Tahanea to Tahiti

After spending a good month in the Tuamotus it was time to move on
to Tahiti for a change in pace and lifestyle and to indulge in some
restaurant and cafe culture, we were both needing a break from the
galley.

We had been checking the weather regularly and there was nothing
appearing on the forecasts that said we shouldn't go, however,
around 6am on the morning that we planned to leave the sky was very
red and looked extremely dark and very squally to the south. We
figured maybe it was just a morning thing and that we'd sit and
watch it for a few hrs and check the weather once again. Still no
warnings appeared on the forecasts so we decided to up and leave.
The forecast was for lightish winds for the 290 miles to Tahiti.
Once you make your mind up to leave, it's kind of hard not to
go....don't you just love hindsight though, if we knew what we were
in for - we definitely would have sat it out for 3 days.

So out we went through the pass, still quite lumpy, although no
where near as bad as what is was when we arrived. The sun was out,
but it was still looking pretty ominous further south, we had about
15 knots of breeze which was nice sailing. Our course was to head
north up the eastern side of Tahanea before turning west for Tahiti.
After a few hours of sailing the wind totally dropped out to the
point that we had to turn the engine on..hmmm not in the forecast.
And the sky looking both east and west looked jet black, probably
the darkest we've ever seen in the middle of the day. We turned on
the radar to try and find the best possible gap to make a run
through it....and then bang the fishing lines went off...hooked a
massive tuna, and quickly did some rushed filleting before the rain
came...and did it come...it bucketed down, but strangely no wind -
the boat got a good wash and the freezer was full of tuna.

Given that we had seen no improvement in the weather we thought
maybe we could alter course slightly and make it into the small
atoll of Faaite before it got dark. Unfortunately darkness was
approaching faster than we could sail, so we had no choice but to
continue on.

After the massive dumping of rain that we had the wind came back and
filled in to around 15 knots - Reverie was moving along really
well - throughout the following day (Friday 13th June) the wind
continued to build into the 20's and by early evening was in to the
25's. Now it was starting to get dark and the wind as seas were
building - this was definitely not in the forecast!!

The seas were building up as a storm somewhere south of us was
pushing up a HUGE ground swell - Must have been a 20-30ft swell.
Long period still between them so that was ok for now. We reefed
the sails down and pushed on.

The wind then moved upwards of 30 knots and into the 40's. Now this
was not much fun, as the huge ground swell with the 30+ knot wind
waves made sailing "interesting" to say the least. We had it all
on the beam (side) so it was not ideal. Reverie was going quite
well, but we took a massive amount of water on the deck, cockpit,
and all over Jason who spent all of the night in the cockpit on
watch. Given that conditions were not easing we decided to drop
the mainsail as we needed to slow the boat down. We continued on
with just the tiniest amount of jib, in huge seas and winds.

As it was so rough and we only had one night to go we couldn't
muster the energy to cook dinner, not even the simplest of things
like pasta, instead we managed to munch on some biscuits and then
resorted to sharing a tin of baked beans.. yes out of the
tin!!!...we figured we would make up for this pathetic meal when we
arrive the following morning. For the rest of the night Jo was
bundled up on the couch, seasick, and Jason was fully decked out in
wet weather gear, freezing his butt off out in the cockpit. It was
surprisingly cold given that we were in the tropics. All of this
continued on for most of the 24 hours of Friday the 13th!!. Typical!

The following morning the sun came out and we could see Tahiti in
the near distance, not long to go now, the wind had eased a little
and was in the mid-high 20's. After having 30-40 knots for so long,
high 20's was now a breeze - we still had to watch the big waves on
the beam, but we only had to endure this for a few more hours and
then we'd be through the pass into Tahiti and into calm waters.

As we approach, the coast of Tahiti looks amazing with the morning
sun, the winds have now eased and the swell has almost dropped out
completely as we are in the lee of the island. The temperatures
have soared back into the high 20's and last night now seems as if
it didn't even happen.

Once through the main pass of Papeete we get clearance from the
harbour master that we can proceed past the airport (we don't want
any taking off planes bumping into us at this point, or any point!).
We continue motoring through the marked channel making our way to
the anchorage. On arrival the anchorage is very busy, lots of
boats, however we find a great spot in about 5m of crystal clear
water - and right next to our Aussie friends on "Sabalo".

It's great to have the boat still, and not moving! We've got a big
afternoon ahead of us cleaning all the salt off the boat - and then
it's going to be a well deserved beer o'clock.....and long sleep!

More coming soon,
J&J

14 Days in Tahanea

Around 6am we were up and with coffee in hand looked out through the
Atoll and toward the pass, it looked like a good day for a sail.

Trick was we had to get out of the Makemo pass, sail 50 miles
towards Tahanea and make it through the pass at slack tide. Problem
was also that slack tide was in 6 hours, so we had to make an
average of 8 knots, not impossible if there was good wind but we had
light wind!

Bugger it we'll go anyway!

So out we went, the pass was unbelievably calm, like a sheet of
glass, there was a bit of current running but it was quite light.
As we exited the pass out went the fishing lines as we were sure we
would hook that elusive Mahi Mahi on this trip.

The sail was not as quick as we wanted, the wind was light and a
little shifty so our speed was not what we needed to arrive at the
Tahanea pass at the right time. It looked like we would turn up
exactly at the wrong time, halfway through an out flowing tide, we
were not sure how we would handle it but we decided to work that out
when we had a look at the water when we arrived. We only had two
options, go for it ( could get quite ugly) or wait outside for 12
hours through the night for the tide to change and sun to come up,
and neither of us wanted to do that.

Arrival at Tahanea was right on cue, half way through an outflowing
tide - great. We were trying to squeeze every bit of speed out of
the boat but there was just not enough wind. About two miles off we
could see the rough water from the pass um.......

We approached the pass from the side so we could have a look at it,
as we got close it was NUTS!, we both have never seen water like
this, there were standing waves on the outside that seemed to go out
forever and they were HUGE, they looked to be around 3m high!.

Three years ago we were lucky to have snorkeled through the pass
and we knew that the water on the left side was deep and free of
coral heads. We also exited on the left side three years ago when
the pass was looking a little ugly.

This time the edge looked much less violent than the center of the
pass. We both figured that if we gun it ( there will be a strong out
flowing current) hug the left edge as close as we can and stay in
about 10m of water we should be ok.

Jo went up front to keep look out and Jason sat back and gunned the
engine. Coming up looked ok but as we got in the middle we found
Reverie making about 3 knots over the ground and driving up and down
huge swells. Looking over towards the middle of the pass was an
unreal site, the massive standing waves were dwarfing us on Reverie,
it's hard to describe the sight but if you were caught in the middle
of this on a boat twice the size of Reverie you would be toast, you
would be spun, rolled and broken in two in a minute, not kidding.

Good news was that we were making progress and our plan of sticking
on the edge has paid off, we were through the lumpy bit and now it
was just a matter of pushing forward through the rest of the pass
before we could turn and head to the anchorage spot.

We came around the corner into the small cul de sac which is a nice
protected anchoring location there were about 5 other boats there
( we're sure they were all looking at these two idiots coming
through the pass!) didn't matter we were in, anchor down, no fish to
clean - bugger!, but look on the bright side it was right on
Beer-O-clock!

The next day we planned to head down to the southern part of the
Atoll but the wind started to shift a little to the north and this
may make the anchorages a little lumpy so we thought we would head
up the NE corner of the Atoll and have a look.

