A rearranged triangle relationship

Back on Mabul! Time for a brief review.

2024 is the year when everything changes again. It is also the year of a boat timeout. When we arrive in San Blas in Panama in January, we think we’ll be sailing through the canal and across the Pacific with our friends from SV My Motu shortly afterwards – but we don’t. Alex has nightmares for nights on end and constantly dreams of our rig failing. We listened to his gut feeling and stayed on the Caribbean side – as it turned out later: with good reason. Here is our review of 2024.

We leave Mabul moored in the Turtle Cay Marina on the Caribbean side for a few days and board SV My Motu as linehandlers. This gives us a foretaste of the canal passage. This passage is exciting right from the start. If you would like to find out more about it and the Panama Canal, you can download the article here as a PDF document.

Postponed is not canceled. We decide to postpone the Pacific for a season. Neither we nor Mabul are ready for this largest of oceans. Instead, we want to sail to the Bahamas, but this plan also fails miserably. A few hours after leaving Panama with our friend Lea on board, in the middle of the night, the boat is taking on water and have to make an emergency anchorage in Cayo Albuquerque, a small Colombian military base off the coast of Nicaragua. Although we are initially very disappointed and angry about the latest breakdown, this stop is one of the best we have had since living on Mabul. You can find out more about the soldiers, drug smugglers and refugee helpers we met there in our BoatCast.

After three weeks in Albuquerque, we return to Panama with the first wind. There, in a sand flea-infested shipyard next to the Swedish King of Drugs, we get Mabul ready to sail again in Bocas del Torro. But as soon as she is afloat again and we want to set course for Jamaica, we realize that the rudder has play and the bearings need to be replaced – our next plan disappears into thin air. At this point, Alex is in a veritable boat burnout. He, who has been trying to keep Mabul running for more than two years without any major breaks, is at the end of his tether and can’t even manage to touch a screwdriver. We decide to moor Mabul in the Turtle Cay Marina and fly to Jamaica. We need a boat timeout. The right decision. Jamaica’s reggae scene, the fresh air of the Blue Mountains and a five-day Magic Mushroom Retreat literally open new doors, insights and sources of strength for us.

One thing is certain: we can’t go on like this and we certainly can’t sail across the Pacific. We’re both at the end of our tether and our nerves. Alex has a much closer relationship with Mabul than I do, but I suffer every time I see Alex under stress on the boat and that has happened a lot in the last two years. “Please find a new relationship with this boat! Not one with a mistress who sucks you dry and you still can’t let go, but one with a healthy distance, where you don’t sacrifice yourself to the last.” That’s my condition for staying on the boat and sailing across the Pacific with Alex and Mabul. Because since we moved to Mabul, we’ve had a love triangle, with Mabul getting all of Alex’s attention and love and me getting all of his stress. I’ve had enough. So in mid-June, I decide to go to Switzerland for six months and take a timeout from sailing. Alex wants to stay with Mabul, look after her and rethink his relationship with her.

The second half of 2024 is our sailing timeout. We mainly spend this time apart, which is good for all three of us because, as we all know, you can often see things more clearly with a bit of distance. Alex stays with Mabul in the Turtle Cay Marina and slowly starts to work his way through his 130-point to-do list. I want to take care of my projects. Since the end of my correspondence in Asia in spring 2022, I have been on sabbatical, but officially employed by SRF, a company I have worked for since 2009. As an Asia correspondent, I had my own all-consuming relationship with this job and company and know that it wasn’t always easy for family and friends. Life at sea has changed me. I’m not sure whether I want to work in such corporate structures again or whether I should perhaps set my priorities differently. And isn’t there perhaps more to learn out here at sea than in an office? Pacific or conventional working life? Before I make up my mind, I want to go back to SRF to see how it feels to work at the parent company and whether it’s right to swap the security of SRF for the freedom and unpredictability of the sea. I also need to find a suitable place to store my household goods, which have now been shipped back to Switzerland from Thailand. I also miss my friends and family, theater, concerts, dance and adventures on land. For Alex and I, the second half of 2024 is therefore not just about taking a timeout from sailing and Mabul, but also about tidying up, redefining ourselves and recharging our batteries.

