About the Campbell’s & Island Spirit

Hi and thanks for viewing our blog site, let me introduce you to “Our Family”  First and foremost is my amazing wife, Martha Campbell we call her Martica and she is from Bogota, Colombia and we met at a friends wedding and were married 2 1/2 years later and we moved to Palmetto, Florida just over the skyway bridge in the Sunshine state of Florida.  We have two kids now a 7 year old boy name Ricardo and a 5 year old girl name Lilia.  Both our kids will finally be in Elementary school so NO more Pre-school and that means More Money for my boat fund  Yea!!!

We found our boat down in Panama, Boca Del Toro, she is a 48′ Hatters Long Range Cruiser (Lrc) 1976 was her year of build and she is hull # 31 made in New Bern, North Carolina.   Island Spirit is her name and I feel it reflects James Baker and his adventures all over the Eastern & Western Carribbean and I hope she will do the same for us.   Island Spirit was laid up in a Marina in disrepair in an estate sale after Jim Died.  Krystyna his former wife  soul mate worked with us so we could buy Island Spirit, she needed a lot of work.  Island Spirit had been well maintained and updated regularly for the 10 years that Jim owned her.  He was an engineer and a retired helicopter pilot in the army like my dad so he was pretty religious about keeping her in good shape.  But the last 4 years with no attention can really take a toll on the old lady especially sitting anchored up in a Bay in the Tropics .

I went down to Boca Del Toro in June of 2011 to look at her and we had a pre-negotiated price “if I could get her running” and get her to Guatemala for repairs.  Without owning her yet and with Krystyna’s blessing I went to Boca Del toro for 10 days and I flew in a Detroit Specialist from Guatemala named Rick Vera and he brought Jaimie his best mechainic and his wife Elizabeth for 5 days to see if he could get her running.  Neither motor was showing any compression and the local mechancic said these things are shot and will never run.  Rick a Cuban American that was trained by Detoit back in 1969 and worked for Chris Craft in for over 20 plus years said he would have both of them running in 5 days and by golly he had them both running in 5 days at the dock.  The following October we closed the deal for our prep-negotiated price and I went back to Boca Del Toro, Panama on December 26th after spending a week in Bogota, Colombia with Family for Christmas.

January 1st 2012 Dave and Chip the captain and first mate I hired from from an internet trawler forum and myself left Panama for Guatmala for an approximate 900 mile trip that should take 7 days.  Weather forcasted for 3-5 meter seas which is 12-15 foot Ocean swells with some wind waves on top and 2 days into trip we had to pull into San Andreas, island off of Nicaragua to wait out weather and some Stabilizer repairs.  3 days later we were on our way again with the same sea state and two more days heading north we finally started to turn West around Honduras towards the  Guatemala so for the next 2-3 days we were in following seas of about 8-9 feet surfing down them right pass the island of Roatan at 3:00 Am in the morning on my watch (it was awesome).   We arrived in Rio Dulce, Guatemala on January 10th and that is where we are now getting repairs done on the motors and interior wood work and some cosmetic exterior repairs as well.

Over the next 2-3 years we will have her totally restored and bring her home via Cuba/Peurta Rico/Turks and Caico’s and up thru the Bahama’s and then home to Florida…  Please stay tuned with Posts from our upcoming adventures..

Perry & Martica Campbell

Ricardito & Lilita Campbell

“Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.”

 Jim Rohn