The NE corner was lovely, similar to some of the eastern areas,
the water was clear but not as clear as the south and western side
of the Atoll. Guess it has to do with water flow over the reef,
where the southern and western sides get a LOT the east and NE areas
get little as the outer reef and the Motu's are much larger and
offer more protection to the inside water.

The nice part of the being away from the pass is the lack of sharks,
we are both gutless and sharks of all sizes seem to bring out the
wimp in us. George Lucas ( was he the director of Jaws?) should
have a huge law suit against him for passing on a life time fear of
sharks - even harmless ones! maybe there is a shrink we could see
about this.

That night we decide to take a trip ashore to try our luck at
Coconut crabs and lobsters on the reef.

Good hunting on the crab front, two nice large ones, we see a few
smaller ones but leave them and leave happy with the two big ones
that we caught. No Lobster hunting though as the torches are running
out, that will have to wait for another night.

Looking at the weather the next day we thought it would be a good
idea to head down to the south eastern side of the atoll as the wind
looks to be building up again from the SE, so we decided to get
a wiggle on and head down there.

Later in the day we dropped the anchor about 30m from where we were
three years ago for Jason's birthday.

Celebrations were much more low key this year, well at least in
numbers anyway, but you can't beat the location and we also managed
to catch a few more coconut crabs and lobster from the reef!!

After Jason's birthday we decided to continue moving around the
atoll to revisit some of the south western anchorages that we loved
last time. This part of the atoll has beautiful white sandy beaches
and palms, like the pictures that you see on postcards, and water so
clear that you can see the coral heads and fish swimming beneath the
boat...lovely! - so our plan was to get over to these spots before
the wind wouldn't allow us to.

We spent the first night in an anchorage where we have great
memories with our good friends "Ocean Breezes" and "Nowadays",
however this time we were the only boat there - so we had the
beaches and coconut crab hunting all to ourselves. Unfortunately
the wind continued to build from the SE which made this anchorage
start to get a bit sloppy, so we decided to pull up anchor and try
to find somewhere a little more protected, whilst keeping on the
same side of the atoll - we really wanted to get up to some of the
more western anchorages that we missed last time.

We managed to move a few miles further north west within the atoll
and stumbled across a reef that gave us protection from east to
sth-east winds....wonderful! We tucked up behind it, and spent the
afternoon snorkeling and exploring the nearby deserted motu's
(islands). Going ashore we saw a somewhat abandoned fishing camp,
and lots of birds hovering close above us protecting their furry
young babies that we nearly walked in to. But these things aren't
normal small birds - they were actually really large for
babies!...anyway so not to make the parents angry we headed back to
the dinghy and back to Reverie.

The following morning the winds were still blowing in the same
direction and building so it was time to abandon our original plan
of moving to the most western anchorages and head back over to the
main pass for some better protection and dead flat seas. We stopped
for a couple nights off a motu that was in the middle of the atoll
that offered some protection and awesome snorkeling...but too many
sharks!

The next morning we headed back up to the pass and motored into 20
knots of wind and some pretty steep waves, Jo drew the short stick
and was up front keeping a look-out for coral heads and getting
sprayed and drenched with the oncoming waves. After 2 hrs we
arrived to a flat protected cove just inside of the pass, and spent
a great afternoon snorkeling in the shallow, shark-free!
waters...nice!!

So after spending almost two weeks here in Tahanea it was time to
consider moving on...each day was becoming more difficult to leave
as this place is truly how you'd imagine paradise to be. Our plan
was to check the weather and then make the call.

More coming soon.....

Cheers
J&J

14 Days in Makemo

Yep this is what happens when you arrive in port on Reverie - BLOG
STOPS.

We really try but there are just so many other distractions.
Anyway back to Makemo...

After stirring in the morning after our arrival we just sat and
enjoyed the lack of movement on the boat!

It was quite odd not to be moving. The lagoon in Makemo is quite
large but with the wind blowing off shore it was like Reverie was
sitting on concrete, very flat and calm.

There were two other boats in the anchorage. One French who was
anchored way out near a coral head and the other an Italian boat
which was not too far from us. We later found out that the Italian
boat had come through the Pacific the year before and spent the
summer in New Zealand. They then sailed back from NZ back to Tahiti
then into the Atolls. Tough sailing from NZ to Tahiti as you
basically have to sail a few thousand miles in the southern ocean
before heading north to Tahiti. We asked them how their trip was....
"very tough" they said. They were having their family fly out from
Italy to spend a couple of weeks with them in the atolls - they have
moved on from Makemo but we will see them again in Tahanea.

So after our passage of 20 days we thought it was time to stretch
our
legs, so we launched the dinghy and ventured off ashore. Well we
noticed that there had been some changes in 3 years - a few
more mini stores had been built and one grande supermarche! Yipeeeee
we were in heaven - we could buy everything from Cadbury's
chocolate, nutella, bottled starbucks frappacino and even timtams
and twisties!! Our only challenge was that we had USD (and nobody
wants that here! in fact nobody wants it anywhere any more!),
luckily
the large supermarket takes credit card, and were happy to change
our money for a questionable rate!

Our prime object was to find some fruit and veg as after 20 days at
sea we were really low on fresh stuff - but we were easily
side-tracked and came out with a couple bags of junkfood, and
ice-cream instead. Lucky that Makemo now gets fruit and veg
delivered once a week by plane from Papeete, Tahiti - so we had our
junk food fix and picked up some healthy stuff the following day.

While walking around Makemo almost all people will say hi, some will
even stop for a chat it's all very friendly, totally safe and very
relaxed. People don't lock their cars, houses, bikes, boats etc..
Lovely!

It wasn't long until we met up with Benoit our friend we met when we
were here 3 years ago!. Benoit teaches at the local technical
school. As most of the Tuamotu atolls are quite small there are only
a few islands that look after secondary and technical education.
Makemo is one of the atolls that has a Technical school and has
students from other nearby atolls attend their courses. It's
only a small school (80 students) but it caters for all the basic
skills.

After only a few minutes with Benoit we were invited to his house
for Sunday lunch.

Arriving at Benoit's is quite easy, you take the dinghy from the
boat, head up the atoll a little and head in at the first house pass
the wind farm ( 6 wind generators). Benoit has a view that in
Australia, in fact anywhere in the western world would command a
price tag of 10 million dollars+, he looks over the magnificent
Makemo lagoon, leading into his house is a small pass through the
coral reef that you can drive a small boat through. He even has a
small Motu ( island) built out the front / back of his house with a
small fare ( local house / 4 posts and a roof) on the Motu all with
a coconut palm! As we arrive we are met with his three kids Kizito,
Unaki, and Desuba ( when we were here three years ago Desuba was on
her hands and knees crawling around Reverie cockpit, now she's a
very cute 4 yr old Polynesian girl with a fast growing English
vocabulary).

Lunch at Benoit's was typical French ( Benoit is French, came here
about 15 years ago, married his wife Cecile - Polynesian) It was
long, lots of wine, the local Tahiti brew "Hinano" - great beer,
food, cheese and chit chat. We leave much later and schedule in
dinner for two days time, that will also include two other French
folks who we also met three years ago ( the local school Principal
and his wife).

