According to Arthur Ransome (British author)
Houses are but badly built boats so firmly aground that you can not think of moving them. They are definitely inferior things, belonging to the vegetable, not the animal world, rooted and stationary, incapable of gay transition…The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting place.
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As readers of this blog know I intend on building a houseboat/shantyboat when I move to Panama and want to equip it with a sail for auxiliary power. Of course I’m going to need to have a dinghy and will probably go with some form of “instant boat” design. I want it to have the option of oar, small outboard and sail for powering. But how much are those sails going to cost? I recently found this site while surfing. It’s: http://www.sailritesails.com/
There is a list of about a gazillion different boats to choose from. They even have my old Kaiser26 (though they call it a Kaiser 25) which amazed me since John Kaiser only built 26 of them. I had hull #24.
Click on the boat you own, or want to, and the site will tell you how much each sail for that boat will cost…main, genoa, jib, spinnaker, etc., and all the options available for each sail: fabric choices, reefing choices, etc. Sailrite has two locations: Indiana and Annapolis.
Their main home site, accessable by a tab at the top of their page offers a huge range of other sailing gear.
The second in Dylan Winter’s trip around England in a 19′ sailboat
A couple of weeks ago I wrote of my bus trip from David to Almirante and how I lost all the photos I’d taken in the mountains transferring them to my computer. Yesterday I came across a site that had these pictures showing how the road had washed out in last year’s storms. 
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“At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much.” – Robin Lee Graham – Dove
I am currently in the process of culling down my possessions before I make my permanent move to Panama. Though Panamanian law says I may import up to $10,000.00 worth of household goods the biggest problem is I don’t have $10,000.00 worth of household goods. I probably don’t even have one third that amount and the question arises as to whether I want to bring them along with me, anyway.
Besides the opening quote there are two two others I’ve kept for years that address this dilemma.
“‘I’ve always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can’t afford it.’ What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of ‘security.’ And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine–and before we know it our lives are gone.
“What does a man need–really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in–and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all–in the material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade.
“The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it the tomb is sealed.” – Sterling Hayden – Wanderer
“If we’re really going to start a new life, we have to kill the old one. That’s why most people never really start anything new. They’re claimed by old lamps and bureaus left to them by their grandmothers.” – Betty Wilson–Away from it All
So, what do I do with those old lamps and bureaus?
My full name is Richard Staigg Philbrick. The original Richard Staigg was a fairly well-known painter, primarily or portraits and miniatures. I have a pencil sketch of his of a young girl with flowers. It’s not worth a whole lot of money. According to the web site Live Auctioneers the original oil painting of the sketch sold at auction for $425.00. While the pencil sketch has little intrinsic value it does have value as a family heirloom. But it certainly isn’t something I want to take with me. So, I will be sending it to one of my nieces. She is the last one in the family to carry the Staigg name. A few years ago when I asked her what she thought of her middle name she just shrugged. Now that she’s in college perhaps she’s better disposed of carrying on a long family tradition.
When my dad sold the family home in Orleans, on Cape Cod, built before the Revolution, he gave each of us boys a few things from the home. I received one of the few chairs that had been built in the 1800s by my mother’s relatives. Since I was working on living on boats at that time I had no use for it and gave it to my brother Gary and his family. One thing I have kept, primarily in storage for the last twenty years or so is a beautiful Reed & Barton tea pot. But what do I need it for? I rarely drink tea and when I do it’s simply made with a bag. I have decided to give it to another niece. One who has a home and children.
There are other items like those that I’m not going to take with me and I really don’t know of anyone who want or need them. What does one do with their high school year book in a situation like mine? I’ve been an avid reader all my life but in the past year or so I’ve been buying my books on-line through Audible.com and listening to them on my Ipod. I’m certainly not going to pack up the stack of books I’ve accumulated over the past few years and lug them to Panama. They’ll end up somewhere.
I love my large screen t.v. but it’s not coming with me, either. The woolen suits that I haven’t worn for years will probably end up at Goodwill, and some of them are quite expensive, too. But they were all given to me in the first place so they’re going.My bed, chest of drawers, computer desk, etc., though only a couple of years old, are staying, too.
My computer(s) of course are going but the five year old printer and scanner don’t make the cut. My small stereo/CD player is probably coming along and I definitely can’t leave my Krups espresso maker behind.
The hardest thing I’ll be leaving behind is my dog, Penny. 
I got her out of a shelter 16 years ago. She’s been a good and faithful friend all these years. She’s old now and has trouble getting around. She loves her afternoon walk but she’s consigned to one speed which is very slow. When I first got her she was able to leap from the ground into the seat of my Toyota van. Now I have to lift her into the seat of my Hyundai Elantra. But she soldiers on. I don’t think she’d make the transition well at all. Fortunately my roommate loves her and has agreed to care for her in her last years.
In the last couple of days I’ve donated a ton of clothing to several charitable organizations. Eight very expensive suits that were all given to me. Some I never wore and the others I haven’t worn for at least five years. They were simply taking up space in the closet. Today I got rid of more than a dozen dress shirts, slacks and sweat suits.There’s absolutely no reason to bring them with me. After all, if I need to replace something I might have given away they sell clothes in Panama, too.
