Saranac Lake, New York

Happy holidays, all! John here. When last you heard from us we were in David, Panama, about to take a quick trip inland to Boquete. Boquete is a beautiful, lushly forested, mountain village dominated by Volcan Baru, a large volcano straddling the border between Panama and Costa Rica. Coffee is the main industry, as it grows extremely well in the rich volcanic soil. We stayed three days at some cabanas run by expat Canadians and would be happy to go back some day.

Very soon after leaving Boquete, we made our way uneventfully to Golfito, Costa Rica, where we had arranged to leave the boat at a dock for our trip back to the U.S. It’s currently typhoon season in the Pacific, so we have until March before we can venture west to the Galapagos and French Polynesia.

In Golfito, we spent a couple of weeks “putting the boat to bed” and getting our things ready for the flight out of San Jose. Saros now sits at a dock owned by two North American expats from Santa Barbara. They will do things like run the engine occasionally to keep it lubed, open the hatches to air out the cabins, and keep a close watch on security.

The exodus to the U.S. was quite an operation as we had vast amounts of stuff to bring back, not the least of which was 30 lbs of Erika’s medical textbooks. The final tally was two backpacks, three duffles, and eight cardboard boxes. This made each step of the 3-day voyage from Golfito to San Jose to New York a bit of a logistical trick, since one doesn’t ever want to leave any portion of the stuff unattended in a taxi, by the bus, or on the street.

Once we had arrrived at Erika’s parents’ place on Long Island, we only had a few days before Erika started work upstate. So we quickly went about finding a car, eventually settling on an ’86 Toyota 4Runner. We needed 4-wheel drive as we are spending the winter in Saranac Lake, New York. The town is a few miles from Lake Placid (remember the winter Olympics) and nestled in the High Peaks region of the Adirondack Park.. We are renting a one-room apartment over a garage. Though small, it is nicely appointed, comfortable, and very isolated in the woods down a quarter-mile gravel road. We look out over a lake and have a view of the sunset over the mountains.

Erika is busily working at the local medical center, and (after a three-week job search) I am now back working with computers at a local non-profit training association. They are an international company that does business training seminars, but the work environment isn’t nearly so button-down as I would have expected. We’re quite pleased that the transfer from cruising back to working went fairly well. I think we’re getting the hang of the nomadic lifestyle. We’re thinking that continuing to mix cruising with working each year may be the way to do it. Erika was certainly eager to work again, and even I, as morally opposed to work as I am, was a little restless to get my hands on the latest computer software and earn a little money. In the future we won't go so long between jobs, having tried it once, and will be trying to get work along the way as we cruise.

So here we are until March, cozily living in our cabin in the woods, driving our 4-wheeler pickup, anticipating the turn of the millenium, taking stock of our first 13 months of cruising and eagerly looking forward to setting off across the Pacific. Here’s wishing you all the happiest of holidays and good luck for the new year!