The next day we had some administration to take care of, after our
debacle in the Galapagos ( see past updates) we needed to check
into the country, we were hoping this would be easy but had a
slight degree of nerves. Ahhh the French, life could not be
more relaxed for these guys, we met with the local Gendarmerie (
police) he could have not been more relaxed about things, he took
our details, stamped our passports gave us a simile and said "Au
revoir" That done we were set.

Well, what we planned to be a quick stop in Makemo turned out to be
a longer stop that we found hard to break from, dinner, lunches &
drinks with Benoit and others in town made it very hard to leave.
But we had to make the call and head out. We were both quite sad to
be leaving as we were becoming very attached to the small community
of Makemo and it's stellar location. Makemo is not on the regular
tourist map, infact it's not really on the cruising map either, they
do get
a few boats come through, but not many. This meant that our two
weeks anchored in the main town "Pouheva" was noticed, people would
ask "are you from the Blue boat"... we were always greeted with
smiles, actually it gets tiring saying hello to every one who
passes you and trying to beat them to the "hello"... they always get
you first!. Such a nice sincere custom and way of life that you miss
in western cities. Imagine everyone who walks past you says hello -
and they really mean it! it's wonderful!!

With sad eyes we pulled the anchor and motored North West through
the atoll, passing Benoit's house we were given a wonderful goodbye
with palm leaves waving, the three kids and Benoit all out on the
Motu waving us off - we will be back for sure. Both of us had wet
eyes as we headed north.

Half way up the Atoll we stopped in a small protected area, the
water was clear and the beaches looked like they were created from a
travel brochure - perfect..

Makemo Atoll is long and thin, 55km long and 11km wide running
in a NW /SE direction. The trade winds typically blow SE, so
finding a nice protected anchorage could be a challenge. But half
way
up the atoll is a long finger of a reef that you can tuck in behind
which we did. It was flat, clear, and as we said great beaches!. We
spent a few days here before making our way right to the "top" of
the Atoll where the second pass is.

Up near the second pass the anchorage is deep and full of coral
heads and totally exposed to the trade winds when they are blowing.
Three years ago we spent a crap night here with "Safari" (some
awesome friends!) with winds blowing up to 45 knots and rolling
seas, not this time, it was calm, flat and super clear water. If you
wanted to snorkel to see the bottom you could do it and stay dry, as
leaning over the dinghy and looking down gives you a stunning view
of below, there could be no water there at all! It really is that
clear!

Two days later we were off to one of the best places in the south
pacific ( our opinion) The Atoll of "Tahanea".

J&J

276 miles to go! & Arrival

It really can't get much calmer than this...

We are sitting in the cockpit, it's just after dusk, just finished
dinner and we are enjoying a G&T.

Just off the side of the boat the water is as calm as a very
protected anchorage. Basically dead flat, it feels like we're in a
marina. There is a light ripple on the water, this is new!, a few
hours ago the water was like a sheet of glass.

The wind meter says we have 1.2 knots of wind, we don't even think
it's that much. Looking up all we can now see are the stars coming
out. There is no cloud above us, only a little on the horizon
looking forward (west) and a little more behind. Some squalls may
form tonight. Good we can get a boat wash!

Day 18...

Well we didn't get a boat wash and still have no wind. The wind chop
that we had has completely gone. All that is left is a series of
very large swells a long way apart, about 13 seconds (normal I
think is about 7 seconds). It's kinda cool watching these massive
humps moving under us. We have no boat roll, just up and down.

Looking at the weather fax charts from Hawaii, it's likely we will
have very light conditions for the rest of the trip. The great thing
about this boat compared to the last Reverie is it's ability to
move easily in very little wind. Together with the larger rig that
we have it's surprising how well we can sail in a small amount of
wind.

BUT today there is so little wind that the spinnaker won't even stay
filled, it just hangs down from the top of the mast. So the motor
is on.

Still no more fish, very frustrating, now we know we're not the
best of fishermen but we can't sail for more that 3000 miles and
only hook 1 fish!, there has to be something else at play here. We
have noticed that the water temperature is quite warm. Maybe that's
it, we'll make any excuse!

Day 19
Much the same as day 18, not much wind, but it does come in every
so often, mainly at night. We are sailing here and there with help
from the motor in the wind holes.

The lack of wind is getting a little frustrating as we are in the
trade wind belt and we should have something. Some of the boats
further behind have picked up a little, but all in all there seems
to be a big wind hole down here.

Our friends on Lady Sara who are sailing to Hawaii from Costa Rica
have been in a wind hole for over two weeks now and there doesn't
seem to be a break in it for them, so I guess we should stop
complaining.

Exciting news is LAND!!!! earlier today we saw LAND!! the small
atoll called Fakahina, soon after we passed Fangatau. Two names you
could use in anger and sound angry!.

These two atolls are on the far eastern edge of the Tuamotu Atolls
they are both quite small 6 x 5km, we think there is a small village
on both of them.

Later tonight we will pass Raroia Atoll, a much larger atoll still
with only about 50 people living on it. Raroia atoll is a little
famous in sailing circles as it was the atoll that Thor Heyerhahl
crashed "Kon-Tiki" a 45ft Balsa Log raft equipped with a bamboo hut
and square sail while he was trying to prove that the population in
the pacific migrated from South America. Kon-Tiki was wrecked on
April 28, 1947.

After Rarioa we will pass closely to Nihiru and Taenga Atolls. Then
it's Makemo. All the Atolls prior to Makemo except Rarioa don't have
any passes that Reverie would be able to enter. Raroia does, but the
pass and town is on the wrong side of the Atoll and we really want
to get to Makemo.

Day 20 Position 16-27S 142-47W Wind 8 knots NE, SOG 5.9 knots
ONLY 46 miles to go!!!!

STILL NO FISH! Or any bites for that matter - we are changing lures
constantly now, but nothing seems to be working.

Sun is out and it's HOT, the water is the most awesome blue and
shiny like a mirror as still we have very little wind.

Arrival time should be late afternoon. Not the ideal time for going
through the pass, but hopefully with the calm seas the Atoll won't
be to "full" and the current will be manageable.

Either way we will make a run at it!

End of Day 20...

ARRIVAL!!!,

We sighted Makemo on the radar at about 9 miles, it's difficult to
see the atolls any further as all they really are is a sand bank
with a bunch of coconut trees on them.

As we approached the south eastern end of Makemo the wind started to
build. We ended up having a great sail with about 10 knts of wind in
totally flat seas!. We sailed along the south eastern edge for about
7 miles (13kms) it was great to be so close to land. All we had to
do now was get through the pass, get the anchor down and enjoy
beer-o-clock ( arrival right on time - again!). We're not actually
trying to arrive at this time, it just seems to happen this way,
although we're not complaining.

Approaching the pass entrance we notice the eddies and small waves
from the outflow of water. We were arriving about 1 hour after
slack high water, meaning that the atoll will be emptying itself.
It didn't look too bad!. We furled in the Genoa, dropped the
main and off we went.

Even though we went through at the "less than ideal time" it was
very calm. The eddies and small whirl pools were pushing the boat
around a bit but all that was needed was some quite active steering.
We ended up having a 3.5 knot current against us ( not bad
actually).
Once through the half way point the water settled down and it was
nice and calm, current still there but it was flat.

So we are here!!!, Yippee!!!, we sailed 3,250 miles ( just over
6,000kms) It took us 20 days and 22 hours. The second half was very
light on the wind, lets hope the boats still out there get some. We
are lucky that Reverie moves easily with a small amount of wind and
we have a good range under power. We arrived 2 days after we did
this trip
three years ago and are anchored 35m from where we were last time!

