3. Renaming Wirewalker; Our Trip to San Blas

Sept. 3 - 12, 2005. While "Snowcat" is a great name for a boat, "Wirewalker" is the name we had decided long ago would be the name of our boat. Why "wirewalker"? When we married many years ago, Diane had the following words engraved in Bill's ring: "Will you walk with me out on the wire, baby we were born to run".

Four of the lines from Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" song are:

Will you walk with me out on the wire
`cause baby Im just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild, girl I want to know if love is real

So that's 'why' "Wirewalker".

Now, for the renaming ceremony: Our dear friends Jim and Darda Harrison and Gary and Sandy Butts joined us for the trip from Bocas del Toro, Panama to the San Blas Islands, Panama for this ceremony.

To the left, Sandy and Darda are buying a stalk of bananas for the trip from a local indian for the very steep price of $1.00 for the whole stalk.

To the right, Jim has the helm for the first stage of the open water portion of the trip.



The trip was roughly 25o miles if done directly. That was our plan. Unfortunately, weather helped us consider stopping off at Portobello for a day to let things calm down before continuing. We were warned by fellow cruisers in Portobello to be careful; theft is a very serious problem in that area. Net, we enjoyed the day but were very cautious about leaving things unguarded. Not a bad general rule, anyways.

Nothing can prepare you for the beauty of the San Blas Islands. It is Disneyland for the sailor. Perfect little islands with sand beaches, coconut palms, thatched huts ashore and Kuna Indians in dug out cayucas (canoes). Unbelievable!

We chose the "swimming pool" as the site of our renaming ceremony, with the guys removing the "Snowcat" decals and placing on the new "Wirewalker" decals and the gals ceremoniously swimming counterclockwise around the boat 3 times chanting:

"Fee fie fo fat, you are no longer Snowcat".

Once 3 laps were completed, they then swam 3 laps clockwise around the boat singing:

"Abra cadabra magic knocker, you are now Wirewalker!"

These two acts (decals and chanting) were followed by liberal quantities of the best champagne that Wirewalker could offer up (some to Neptune, though most to the crew and neighbors!) ... and it was done! Snowcat was now Wirewalker!!

(The proud owners of Wirewalker)

With this solemn, yet joyous occassion completed, we turned our focus on the more serious side of fun and enjoyed far too little time in the San Blas Islands. If someone ever suggests sailing to the San Blas islands and only spending 3 days there ... throw them overboard!

We needed to sail back to Bocas del Toro, put the boat away for a few more months, and return to work. Much to short.