Sailing around the world

Natasza Caban at the Balboa Yacht Club

Running late on a long voyage
article and photos by Eric Jackson

Natasza Caban is surely going through some rough times right about when this article is published. This reporter talked to the young yachtswoman from Ustaka, on the Baltic coast of Poland on July 20, on a morning that she had a long list of chores to do: deal with Migracion, settle up with her Balboa Yacht Club bill, go grocery shopping for provisions, all preparatory for her impending departure for Hawaii in the Tanasza, a small sailboat, traveling alone as is her habit.

"I need to be underway," she explained. "I am late." It's a 60-day sail to Hawaii, and the Pacific hurricane season had just begun. Although she has navigated her way through 90-knot gales, she said she had never sailed in a full-blown hurricane. But she is confident of her sailing skills and notes that "I have a very strong boat.... This boat can go anywhere."

She got underway on this last leg of a circumnavigation on the 23rd, but between Caban and Hawaii, so far, have been Tropical Storm Enrique and Hurricane Felicia. She tempers her confidence with a dose of reality: "Any mistake can cost your life." Although she has a limited telephone connection with her sister, sponsors and the rest of the world aboard the Tanasza, it's limited (as is her budget) so it will likely be some time before we get the tale of this encounter with the elements on her website.

Hurricane Felicia over the Pacific

Along her way, Caban has been supported by the sponsorship of the Against All Odds Foundation, a Polish charity for gravely ill children, and about 10 other businesses and organizations --- and also by a lot of kindness from strangers. She cited Shelter Bay owner Carlos Valencia, the Balboa Yacht Club, marina promoters Richard Zaleski and Roger McMullen (we'll see soon enough if they get the concession they want to build a major marina west of the canal near Howard), Madame Blanche owner Alfredo Bocanegra as people who helped her out in Panama. "Wherever I go I always find kind people," she noted.

The Tanasza, moored at the Balboa Yacht Club

Natasza Caban has been sailing for 13 years, beginning her auto-didactic education on the sea at about the age when others of her age in her hometown were thinking in terms of universities. "I'm learning to sail by doing it. It's how I start to believe in myself, how I learn not to give up on myself."

Sailing around the world by herself gives her plenty of reading time, much of which she spends increasing her book knowledge of sailing and related subjects and much of which she spends reading history. "But you also need some easy books," which makes Polish-language novels one of the staples aboard the Tanasza. She told this reporter that some day she'd like to go to a university and add a formal education to what's she's been learning all these years.

And what other staples? Caban says mostly lightweight dried foods, especially as there is no refrigerator aboard the Tanasza. Her diet includes a lot of noodles. And fresh seafood? Only at stops along the way. "I love fish," she said, but "I hate fishing." She acknowledges that this sets her apart from most other around the world sailors. On the sea she tends to lose weight, she told The Panama News, but in Poland or wherever she enounters genuine Polish food, she will put it back on, and maybe then some. Here in Panama? She had especially kind things to say about the food, service and prices at Napoli.

After she gets to Hawaii, she'll be looking for a sponsor to help her take the Tanasza back to Poland. She figures that in between the end of this voyage and that eventual homecoming, she may sail someone else's boat from Point A to Point B, and will probably make some motivational speeches, two activities that she undertakes to finance her maritime lifestyle.

First, however, she has to get through this storm season.