So tonight it's pizza, wine and a very LONG sleep.

Cheers!
J&J

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Galapagos to Makemo and 11,000 miles

Day 12....
Just 5 minutes ago we hit 11,000 Nautical miles sailed on Reverie.
( that's 20,372KM!)

It's 6:54 or 7:54 am depending on what time zone we are in - not
sure, 8th May.

Jo is asleep, I am on watch. There is just enough wind to sail, if
we have much less the engine will have to go on ( we have about
12 knots of true wind and about 5 knots apparent wind).

Dire Straits - Alchemy , "telegraph road" is playing on the CD
player ( Ahhh this brings back memories! of way too long ago).

I just put two fishing lines out so hopefully we'll hook some fish,
there is a radio net on shortly and I will check in with our
position and see where other boats are, then we will work on some
breakfast.

We are currently at 11-58S, 124-11W, We are moving at 7 knots SOG
over a course of 225M. 1165 miles to go!

Yesterday was a fantastic day sailing, no speed records but
conditions that would be close to perfect -12 knots of true wind,
and with our sailing angle we were able to bring the wind to about
16 knots of apparent, just forward of the beam. With the wind so
light the seas were very calm. There were no clouds and the air
temperature was in the mid 20's.

Today however is starting a little odd, there is a lot of cloud and
as mentioned above not much wind. Hopefully the cloud will burn off
and we can bag some fish!

Two days later....
Position 13-29S, 129-36W, SOG 6 knots and going down..., COG 240M
Wind 10knots ENE to East

Well the previous day was an odd one. WE LOST OUR WIND!!!!.

Damm, down to sailing in 10 knots of wind coming from the East,
sometimes it has a little North in it as well.

Not what we really wanted. It has been that way for two days now,
bugger!, looks like it will be like this for at least one or two
days more. Now we are getting excited if we see 6 knots on the
speedo!, where before we were hitting 8 and 9's.

Another big drama came up today, the watermaker has died. Well not
sure how dead it is, but it looks like we have a BIG oil leak from
the gearbox in the watermaker, the oil is running into the electric
motor!!, so now I (think) we have a gearbox with no oil - That's
not good, and an electric motor full of oil - that's worse!.

Not sure where the failure is, I guess it's an oil seal between the
motor and the gearbox, after all what else could it be?!

Now the challenge is, the watermaker has a 3 year warranty, we may
need a new motor and gearbox - That woul dbe bad news, as shipping
anything into French Polynesia is costly and time consuming.

We will see how this unfolds over the next few days..

More on the tragic front, we just finished "LOST" series 3,
tragedy!, now we need to find out if there is a series 4 and if it
is on DVD, if it is maybe we can pick it up in Tahiti....

Our lives must come across as very trivial when underway...

Day 14.

Position: 14-00S, 131-18W, SOG 6. knots, COG 240M. 727 miles to
go.

Wind is still light and the forecast looks like it will stay that
way for the next few days at least, so it looks like we have some
slow sailing ahead.

Last two days we managed to complete 128 miles and 132 miles.
Nothing to get excited about but a least it's forward.

We still have yet to hook a fish that we want, yesterday we managed
to hook a small Bonito ( sort of like a small tuna) we chucked it
back. Luckily we have a freezer that's stocked with some Yellow Fin
Tuna that we caught in the Galapagos. But what we really want is a
couple of Wahoo and a few Mahi Mahi, that would give us plenty of
fish for the next few weeks. We will cross our fingers and keep
praying to the fish gods that we get something soon.

Day 15-16

Position 14-53S, 135-46W SOG 6.5 COG 242M
Wind, 10 knots ESE 460 miles to go!

Had a great sail over the last 36 hours. The wind moved south just a
touch and we were able to get the spinnaker up with the main. This
was a massive jump in power. Reverie quickly jumped up to sailing at
around 7-8 knots in very little wind.

On the radio net in the morning one boat had so little wind they
jumped overboard and cleaned the bottom of the boat! The conditions
seem quite variable as some boats have wind and some have none and
some have a little bit - we are in the little bit area.

The seas are very calm, no squalls and fast sailing.

We kept the kite up all day, night and the following day.

At about 9pm on Day 16 , there seemed to be a lot of squalls coming
up on the radar so we thought we would bring the kite in and sail
the night on main and genoa - copped a huge speed penalty but it
made for stress free night sailing. What we really need is a big
code
zero free flying reacher, now that would be cool.

We will get the kite up once the sun comes up and try and get the
speed up. It makes a massive difference in the boat motion having
some more power in the rig. We don't get pushed around by the waves,
the boat is stable, smooth and quiet, can't wait!

Still no fish, had a huge bite yesterday, the line (200lbs) was
incredibly tight, you couldn't pull it in an inch, so whatever we
had it was big. Unfortunately the hook didn't set in it's mouth
enough and it came free, lets hope for another shot at it
tomorrow!

Managed to take the watermaker apart yesterday. There was about
250ml of oil in the electric motor, coming from the oil seal between
the motor and the reduction gearbox. The seal looks ok, but clearly
it's not. Cleaned out the motor and tested it so that's ok, now
it's just what do we do about the seal.

We might try mounting the unit another way so the reduction gearbox
is under the motor, this way we may be able to run the unit with no
leaks - at least until we can get it repaired / replaced - lets see
what they want to do under the warranty.

Looks like we will arrive in on Friday the 16th May. One day behind
the plan. What we now have to think about is the timing to enter the
pass into the Atoll. The Atolls are quite large and usually on the
reef on the southern side the ocean swell dumps a lot of water over
the reef inside the atoll. What this means is that there is quite a
fast
current running out the small pass. Makemo Atoll is approx. 61km
long and 8km wide, it only has two passes where water can leave. So
with the excess water from the ocean swell and the tide coming out
there can be quite a fast current to get through. When this water
meets the water outside the atoll the whole lot looks like a huge
bath tub, it can get very rough and if you don't have a strong
engine you won't make it in. So we need to time our entrance to be
at slack tide or on an incoming tide. Slack tide is at dawn and in
the middle if the day.So depending on when we arrive we may have to
sit outside and wait a little.

Day 17..

Light wind today, Genoa is in and the Kite is back up. Progress is
quite slow though as we only have 9 knots of true wind and about 5
apparent.

Fishing lines out, lets see what the day brings.

Will try and install the watermaker today and see if we have any
success without leaks.

.......

Watermaker re installed and seems to be producing water without any
oil leaks, we will however have to get it fixed at one point.

No fish yet, same old story, but we live in hope.

Wind died right out about mid afternoon, down to about 5 knots
true, that was leaving us with about 2-3 knots. Very calm out, may
even have a BBQ tonight, wahoo for Jo and jamaican jerk chicken for
Jason.

We are down to just over 400 miles to go, lets hope the wind picks
up a little more so we can make some more progress towards Makemo.

Around 5pm, one of the fishing lines went off with a bang, we had a
big Mahi Mahi on the line, unfortunately the hook didn't set and he
was off the line inside of a minute. About one hour later the other
line went off, this time we had a tuna on the line. Hook
managed to set well and he was bought in. It was about 15kg's, which
is a good size fish! After a bit chopping we had him in the fridge.
Looks like the fish drought maybe over, although we need some white
fish meat - Wahoo or Mahi Mahi.

Very flat seas tonight, with a light breeze blowing, we are sailing
at around 6 knots. Just on 353 miles to go!

