our bags and she took off in a run soon as the bus stopped. This friend was with another friend, and they took us to our boat with their launcha. A few hours later another friend had got bacon and eggs from the boat sells food to boaters along the river for us. She brought it by. We picked up a loaf of bread in town. We were eating well. The next morning after 10:30 with the boat rocking a little as a boat was going by and my eyes coming open, I will never know what its like’s to be back in bed with a mistress but laying there in bed with Pam there with me after this trip and being away for 3 months and knowing we are home on our boat. You know what I’m saying.

The venders have their wares right next to the road.

Coke Cola deposit bottles being collected.

The little business town here with no sidewalks is as they say here is paradise to the fools that love travel and adventure. Selling live chickens on the street and big trucks with jake-brakes with no mufflers. Little women caring stuff on their head and babies on their backs. Hot and raining but who cares we are home.

                                              The Adventure Goes On

 

Old Cars and Trucks

Heading Home

One more week and we will be home. Back on the Pamela Ann, our old home built sail boat we designed and built ourselves we have called home for a while now. We fly out Saturday back to the Caribbean.

In Kansas

 But for now we have been taking in some of what we love in Kansas. One thing is car shows out here and the whole state is a car show. I saw on the news where a woman had a 1957 Chevy hard top that’s a beauty. She had been driving it her whole life and she has spent what it took to keep it like new. There is not so many cars and trucks from the 50s and older being driving daily out here but from the 60s up any town you’re in if you;re there long you will see someone around my age driving something like we drive ourselves as their main transportation. We drive a 1972 Chevy truck when we are out here to get around along with our 1987 Honda motorcycle. Antique tags are common out here. Our son drives a 1968 Chevy truck he has sometime. It’s not his main ride. He has a 1949 Dodge five ton grain dump truck and a 1951 Chevy five ton farm truck in his yard he says he is going to restore someday. People stop driving the older five ton farm trucks when they stared using tractor trailer trucks to haul grain to market. The old Dodge still runs but needs tires and a paint job. A five ton out here is a six wheeler with a dump flat bed with side panels. With that kind of stuff wrong with it but what do you do with them? Even if you completely restore it. This is a 40 MPH truck loaded heavy and gets maybe best mileage 3 to 5 miles to the gallon when empty. This is what the 1949 advertisement says when it sold new, that he found in the dashpocket. There are a lot of these old trucks out here setting behind barns somewhere.

Car Shows

It’s hard to say what is the best show to see out here but the Lead Sled Convention in Salina, KS is some where near the top. Three days of events but just being in town it’s a show everywhere. Motels parking lots and restaurants they are everywhere. We went to the event day in the park on the last day and most of the cars were gone but it was still a show.

Me personally I like original cars but most of these were over the top crazy. One car I liked was driven there by one of the beauty queens that was crowned there as queen and they both impressed me. The car was a barn find. Her and her husband just cleaned it up and drove it there right out of a barn. An old 1956 four door 6 cylinder Chevy that was just the way it was when bought new down to the hub caps. The body on both the beauty queen and the old Chevy were in great shape. It’s rare to see a skinny women out here and even more rare to see one maybe 40 years old still with a figure dressed like they did in the fifties. She was as nice to talk too as she was pretty.

Good looking car and beauty queen and car.

The craziest car there was a concept car you drive with a stick in the floor. Everything works with that stick. You push the stick forward and the father forward the faster you go. Pull back and it’s the brake. Side to side to steer. I haven’t figured how you get in it if your wearing a dress.

Concept car driven with a stick.

No worries I’m not there yet with wearing a dress. Yes we have them out here too. One working at Walmart now, was an ugly man for sure before he transitioned but in a dress and make up it’s hard to get that picture out of my mind. Shaving your legs don’t make really big feet look any better in high-heel pumps shoes. To me some of these cars looked better before their transition. It’s the crazy world we live in today. Just how different can you be?

Our Car

The first car Pam and I put back together was a 1952 Chevy. I had a hot rod when we married and we couldn’t afford it. Bought the old Chevy from a woman that bought it new. It was all there no dents but the motor was bad. Another motor out of a junk car and we had us a car. Pam was sixteen and we had a baby. She went on that car with polish and wax keeping the baby with her. Her driving that old car shining like new around with all that long red hair had people talking. Cars today look like they are all from the same mold. Haven’t seen a long legged skinny red head with really long hair in years either. We have never had much money and there seems to be some problem we need to solve everyday but maybe we can’t see the forest for the trees with us never having the newest and the best. We have put a lot together in our life to get by. It’s not all been bad.