The last thing I need to get rid of is my Boston Whaler. The money I get from selling it will build my houseboat in Panama.
It’s a Revenge model. Very rare and a scary fast boat. My friend, Stephen, got stopped in the Intracoastal one day and clocked doing 44 mph. If anyone reading this is interested, I’m asking $10,850. Fully titled and including trailer.
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I’d bet the majority of people who click into this site have the dream of going cruising. Unfortunately most will never do it. They’re probably a lot like I was 30+ years ago. Stuck in a job they aren’t really happy with if they have a job at all in this economy. They read the magazines, they drool over new boat designs, surf the internet reading cruising logs of people that are actually out there doing what the reader wishes he/she was doing.
I did all that, except for the internet thing…we didn’t have it back then. One day I realized that 1) I was never going to earn enough money to buy one of those shiny toys in the magazines working as an assistant public relations director at a hospital. 2) I wasn’t willing to do what one needs to do in order to earn that kind of money, and 3) if you ARE willing to do what it takes to earn that kind of money then you don’t have enough time left over to spend the time needed to enjoy the boat in the ways you dream about. If you don’t believe that, then just go down to your local marina for a few consecutive weekends and see how many of the boats are in the same spot week after week after week.
So I found another way of achieving the dream. When I got divorced, and having dodged the kid bullet, I was able to do whatever I wanted to do with my life. I got a second chance to create myself. Having wanted to “mess around on boats” from the time my father built a little eight-foot pram when I was about seven or so, I got a job as a deck hand and worked for next to nothing the next couple of years until I acquired enough sea time to sit for my 100-ton license. I then found people who were willing to do all the work required to buy that boat and then pay me to play with it. The down side is that most of those people are real assholes that you don’t want to be around in the first place and you don’t get to choose where you go or when you get to go there.
At the end of my career working yachts and small commercial craft I finally bought my own small boat and took off after rereading Don Casey & Lew Hackler’s wonderful book Sensible Cruising: The Thoreau Approach. “A Philosophic & Practical Approach to Cruising.” Thoreau, as we know, was heavily into what we know refer to as “simplified living” and Casey and Hackler have distilled his philosophy and applied it to the idea of cruising.
I must warn you. This is a dangerous book. It can change your entire life. Below are some excerpts. The italicized portions are from Thoreau.
“We have seen too many perfectly good little cruisers sitting at the dock or on a mooring while the owner struggled and sweated to get the right boat for his dream cruise. More often than not, it is not the sea that beats back the would-be cruiser; it is his attitude.
“…Thoreau in a very real sense tells us if cruising is what we want, then it is what we should be doing. Take the boat you already have and go. If you do not have a boat, then buy one you can afford and go. Life is too short and too full of wonder to spend the mass of it:…laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal.
“Cruising is a lifestyle, an attitude, a state of mind. Contrary to contemporary wisdom, a cruise can be just as successful in a 20-footer as a 40-footer, most likely more successful.
“To postpone cruising indefinitely in order to earn enough money to purchase just the right boat is to risk missing them altogether.
“Far too often, recent cruising books of an instructional nature have assigned a length of 40 feet or longer to the ideal cruising boat. If you read that opinion often enough you begin to believe it, no matter how happy you may be with your current 28-footer.
“The fact is there is no ideal size for a cruising boat. The ideal size depends upon its intended use.
“You need cruise only for a short time to recognize that, given seaworthiness, a smaller boat with its shallower draft actually opens up more of the world to the cruiser than the larger boat.
“Many of the world’s best cruising areas can be fully explored only with a shallow draft.The most often mentioned (point of comparison between large and small boats) is that larger boats are more comfortable for living aboard is entirely true. … For cruising, however, the cost of such comforts may be far greater than their value. Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances…
“We have no guarantee of tomorrow. If you dream of cruising, start today. Take the small cruiser you have now and go cruising. Buy the small cruiser you can afford now and go cruising. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in his profession.
“The perfect boat is not the one you dream about. It is the boat that takes you cruising. We seem to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.
“Think of cruising sailors you have read about. How many bought a boat, then waited five years to go cruising? The dream is difficult to sustain that long. If you wait too long, you will never go. It is as simple as that. If you want to go cruising, find a way to do it now. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one center.
“Make your plans and go cruising now. If what you have ashore is keeping you from going, store it, sell it, or give it away. I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of.
“Possessions have a way of owning you instead of the other way around; it is a difficult bond to break.
[Here I would like to insert a quote by Betty Wilson from her book Away From It All: “If we’re really going to start a new life, we have to kill the old one. That’s why most people never really start anything new. They’re claimed by old lamps and bureaus left to them by their grandmothers.”]
“The day-to-day cost of cruising is no more, often a lot less, than the day-to-day cost of living ashore. Why do you stay here and live this mean moiling life, when a glorious existence is possible for you? Those same stars twinkle over other fields than these.