Cheers

J&J

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Galapagos to French Polynesia Day 4-11

Day 4,

Great day sailing, wind was blowing around 18 knots true just a
little to the post of dead behind us. With our boat speed we were
able to bring it forward a little. So we are having a great sail so
far.

The current that we have had has now faded away, such that our boat
speed over the water and speed over the ground are the same!! Looks
like the current is pulling us a little south, but that's ok with
our destination being the Tuamotu Atolls. Most of the other boats
out here are sailing for the Marquesas and without sailing dead down
wind they are having a hard time staying north with the south
setting current. Lets hope it changes for them.

Good day sailing we managed to hit 180 miles for the day run.

It was a perfect night sailing, lots of stars, wind dropped off a
little but enough to maintain good boat speed. The seas are real
flat so it's super comfortable!

Still no signs of any other boats/ ships, we seem to be closing on
some of the boats out in front but it will be a while before we pass
them as they are 400 odd miles out in front, we seem to be putting
about 30 miles a day on them.

Day 5.

Pos 04-51.6S, 101-48.2W, SOG 8, COG 241, Distance to go to
Makemo Atoll 2553nm

Another great day, excellent boat speed all day.

Even tried fishing!, lots of bites, managed to hook two Mahi Mahi,
but they were both very small, ( 1.5ft long) they looked quite cute.
We let them go as it would feel like you were eating children, we
will wait and see if we can hook something a little bigger.

Had a bit of current today so that is helping us with our speed over
the ground. Oddly, it still seems to be running south. So much for
the West setting current that we should have!

The wind in the whole area is quite light so what we are not seeing
is the really big ocean swells that we had last time, there just
seems to be a small wind "chop/swell" no real formation or pattern
to them. They are quite small so there is little effect on the boat
movement which is very nice.

Talking with another boat on the radio this morning "Copout" they
are about 400 miles in front. They were saying that they had a very
windy and rough night!, something to look forward to! Winds up in
the 30 knots and big seas. Not much we can do about it so we will
see what we get in a few days hopefully it will have blown forward
and we won't have to deal with it.

Watched the movie XMEN 2 today, while being interrupted by the
fishing lines going off, not a bad movie, way better than "heart
break kid"!

As night came on there was the clearest sky ahead, not a cloud
anywhere, looks like it will be a very clear night! Another night
of clear skies and no squalls!!

Later on... still clear skies but the wind is up, it's blowing in
the mid to high 20's sometimes moving past 30. The swell is up and
it's much rougher. Not bad, just rougher than it was. We pulled in a
bit of the Genoa as we were starting to overload a little. We tend
to back off the boat a bit at night and push a bit harder through
the day when you can see what's going on. And for the life of me we
cannot seem to trim the sails very well after dark, I'm sure there
is a method, but for us we just pull them in a bit, and forget them
until the morning.

Current seems to have backed off, still pushing south but we are not
getting any speed effect from it just an influence in our course,
which is a real bugger it would be nice to have a free knot or so to
help us on our way.

Very clear and starry night, it's awesome how many more stars you
can see in the middle of the ocean, looking up is unreal, there are
just so many stars. And the good thing is that as long as we starts
at night that means no squalls.

No moon out either so it's real dark!!, the cool part of this is we
get to see the phosphorescence coming off the boat as we move
through the water. Every where we disturb the water it emits a green
glow. So coming of the back of Reverie we have this long green
"smoke" trail looks awesome!.

Day 6-11.

Day 11 position 10-43S, 119-47W, SOG 7 knots COG 240M 1430 miles to
go, 1860 behind us!

On long passages all the days seem to blend into together. You get
into a rhythm of the days and night watches and it starts getting
hard working out which day of the week it is.

Also for us on this trip the sailing has been quite bouncy so
sitting down writing on a keyboard has been a little difficult.

Either way we have had a good run so far, we have not had the
current that we had a few years ago, if we did our run rates would
have been awesome.

So far our daily miles have been, 156, 153, 157, 180, 191, 167, 185,
186, 174, 170. Today will be a slow one as the wind has really taken
a break.

Day 6 was a cracker, as we were saying there isn't a lot of wind out
here, we were hit with a day and night of 30-35 knots gusting into
the 40's! it was a great fast bumpy ride. 24 hrs later it drifted
off again. We then had a wonderful calm day.

No fish to report, haven't had the lines out alot so that could be
the reason, but we really need to step up the fishing effort as we
need a lot of fish for when we get into the Tuamotu's as we will not
eat any of the reef fish for fear of poison. So the fishing effort
is in full swing.

Yesterday ( Day 10) we were in the middle of a key moment in the TV
series "Lost" when we heard a strange noise coming from outside.
Jo's first thoughts was a bird sliding down the rigging, Jason's was
some kind of rigging failure.

We jumped outside to find the mainsail all the way down!!, Yep the
Main Halyard broke right up the top where the line ties onto the
shackle which attaches to the mainsail. Seems there is a little
design fault in the mast track and sail top headboard. When the
mainsail is out the side for a broad reach, the knot rubs on the
track and it slowly cuts through the line. Then snappo, the whole
lot comes down!

We were able to thread a line back through the mast put a new
halyard in ( it may have a little more resistance to the rubbing),
We also made a small leather cover for the line where the knot is
for more protection. Three hours later we were back in business.

Looking out ahead it looks like we may be in for some rain and
squalls. There is a band of cloud with solid rain areas in it out in
front and we also can pick up a few squalls on the radar. A bit of
rain would be good as on Day 7 we hit a Reverie record and we picked
up 84 flying fish off the deck!!, in some spots they were a few
inches
deep. Looks like a whole school flew into the boat!@ The boat was
and still is covered with flying fish scales, the dinghy, sail
cover, life lines, everywhere! So hoping for a huge rainstorm just
before we make landfall!!!

At the current rate it looks like we will be arriving into Makemo on
the same date we did three years ago!! 15th May!

P.S.

One thing that we forgot to mention in the Panama City log.

Our Advisor "Manuel" was telling us the bars that we should go out
to in Panama. As it was a Tuesday he said we should go to the "Rock
Cafe" now it's not the hard rock cafe just the "rock cafe".

Manuel said that Tuesday night was ladies night- ladies drink for
free!. Apparently this is how it works on a Tuesday night.

First, between 8 and 11pm ONLY ladies are allowed in, they get free
drinks and a floor show. The floor show is a male strip act!.

Then at 11pm the men are allowed to come in, they pay an $11 cover
charge and have to pay for drinks.

But the whole deal is, they get the ladies drunk first and
"interested" in
the men, then they let the men in!.

What a concept, only in a Latin America culture!

Cheers!
J&J

Galapagos to French Polynesia

After our "incident" with the Parks folks we thought it may be wise
to leave that night.

Night 1
01-16.4S, 90-29.6W COG 253M

We had a light dinner and a power nap and pulled up the anchor at
10:00 pm. We hate leaving in the dark. At least it was a very easy
place to leave. Just pull up the anchor and head west, then dip a
little south. Nothing to hit for 3000 miles!

As we pulled the hook it was windless so we planned to motor for
a bit to get south and pick up the trade winds. About 10 minutes
out of the anchorage it started to rain, just a light drizzle.
Great!!

After about 30 more minutes the wind picked up to about 12 knots, we
were able to sail it in a close beat. The sea was flat so we were
really moving along managing to sit between 7 and 8 knots for the
whole night. Apart from the rain it was excellent sailing - fast and
flat. Reverie was really having a great time.