                                            The Adventure of Life Goes On

 

What It’s Like To Live On A Sailboat

As in keeping with telling what it’s like to live on a boat on the first blog of the month remember it’s what its like for us. As I get older I hear how crazy people are. I think it’s just how different people are and the way they think that is crazy. A old man wearing a dress today maybe it will go with that long pony tail and ear ring he has been sporting most of his life. With us my wife of 59 years what we like the most is taking care of ourselves. You want lights you have to make it yourself living off the grid and sometimes on the go “it is” living off the grid big time. We have a solar panel, a wind generator and old time lamps. With the lamps we quit using kerosene many years ago and we use plan paint thinner. No smell, burns cleaner and more available world wide. All have there place. Solar panels don’t work at night and rainy days and wind generators don’t work with no wind. Does living like this make you closer to nature? Sure it does with us. You have to learn to work with nature living this way. Even a candle burning at just the right time can make something better. I’ll stop with what a candlelight makes better. With getting along with nature there are still people out there that are trying to go motor less traveling with their sailboat. With us a good motor has always been a problem. First, we built the boat we live on and didn’t have the money for real boat motors, so I put two old VW diesel car motors in and made a marine conversion myself to get by and that is what it has always been. A get by solution. (Never trustworthy.) With living like this it has made us work with mother nature more and made some trips really hard. Finding a solution for a problem is rewarding but at what cost. This may help with not having a trustworthy auxiliary motor in your sailboat. The solution may be a good outboard motor on your dink. Most people don’t think about it. This doesn’t work in all conditions. Big seas and bad weather making the boat bounce around trying to get in a river somewhere with lot of current but in reasonably calm weather and small waves it works great. Slow but it works. On our first trip with the Pamela Ann, she is a schooner at 46 on deck but 61 over all and 26 ton. She is fat and heavy. At the time we had a 8-foot wooden dink I built with a 5hp British Seagull. We still have the Seagull stored back and use it when we do boat shows. This works but again at what cost. Today we use a modern 4 stroke outboard. Seagulls were poplar right after World War Two.

British Seagull Outboard Motor

You cannot believe how much gas they use, and the big thing is how hard it is to find parts and how much parts cost. They’re very simple motors and easy to work on but you have to work on them a lot. You still hear old timers say they are really good motors, but you never see one running today. It’s best now in shows today to show what the old days were really like. That will tell you a lot about how far we have come. As I was saying on our first trip with the Pamela Ann we went to the Sounds of North Carolina. Motors never trustworthy so we sailed like we had no motors most of the time but when we needed a motor bad like getting into a dock, we tied the dink on the back quarter of the Pamela Ann and use the outboard motor. Maybe this set up is how we sail today. Always have a plan. Wait on good weather and sometimes that don’t work out as we planned but can add to the stories you can tell later. Taking a 26-ton sailboat in to a crowed dock with just a 2hp outboard with everyone yelling telling you what you’re doing wrong. You get the point, but we have done it. Even when we are towing the dink people will say why are you putting the outboard on with you just towing the dink going there. I never tell it’s just in case. Moved a boat one time for the boat yard. Got to the marina and found six people on the boat we were there to move. I put Pam on the wheel of the sailboat and away we went with the boatyard in site using the little dink and it’s motor. Pam keeping control of the sailboat using the boat steering wheel after we got under way. Turned the boat around and pushed it in the travel lift well and let all the people on the boat off still telling me what I was doing wrong. One women telling the boat yard owner getting it ready to be picked up the next day. He just want listened. “Coming up there to get us with that little motor. What if something had happen? Every one knows you have to have a motor big enough to get you out of trouble if trouble comes. Going that slow getting us here is just waiting on trouble.” Remember the first part of this blog. Are people crazy or is it just how they think? Quiet Sunday morning with Pam dressed for a boat ride with her in a big hat. Little outboard motor running great. Maybe it’s the decal on our little 2hp outboard that was worrying the women so bad. The way we live we never have much money. Our little outboard motor that we use now, was old and a gift not running when we got it. Another dead motor came along and the decal on the motor now says it all, “2hp 4 Stroke Honda Frankenstein.” It’s a bone yard motor made up from dead motors and used parts we could find. Maybe someday we can sell enough books or some art and buy something new one time in our life. Always something to look forward too, I guess.

                                             The Adventure Of Life Goes On

This picture was taken of us sailing off an anchorage, putting up the sails.