“Calculate the cost of the cruise you have in mind – sensibly- then dedicate yourself to earning and saving. When the bank account hits the magic number, do not delay another day. Load the boat and go. There is no glory so bright but the veil of business can hide it effectually. With most men life is postponed to some trivial business…”
I would also offer this, from Richard MacCullough who wrote in his book Viking’s Wake
And the bright horizon calls! Many a thing will keep till the world’s work is done, and youth is only a memory. When the old enchanter came to my door laden with dreams, I reached out with both hands. For I knew that he would not be lured with the gold that I might later offer, when age had come upon me.
Backpacker Gringo:
Easily identified by: Backpack, unwashed hair, smell
Where to find them: Casco Viejo, beaches, Bocas del Toro
We like them because: The backpacker gringo is all about respecting local customs, they try to speak a little bit of Spanish, and they generally just want to get along with everyone.
We hate them because: They tend to smell pretty bad.
Common Phrases: “Panama is cool, but not as cool as Asia.” “Have you seen the waves at “Veneo?”
Tourist Gringo:
Easily identified by: Khaki shorts, Hawaiian shirt, fanny pack, and sunburn.
Where to find them: Marriot, Isla Grande, Bocas del Toro, and Coronado
We like them because: They are here, enjoying our country, spending their money, and experiencing what we live every day.
We hate them because: Everybody assumes that we are tourists too and try to raise the prices on us.
Common Phrases: “Wow, there is so much culture here!” “Only $20 for a cab ride? Awesome!”
Banking Gringo:
Easily identified by: Briefcase, sunglasses, and first class plane ticket.
Where to find them: Area Bancaria
We like them because: They are in and out. We hardly notice they are here.
We hate them because: Very unfriendly.
Common Phrases: “Will the US government know I own the corporation? ” “I don´t want my name on anything.”
Business Gringo:
Easily identified by: Long sleeved shirt halfway rolled up, stonewashed jeans, gold chain.
Where to find them: They are found in all corners of the country.
We like them because: These are the entrepreneurs of Panama. They are here to make the easy dollar, and help the rest of us with our transition into living here.
We hate them because: They are full of crap. There is no such thing as an easy dollar in Panama.
Common Phrases: “I should make $150,000 this year.” “Can I borrow a hundred dollars until next week?”
Scam Artist Gringo:
Easily identified by: Smooth talking, great storytelling abilities, and passport with lots of stamps.
Where to find them: Anywhere that has one or more foreigners.
We like them because: They are so gosh darn nice.
We hate them because: They are the scum of the earth.
Common Phrases: “Wow, I feel the same way!” “….and I´ll take care of the rest.”
Retired Gringo Subcategories:
Of course we know that most of the gringos in Panama are the retired type, so I went ahead and gave them their own category.
Adventurous Old Gringo:
Easily identified by: Unusual optimism, pictures of them on their website in the Rockies or Europe.
Where to find them: Bocas del Toro, Chiriqui, El Valle, Panama City, Coronado.
We like them because: They are living the dream in Panama.
We hate them because: They are living the dream in Panama, and everyone is jealous. Plus, we are worried that they will eventually hurt themselves.
Common Phrases: “Check out these photos from last weekend.” “Next weekend we are going to the interior.”
Internet Troll Gringo:
Easily identified by: creative username, such as”oldgringoinpanam a”
Where to find them: Yahoo groups
We like them because: They let us in on certain things we should watch out for.
We hate them because: They paint Panama as Baghdad West.
Common Phrases: “Don´t be surprised if you get mugged, raped, kidnapped, scammed, taken for a fool, put on TV, get swine flu, get a bad deal, get screwed, get taken for, etc. etc. etc….” “Told ya so!”
Old Geezer Gringo:
Easily identified by: Inability to speak Spanish. Complaints.
Where to find them: Boquete, Chitre, Chorerra, and the city.
We like them because: They are old, and have every right to complain.
We hate them because: They are old, and do nothing but complain.
Common Phrases: “HEY!” I want ________!” “This stupid girl doesn´t speak English.”
Old Pervert Gringo:
Easily identified by: Two hookers at their side.
Where to find them: Any casino in Panama…
We like them because: They only bother the ladies.
We hate them because: They are perverts.
Common Phrases: “My money has nothing to do with it,” “I can find you a nice girl.”
Yes, I know I haven´t covered all of the types. If you think I have overlooked you please feel free to add yourself to the mix. I look forward to your replies.
Stolen from a post by jerintate on the Yahoo Group: americans_in_panama
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I am a big fan of people who make long trips in small boats. I am also a big fan of classic working watercraft. I stumbled across this series of videos by Englishman Dylan Winter the other night and will share them over the next weeks.
In this series Dylan takes his 19 foot sailboat on a circumnavigation of his home island and along the way he encounters and films a wide variety of sailing vessels. In this first video there are some great shots of the Thames sailing barges.
These boats of the 19th century were used in the Thames Estuary. They were in the 80′ to 90′ range with a beam of around 20′, flat bottomed with a shallow draft of about 3′ and sported huge sprit sails on two masts. They normally were worked with only a two-man crew. They were fitted with lee board to work in the shallow waters. There are some excellent views of these barges in Dillon’s first video.
I just don’t feel like it right now, though…
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One More Good Adventure 