We on the other hand were struggling to get into the passage groove.
We normally leave in the morning and have all day to sort ourselves
out. Jo was having trouble sleeping and Jason managed to pick up a
cold from somewhere! - First one in 3 years!. bring on the Codral
cold tabs!

The rain continued on all night, the air was also really damp so
even having side screens in the cockpit everything was damp or wet
from the rain, not a great night to be outside!

Day 1

At around 8am the rain eased off and we started to dry out!! Boat
speed was still up in the 8's but we could feel the wind starting to
back around behind us which will slow our progress as the wind
pressure will ease. Listening in on the Pacific radio net there
seems to be some odd weather out here, some guy about 400 miles in
front of us has wind from the North East!?! - what the!?

At around 10am we were much dryer, there was a little sun out and
our speed had fallen right off. We were sailing at around 5 knots.
So in went the jib and out came the big spinnaker. As soon as it
went up we were off again back in the 7-8 and sometimes 9 knots.
With flat seas, a full main and the big kite we really moving, it
was great!.

Cooked a great omelet for lunch and watched a really bad movie
"Heart Break kid" with Ben Stiller - Avoid!!

4pm the wind died and we were back to plodding along in slow
motion!. We have moved our course to get more south hoping that the
wind will come up some more. There is also a lot of dark clouds
around so it would be good to get out of this and into some clear
air. It will be an early dinner tonight and hopefully we both can
catch up on some sleep! Looks like our 24hr run will be about 150
miles. We will start tomorrow doing a noon to noon run rate.

Night 2

Wind fell off a little and the rain came in again and stayed with us
for most of the night. We were able to keep up some nice boat speed
but we seemed to have picked up a current heading the wrong way, so
our speed through the water is quite good but our speed over the
ground is less that great!.

Day 2 Position 02-23.9S, 093-59.5W COG 242M speed 7knots

Looks better today than yesterday, rain has gone and the wind is
still from the south. Seas quite flat so it's making the upwind sail
quite nice.

Not bothering to fish yet, we will wait until the weather is a
little more "sunny", and we are both still a little tired getting
into the swing of night watches.

Yesterdays run rate was 150 miles, nothing to
get excited about, hopefully we will find our way out of this
counter current. We really want to be averaging at least 170 miles a
day so we have some work to do ahead of us.

Wind was quote solid all day, which was nice, still lots of cloud
cover around, but we can see it is starting to get thinner. The
boats ahead of us are now in clear air so we have that to look
forward to!!

The last time we did this passage on the first Reverie each morning
we'd wake to see the deck covered with flying fish, this time no
flying fish but lots of squid? good size too, just a touch bigger
and we may have to cook them up, this morning we had 11 on the deck!

Night 3 (4:41am) 3-00.5S, 096-04.3W COG 238 SOG 6.2Knots

Still got this bloody current, wind has moved around to the east and
is blowing in the 20's boat speed is much the same as we don't want
to push it too much at night, we will worry about that in the
morning. Trying to get a little more south to see if there is any
favorable current down there.

Clear night!!!, lots of stars out so looks like tomorrow will be a
sunny day lets cross our fingers for some favorable current. Looking
at the weather fax that just came in we should have 15 knots from
the SE for the next few days, that should make some great sailing.

Day 3,

Wind stayed up all day today which was great, unfortunately we
still had the current against us which was taking a little more than
a knot off our speed over the ground. Sky was clear, it felt like we
were in classic trade wind sailing conditions. Tried fishing a
little but we decided that if we caught anything we really were not
in the mood for the messy job of chopping it up and dealing with the
mess.

We also noticed that there was a petrol smell inside the boat, very
slight but it was there. Looking at the jerry cans in the back
locker we found one of the jerry cans with petrol has developed a
small split in the bottom, maybe 10mm long, it looks like we have
leaked a couple of liters out of the can. Some of it was caught by
the foam pad the jerry's sit on, the rest has evaporated away or
made it's way into the engine bilge area. We managed to drain the
petrol into another jerry can and do a clean up on the areas we
could get to, the rest will have to clear itself through time as it
slowly evaporates away, hope it does as it's not a great smell to be
around.

Moving into the night, the wind has dropped off a little so our
speed tonight will be a little slower than we want., but it's
comfortable, and makes our watches easy. If it follows the trend it
should pick up later on in the night as it's done this most other
days.

Current position 03-35.1S, 097-31.4W COG 249, SOG 6 knots

More coming soon......

J&J

Galapagos Islands

Santa Cruz, Academy Bay.

Great town, but less than great anchorage. Academy bay is a large
bay with the opening pointing towards the south east, right about
where the swell comes from, so it's not the flattest anchorage. You
need to put a stern anchor out to keep the boat pointed into the
swell otherwise you will go nuts as the boat will roll from side to
side.

So why come here? The town Santa Cruz / Puerto Ayora is awesome!,
oddly enough it's a little like Byron Bay on the east coast of
Australia. Lots of bars, restaurants, surf / dive shops, internet
cafe's everywhere, lots of tour operators. It's also the home to the
Darwin Institute where they continue work looking into evolution
following Charles Darwin's theory's.

There are a couple of surf breaks just on the outside of Academy bay
so when the swell and tide is right the local and any visitors are
out having fun with the seals.

There is lots to do here, but we decided to just chill and enjoy the
town. Eating out is a great deal, very inexpensive and you get
enough to turn you into a sumo wrestler. So we spent a far bit of
time in the local eateries. After 6 days at sea, eating out tastes
extra good!

While we were here we also met up with the guys on the Australian
boat (Perth) "Sabalo" they arrived the same time we did. We first
met them in Colon Panama so it was good to see some friendly faces.
There are three on board and are all keen surfers so the surf break
outside the bay was going to get a visit from them.

While in Santa Cruz we stocked up on lots of fresh vege's ( the
supply ship arrived while we were there) filled up with fuel, wow
cheap fuel US$0.28 a liter!! wish we had bigger tanks! We also
found that our engine start battery was close to dead so we had to
get a new one. Outside of this it was just enjoy the town and some
of the local sights.

One night whilst talking with the guys on Sabalo they told us they
read in their cruising guide that with our clearance into Academy
bay we were able to stop in "Post office bay" on Santa Maria
island - about 30 miles south of us. This sounded great! As most of
the Galapagos is a "national park" boats are very restricted on
where they can go, so this sounded like a great idea and we set up a
plan to sail there and have a dinner and movie night.

The night before we were to leave we heard a call on the radio from
another Australian boat that we met in Panama, "Polly". Colin had
just arrived ( 8pm) after a horrible trip down from Panama, it took
him 20 days! Poor guy, he had engine troubles and a few other
problems, being by himself on the boat there was little he could do
but wait for the wind and unfortunately go slow.

He was coming into Academy bay somewhat disabled, very tired and by
himself, with that it was quite rolly and dark. After a while on the
radio and using Reverie's radar we were able to guide him into the
bay and get his anchor down. He did an awesome job sailing into the
bay, getting the anchor down and dealing with the sails. Not sure
how long "Polly" will be in the Galapagos for but we guess as soon
as he sorts out his engine problems he will be off.

After doing our final preps and clearing out of the Galapagos for
passage to French Polynesia we were off. Reverie left at about
midday, Sabalo left about 7am!! Madness! On the way out we passed
a massive fish feeding area, the water was boiling with activity,
little fish jumping out the way of the bigger fish. We were excited
and we had two lines out, this was our chance. But nothing, not
even a little bite on the lines!!