Although Alex continues to work non-stop on Mabul, he learns to take more breaks and to give Mabul the cold shoulder, even when she screams and complains. At times he is also supported by Martin from SV Aracanga, as Martin, Rikki, Kira and Naja also come to the Turtle Cay Marina to get their boat ready for the cold south of Chile. Meanwhile, at SRF Investigativ in Switzerland, I immerse myself in the world of investigative journalism and complicated corporate structures. I spent almost six months researching the topic of private security companies in Switzerland. You can find the podcast on News Plus Hintergründe from January 6. I also find a new home for my furniture and spend every free minute with friends, my family, in the mountains, at the theater or dancing. An all-round full and rich time. Pacific or office life? After six months in the office, the answer is clear: Pacific!

I return to Panama to Alex and Mabul in mid-December, mentally and emotionally rejuvenated and without a job. However, I still have one logistical challenge to overcome: How would I get my huge luggage of four check-in bags to Panama?

This has a background. When we started flirting with the Pacific dream, we thought about what we would need for it. It was clear to me that cooking in heavy seas when we were out on the blue water for weeks on end was impossible. That’s why we came up with the idea of astronaut food, freeze-dried food that we would only have to mix with hot or cold water. I wrote to various manufacturers and asked them if they wanted to support our Pacific project. Mrs. Klose from Travellunch responded immediately. She and her husband would supply us with a large load of Travellunch. What a blessing! We put together a list of menus: Beef Stroganoff with rice, couscous, vegetable risotto, potato and leek casserole, freeze-dried strawberries, electrolyte powder…. About 150 kilos. That was in spring 2024. For months afterwards, Travellunch tried to send the pallet to the marina in Panama, but because it was food, everything was complicated. When Alex came to Europe in the fall and we went to Augsburg to visit the Travellunch company, the formalities were finally sorted out. We took a box of menus with us and spent an evening testing the meals with Alex’s friends. “Tip-top, you’ll get through any storm!” was the verdict of Alex’s friends.

The goods could now be shipped to Panama, but soon there was a new problem: we needed an agent to release them in Panama. He told us what we still had to pay: fees and acceleration charges and lots of hands to be washed. Although Travellunch generously sponsored the menus and transportation, we would still have had to spend around 1000 US dollars for the last part of the trip. So we opted for a cheaper, though more arduous option: I would take as much as I could on the plane in excess baggage. Travellunch wanted to send the pallet to my parents in Switzerland – but it didn’t arrive. It got stuck at customs for days. It wasn’t until three days before my departure and several angry phone calls and emails to the freight forwarder later that the load arrived at the entrance to my parents’ house.

I spent a day packing the goodies into different bags. With four pieces of checked luggage weighing 23 kilos each and a rather heavy piece of hand luggage, I am finally standing at the KLM counter in Zurich. When I land in Panama, the customs officer fishes me out immediately after my luggage has been screened. “Do you have any food in your luggage?” “A little…” “Open a bag…” I open a bag. It’s full of Travellunch. The customs officer looks at me critically. “You know you need a permit for this?” “Really?” “Hmmm…” “You know, we live on a sailing boat and are sailing across the Pacific next year. There are no supermarkets there, just blue sea for weeks on end…” He looks at me. We laugh. “Adelante! Go!” he says and I – quite relieved – quickly pack everything onto a trolley and leave.

Speaking of luggage: from the airport to the Panamarina, where Alex has managed to replace Mabul’s rudder bearing, the luggage is even heavier and the cab is loaded to the roof. I stop at a supermarket and, with the help of the taxi driver, fill two shopping carts with flour, pasta, coffee, oil, fruit and vegetables. I reach the marina, Alex and Mabul, exhausted, at 9pm. Alex drives the dinghy from the jetty to the boat five times until we have the last bag on deck. Then we put away for two days. Travellunch is now under every floorboard and will be our most faithful companion on the Pacific.

PS: In October, I published the article “Über das Leben auf einem Segelschiff: Das (Alb-) Traumschiff” in the NZZ am Sonntag magazine. It is an unembellished report about our relationship with Mabul and what it did to our relationship. You can find the article here on the NZZ website. In its Christmas briefing, the NZZ mentioned the text as one of the articles “that particularly moved us last year”.

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