On Mar 3rd 1990 my girlfriend and I left Los Angeles on my 31 ft Mariner Ketch and headed off into the unknown. After 5 yrs of saving and planning we were actually underway and there was no turning back. At that moment contemplating the voyage before us, transiting the Panama Canal, which had sounded good when it was far in the future, hit me. I had no idea what was in store for us, thousands of miles of open ocean and unknown lands to traverse. Each moment Palantir's bow cut closer and closer into places I had never known, it was scary, what was going to happen to us.

We kept on. On down thru Mexico we traveled, meeting few at first that were headed our way, but finally in Aculpoco we fell in with a group that we were to travel with on and off down thru Nicaragua, Costa Rica and into Panama.

They call them wolf packs. Every season a new group of cruisers set on the path that we were travelling. Both for moral support but also for companionship and safety. The passage from Puerto Madero Mexico into Costa Rica is known to be treacherous, with the 70+ knot Tuanapeckers and the Papagayos. The coast of San Salvador is a breeding grounds for monsterous thunderstorms, that form in the warm waters off shore. Many a night after facing a black wall of nothingness which would engulf our tiny boat in fury, I would wonder why in the hell I was out here. After reaching port however, these feelings would quickly fade and we would be ready for more.

Pulling into Correntos, Nicaragua for an emergency fuel stop was an adventure I will never forget. Arriving in the midst of govermental reconstruction and a trucker's strike, the evening air would echo with the murmer of huge crowds in rallies of sorts, with load voices on bullhorns that would last until the wee hours of the morning. On our final night there was machine gun fire which echoed over our anchorage. Fuel in our tanks we headed out the next day.

We lost our engine 25 miles out of Costa Rica and bucking the current and light winds it took us two days to come close to port. At 3 am in the morning the current carrying us in towards shore I called on the VHF for help. Friends from "Themroc" motored out 8 miles in the open ocean in pitch black in thier dingy and strapping alongside brought us into port. Under starlight, with the harbor water as still as a mirror I let go of the anchor, and watched it all the way to the bottom 30ft below and dig in. Incredible.

We spent 1 or 2 months in Playa Del Coco with our friends Kathy & Ed on Idris enjoying the warm tropical nights and relaxing into the steady rhythum of this wonderful place. But soon the weather window for going south was approaching and we said our farewells.