BUT!!! about 30 min later BANG!! off went one of the lines, we
were both excited, pulling in the line we had hooked a nice Yellow
Fin Tuna about 2.5 ft long. After chopping and filleting and packing
him up we put the lines out again to try our luck some more. This
time BOTH lines jumped !!, the fish on the port side line
unfortunately got off but we managed to keep the other one - Another
Yellow fin, same size as the first! As we were cleaning up the mess
off the back of the boat the line still in the water went off
again!, in it comes and another Yellow Fin, what a day three good
size fish all in the space of 2 hours!

We had the lines out for the rest of the trip but it all went quiet.
Luckily as Jason was getting over chopping up fish, and tuna bleed a
lot so the back of the boat was a bit of a mess and needed a clean.

Arriving into Post office bay was great, there were a few other
boats there (all tour boats) and Sabalo but best of all it was dead
flat! We got the hook down at about 5:30 pm, spoke to Sabalo and
decided to move the dinner movie night to the following night. That
night we had some fresh tuna on the BBQ, and a long sleep without
the boat moving around like we were in Academy Bay. The next day was
not what we expected!.

Around 9am we (and Sabalo) were visited by the National Parks Patrol
folks, they were not happy that we were in Post Office bay - We
weren't sure what the issue was, the cruising guide said it was ok
and it was published in 2006!, either way they were not happy and
took our clearance papers from us ( we need these to arrive into
French Polynesia). We were then told that we both must follow them
around the corner to the islands main Port! ( didn't even know there
was one!). Now we were getting concerned and also felt like
criminals being escorted into Port by a patrol boat!

We arrived put the anchor down (another rolly bay) why do they put
the towns where the anchorage sucks!. Aside from this we were all
feeling a little nervous. What were they going to do? It was an
innocent mistake made by incorrect information ( they change their
rules in the Galapagos quite often, so it is impossible for a
publication to stay accurate). They could have said that we were
not allowed to be there and we should leave, which we would have
done. But no, we were escorted into town.

We managed to get a water taxi to pick us all up and take us into
the dock, from there we went to see the "Parks" people.

The office was a run down little building - more like a shed in your
back yard. It was full of about 6 guy's all giving us the bad looks,
there was also the Navy guy dressed in his uniform. He was young,
and appeared to be looking for someone to try and enforce his
authority upon. In his top pocket he had our Zarpe's our clearance
papers, he
was holding onto these like they were the keys to our lives.

After talking with the guy in charge ( via Caleb, one of the crew on
the other boat "Sabalo" who luckily spoke a little Spanish) we were
told that the matter had to be referred to the "boss" back in Santa
Cruz. We would find out the following morning!. The result was to be
either a smack and they would let it fly or they would fine us, if
they were to fine us the amount could be quite high and it would
require us all sailing back to Santa Cruz - and they would have to
escort us!

We left the office all feeling quite like the hardened criminals
that we were and all quite nervous. All we wanted to do was pick up
the anchor and leave!

The anchorage we had here was not too bad, a little rolly but lots
of sea life around, huge turtles swimming around the boat, and lots
of seals taking a lot of interest on the swim step on the boat.

While we were ashore Jo looked back out to Reverie and saw something
on the dinghy ( we store our dinghy upside down on the deck when we
are sailing). Jason looked out and could see something also, we
decided that it was most likely a pelican. When we got out to
Reverie what we saw was not a "pelican" it was a bloody big seal!
This thing was huge, he climbed up on the swim step, then made it
into the cockpit, up onto the seats, along the side decks then up on
the dinghy! Once we got on the boat we chased him off, thank god he
didn't want to take a look down stairs, we have no idea how we would
get him out!

The following morning (Friday) at 10am we jumped into the water taxi
and went back into town ( well it's not really a town more like a
camp site with houses - only 106 people live there so there isn't
much) . Off we went to the office to find out our fate.

This time there was a different guy in the office behind the desk
and none of the others were there. This guy was really nice, he
thought that since we didn't get off the boats and we only put the
anchor down there was no big deal. Unfortunately the matter was
taken to Santa Cruz and now had to be resolved there. He was on the
phone for quite a while trying to find out the outcome, but found
out nothing. We ended up waiting for a few hours and left with no
mor information on the outcome. He did say that he would call us on
the radio at 12:30pm and let us know what's going on as he thought
he would know by then.

Right on 12:30pm the radio jumped to life, we were told that we ALL
were to come into the office at 2:30pm! - Sounded quite ominous!
When we got in the office it was full again, including the navy guy
with our Zarpes in his top pocket! They had some papers for us to
look at and sign. It was in Spanish so we were not sure of the
complete
details but it was a statement of the events. We were then told that
we needed to document down in our own words why we were there. We
did this and felt that all would be good. Our friendly Parks guy
went out for a while and came back with the town doctor who speaks
excellent English. The doctor gave us a full explanation of what
was going on. It looks like we will not be fined BUT they highly
recommended that we leave that night ( after dark!) not why we had
to leave after dark but she said that if we are still there in the
morning we will probably have to be escorted to Santa Cruz and pay a
fine!.

So it looks like we were being kicked out that night! Leaving in
the morning would be nice but we were glad that we were able to
leave!

We had a few quiet beers and decided that we'd pull up the anchor
around 10pm.

More to come.....

Cheers!
J&J

Panama and South West

Panama!,

If you didn't know Panama city and Colon were in the same country
you would never believe it if it was mentioned. The two could not be
more different.

Panama city is up market, classy, full of some very tall high rise
buildings and a LOT of new tall apartment buildings. You can also
get just about anything in Panama so that's a good thing for people
setting out across the pacific.

Under normal circumstances we arrived in the anchorage in panama
city right on beer-o-clock, ( we seem to be timing our arrivals
quite well in this respect).

The anchorage is very busy and we are forced to anchor way out in
the back of the fleet between another two Australian boats, both
from WA, Fremantle. Our line handlers will stay on Reverie for a few
days while they explore Panama city and take a break from Colon.
But more importantly it's time for a celebration and off to dinner
with the crew and the guy's on "Lady Sara".

Our time in Panama city was going to be limited as we spent so much
time on the other side of the country and we were already behind our
schedule so we had a quick plan to top up on some food items,
DVD's, completing a few boat projects, top up on fuel and get some
sushi.

After a few days we were ready to leave for the Galapagos about 900
miles away to the south east. First stop was the Perlas Islands.
With no wind we had a still 6 hr motor to the island of Chapera,
right where we anchored 3 years ago!, where they had just finished
filming one of the series of "Survivor". Not this time and what a
difference it was. With no TV audiances to show the pristine beaches
to, it had become the home to a LOT of rubbish, plastic bottles and
bits and pieces were everywhere, not a pretty sight. Nevertheless
it's still a lovely spot and with a 6m tide when you go ashore you
really need to think about where you put your dinghy, as it could
either be a long way up the beach if the tide is going out or a long
swim out to it if the tide is coming in!. With the tide all the way
out there is a lovely long wide beach, when it's in there is no
beach! just trees to the waters edge.

We came down here with Peter and Clare on Lady Sara, they will leave
in 1 to 2 days. Their plan is to head up to Costa Rica, then sail
over 4000 miles to Hawaii, then sail over 2000 miles to Alaska, they
will then make their way down to Canada, Vancouver for the winter
where they have rented an apartment in Whistler for 3 months!!! -
very envious!! Alaska would be awesome, oh, so would Whistler for
3 months!.

