Tag Archives: cruising

New crew & same old sails | Sailing Zingaro Ep28

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🙂 Finally! We’re back on track with the episodes 🙂

Another Berliner joins the boat: Lucie (Kim’s friend from Berlin)! She will be on the boat for a few weeks, helping us through the Panama Canal, and generally being awesome. In this episode we provision the boat, and sail from Puerto Lindo to Colón to get measured for the Canal.

Unfortunately we lost about 4 months of work with a drive failure – but guess who had some of the footage: LUCIE!!! She saved us! She rocks! We love you Lucie! ❤

You can imagine how difficult it was to download over dropbox all the footage she had…

Much love!

-James & Kimmi (& Lucie 🙂 )

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Cruising Ecuador

After a lot of work we decided to go back to what we do best: Sailing! In the last few days we found a bunch of great spots on the Ecuadorian coast. We’re very much in love with this part of the world!

Kim is hoisting the Ecuadorian flag

Sailing Zingaro | Kim is hoisting the Ecuadorian flag

Just now, James is preparing the fish that he speared at a lonely rock 4nm off the coast. We’re so glad we stopped there! Check our current location!

We decided to ‘work’ our way back up the coast. It is a great ride, because the Humboldt current is carrying us and the wind is in our back. What a change after hundreds of miles of pure beating into the weather!!

We’re not going north only for fun though, we are having a friend do some woodwork for us and we have to organize a new dinghy motor up there. Paddling was a great work-out, but it’s time to extend our range a little on that thing.

Wish You guys all the best!

Kim

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New chart table is coming

Currently we’re in Bahía de Caráquez (Ecuador), taking Zingaro apart! All of a sudden we’ve got quite a bit of space here. We removed the fridge and gave it to the local dockhand. He didn’t have one.

Now we’re going to design a chart table / editing table that fits in right where the fridge was. We have to find a very space-economic design for a desk with an integrated chair. We only have about a meter of space. Any ideas?

Space for a chart table

Sailing Zingaro | We’re taking our boat apart! All of a sudden we’ve got quite a bit of space here!

No fridge anymore … ?

Seriously, a propane fridge is a horrible idea for a cruising boat. It’s hot (in an already hot place), it’s heavy (extra parts for the propane system), and the #1 reason: it uses an entire 20lb propane tank in 2-3 weeks. Usually on cruising boats a tank of propane lasts 3 months. Plus when you ran out of propane there was no warning, everything just went bad, water all over the floor …

Unfortunately there are no 12v fridges in Ecuador, and a 100% import tax – it would cost around ~$2000 to get one here. Not having refrigeration sucks, but we’ll deal with it. We are happy it’s off the boat!

Soldering the VHF Connector

My boat was broken into and someone cut my radio cables when he tried to steal my radio. Fortunately the guard caught him just as he was trying to escape and he dropped it. I needed to re-solder the antenna cable, so used this opportunity to make a video to show YOU how.

Not many people know I used to work for an audio/video company in LA. They specialized in equipment rental for commercials, and I was their only tech. So I did everything: Cables, building circuit boards, repairing resisters, all of it. I learned a ton on that job…

…and I’ve soldered a few things in my life.

Soldering my PL-259 connector to RG-8x cable was super easy. And I think this is an essential skill to have on a cruising sailboat, you need to know how to fix your radio.

Hope it helps. Much love!

-James

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Turtle Rescue | Sailing Zingaro shorts

What we found 130 miles out to sea will shock you. While sailing to the most remote island in Central America, these sailors come across a turtle caught up in a fisherman’s long line. We jump in to help the little guy out.

Join us on our longest journey ever! 1,000nm from Costa Rica to Ecuador via Isla Del Coco …

Please make sustainable fish choices. Go here: Good fish guide: mcsuk.org/goodfishguide

Become Part of the CREW via PATREON: patreon.com/svzingaro

-Kim & James

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Crazy sailing to mainland Panama | Sailing Zingaro Ep27

This episode we finish our charter, say goodbye to our new friends, and explore mainland Panama. We really liked it here, and stayed for quite awhile.

When we left the beautiful San Blas, we got caught in some serious weather on our passage to Puerto Lindo.

We’re running out of food, fuel, and sanity on this most difficult passage. We’re here to tell you, this is not a passage for the feint hearted, we saw lightning right next to the boat, waterspouts, and rain rain rain. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel, we made it to Panama on a beautiful day.

Thanks for watching! Hope you like!

-Kim & James

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¡Adios Cartagena! | Sailing Zingaro – Episode 25

Dancing, with tears in our eyes… ¡Adios Cartagena! We’re leaving this dirty, cheap & wonderful place. But not without cruising the streets at night one last time.

Of all the places we have been on our journey so far, Cartegena stands out. So much culture offer during the day & the night and so many young people that build up their life just the way we do in Berlin or California, withstanding the troubled past and presence of their country.

So proud and so free.

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Sailing Zingaro Live from Costa Rica

Want to sail around the world? It’s not as easy as it looks …

Cruising is HARD!!! In this stream we talk about the hard parts of cruising, our sailing plans for the next months, and we have a special interview with another captain that sailed with us for two weeks, a Q & A, & we also respond to some YouTube comments at the end of the show.

[Streamed live on Jun 25, 2018]

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Made it to Costa Rica!

So, the journey up to Costa Rica was… LOUD. We motored more in three days than we have in the last 3000 miles combined. Started off beating into 15kts – Zingaro was doing great! We were moving at 8kts or so for the first 4 hours, storms forming all around us as we headed out and they headed in towards land. Got some really cool videos of that.

Then… dead. 3kts for the next two days. We had to motor so long I ended up freaking out at 5am and we drifted for a couple hours as I contemplated buying a trawler. 😀

We shut the motors down to eat, and sunsets, but we basically had to motor the whole way up here less 7-8 hours. It was a 52 hour journey.

Continue reading →

Zingaro LIVE & with LOVE from San Francisco

Just a little update to let you know why we’ve been radio silent, announce a couple really cool things going on with Zingaro, and set to rest some questions we’ve had from our viewers. We’re talking about cats vs monos, cruising routes, our favorite places in the Caribbean (most of which you probably haven’t heard of) and our cruising plans for the rest of this season.

Ahoy Kim & James

We made it to Jamaica | Sailing Zingaro – Episode 15

Looks like the third time is the charm! The improved Zingaro is finally leaving the Cayman Islands. The ride to Jamaica started out very pleasantly, until we got smashed by a wave that killed all our electronics. I don’t think there is ever going to be a longer passage without a major drama …

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Finally: New sails arrived!

Our next destination: Archipiélago de Las Perlas (Pearl Islands), a group of more than 200 islands, each surrounded by white-sand beaches and turquoise waters, only 60 miles away from Panama City in the Gulf of Panama.

Ahoy!

Sailing Zingaro – Live from Panama City

We’re giving back to the community that has made this adventure possible. We hit some major milestones this month: 1 million views, 20,000 subscribers, the Pacific!

In this livestream we discuss about transiting the Panama Canal, our cruising plans, Zingaro’s sails (old/new), travel to USA in April, thoughts on this channel after 1 year and about James’ sailing history …

¡Adios Caribbean Sea!

The last glimpse of the Caribbean Sea for a while. See you again after the circumnavigation, muchachos!

It seems as if there was no end to possible destinations and routes right now. We are trying to keep calm and make plans on where to go next, but so far everything seems like a good idea. We are overwhelmed, You could say.

Ahoy James & Kim

Transit Panama Canal 2018 Capt & Kim

s/v Zingaro – Panama Canal 2018 | photo: lumus

What is left of the Boat after 9,500 miles | Sailing Zingaro

A lot of people have asked for it, so here it is! Boat tour time! This one will be a bit different than most, as I’ve already given a tour of the layout. If you haven’t seen the first walkthrough, please click here …

If you HAVE seen the boat, Kim and I put this together. A hilarious look at life on our home-built sailboat after 9,500 miles of cruising the world! We’ve fixed a TON of stuff, and there’s a lot left to do, but this is a funny look at the repercussions of sailing around the world. 😉

Hope you all like!
-James

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Swimming in the canal and paying the fee

Well… I can check “swimming in the Panama Canal” off the list. Didn’t even know it was on there. Don’t recommend it. Here’s the story:

colon club nautico

Our challenge: transiting the canal without an agent

So we’re trying to do this on a budget. The least possible amount you can pay is $1875, with $891 coming back after 3 weeks if you don’t hit anything, or cause a big delay.

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Our first PATRON joins the boat! Sailing Zingaro – Episode 12

Please welcome Kris Knabel (one of our first supporters on Patreon) came down to Grand Cayman to sail to Jamaica with us. With the new and improved rudder we let the wind fill our sails and GO!

Unfortunately… in true Zingaro fashion our OTHER rudder fell off. Oops …

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