Thursday morning Lady Sara make their way out of the anchorage for
Costa Rica, 2 hours later at 9am Reverie heads out in windless
conditions. We will be heading south to the southern most island and
anchorage in the Las Perlas Islands "San Jose" where we will do the
final preparations on Reverie before sailing to the Galapagos.

With very little wind we drift with the current and take a slight
help from the motor to make the 25 mile trip south. With the huge
tides in the Gulf of Panama, there is a lot of water moving around
between the Islands, with this it always seems to carry a lot of
flotsam. For a lot of the way we are dodging huge trees, planks of
wood, large areas of rubbish and foliage floating in the water.
Handy that there are a lot of birds around here as they use the
floating logs as rest points in the water. So in a lot of cases all
we see are half dozen or so birds standing on the water with their
legs high and dry as the resting log sits on or just below the
surface. So we just start looking out for bunches of birds
standing up in the middle of the ocean.

Later in the afternoon ( Beer-O-clock) we arrive in San Jose. Only
one other boat in the anchorage but we are there with thousands of
birds, they are everywhere!, the long beach is teeming with them
standing around all having a chit chat to each other, we have never
seen so many birds in one spot, quite awesome.

After 2 days in San Jose the weather looks ok to head to the
Galapagos. There is a strong LOW that has been right in our path and
we have been waiting for it to move west or dissipate, it's finally
moving west, not much, but enough such that we wont cop too much
head winds off the eastern side of it. The last few days have been
looking like a 800 mile trip with head winds all the way, but things
are on the improve and we can make a go of it.

The ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) the Doldrums, is looking
a little wide right now and is sitting about 1/3 of the way down,
when we get to it we can expect it to take a while to get through
(24hrs). The forecasts and Satellite images show that there is a lot
of what they call "convection" through the area so it looks like
squalls, rain, thunder and lightning are in order for the ITCZ.
Bugger it! we will deal with it when we get there.

Sunday morning around 9am we pull the anchor up and head out. Jo
steers Reverie out while Jason listens to the radio as there is the
Pacific Net on at the time and we want to hear what boats are seeing
insofar as weather while enroute to the Galapagos. Pretty much what
we are expecting, very light conditions.

We are lucky that Reverie has the extra taller performance rig which
gives us a little more sail area, it's certainly going to be handy
on this trip.

Heading out of the Gulf of Panama is brilliant. The water is FLAT,
dead calm, not bad for a start! Around us is the most amazing sites
we have ever seen. Usually we have dolphins hanging around the boat,
swimming, jumping and enjoying themselves. So far no dolphins BUT
the water is teeming with Manta rays and all around us they are
leaping out of the water spinning around most of the time almost two
full loops. They land with a huge splash, they are all around us and
it's just amazing. They are probably getting about 10ft out of the
water. Now they're not the most elegant jumpers. Dolphins jump out a
lot, they all have rehearsed the "Flipper" jump, where they jump
out and come back in nose first, make no splash and keep going.
Manta Rays are not built for jumping, so it looks like someone is
below the water surface just throwing them up in the air, there is
no style in the take off and certainly not the landing. But it looks
great, huge black and white discs ( black on top, white on the
bottom) jumping out all around us!

Day 2 Panama to Galapagos

Wind was VERY light, Reverie was sailing a little and motoring a
little. ( lucky for the taller rig and the extra sail) managed to
hook a small tuna early in the morning but as we were having
breakfast we decided to let it go. We also were quite confident that
we will catch lots more fish!! - Fools!

The day was HOT, with a very light breeze so progesss was very slow
but at least forward, also had a good currrent pushing us south so
that helped.

Filling the day was easy, food, few episodes of the series"LOST"
check the fishing lines, change lures, bang out some emails. Catch
up on some sleep from the lack of the night before.

Day 2 Night.

This was an interesting night, as we were clearing the area around
panama where the ships make their way into the Gulf of Panama before
moving up to Panama City for their Transit to the "other side" there
is quite a bit of ship traffic to keep an eye out for.

About 2am. Jason on watch, we picked up on Radar a small boat about
8 miles out in front, they were tracking across our bow and should
be no problem, their speed was about 8 knots.

As time went on it looked like their course was changing!, they now
seemed to be tracking right at us!, At about 5 miles dfistance we
changed course by about 20 degrees to make sure there was plenty of
room between them and us. They changed course again! back on
tracking right on us, Now the distance was about 2 miles. We made
another course change 45 degrees!, the bugger changed his course
again, by this time he was less than 1 mile away. We changed course
again, killed all our lights and gassed the engine, not sure of what
was going on!!.

Jason jumped on the radio and announced their position, course and
speed and asked what their intentions were, no reply!. A few tries
of this and still no response! The gap between us was now growing,
it seems that they were limited to about 8 knots but their course
had not changed. Out in front we noticed that there was a BIG ship
crossing our bow about 5 miles out. We anounced on the radio that we
were a vessel being persued by what we beleive is a fishing boat,
gave their position, speed etc... No response BUT within 5 minutes
of this call the boat did what looked like a 180 degree turn and
went north! We kept our lights out and speed up for a few more
hours all the time tracking the boat on radar until it was off the
screen!!.

Who knows what was going on, maybe they were fisherman, a bit bored
and thought they would have a bit of fun in scaring the gringos on
the sailing boat " it worked" but maybe it was more than that?

Day 3

Bit more wind today, but very squally out in front and behind.
Looks like we will be in for some rain and maybe wind.

Fishing lines were going ok, we had a sail fish playing with one of
the lures for a while, he never took the big bite though. We think
he was teasing us!

Two hours later we looked at the line and the whole lot was gone!!.
Hook, lure, leader line!. Picked out another lure and we tried
again!

Squall approaching, looks like we will get some rain, right now we
are trying to pick which side of it to sit. We had it pass us just
on our port "left" side. Got a nice little shove from it, little
rain which was great to wash the salt off the deck and all the
Panama grime. Unfortunatly it didn't last very long and we were soon
stuck in light winds.

We were quite happy as we were on track to make the trip faster than
we did 3 years ago, which was 7 days, looks like we may do it this
time in 6.

Day 3 night.

Quiet night, light wind, LOTS of lightning out in front and to the
left of us, but it was all a long way away. Seas were really flat,
just like the start, flatter than a marina!.

Day 4

Right now we are in the ITCZ (doldrums) NO wind, lots of cloud,
today will be interesting.

Lots of action on the fishing lines in between the rumble of thunder
coming from all directions. Seems to be all around us but luckily
not on top of us!

Out far on the horizon we can see a break in the cloud, it looks
like the end of the ITCZ where we can expect a change in the wind
direction, this would mean that we are in the southern hemisphere
weather systems even though we are still north of the Equator.

MASSIVE squall coming up from behind, this would be the biggest
squall we have seen, We have the radar on a 12nm zoom meaning that
from the middle of the screen to the top it is 12 miles. Well this
squall filled up the whole screen - it was about 20 miles long and 8
miles wide!!!! Holy crap!!, we were really expecting to get
hammered by this one. As it approached the rain built up quickly,
such that the sail bag was filling faster than it could drain, Water
was bellowing out over the sides. Wind was up but not too much only
to about 25 knots. Looking at the radar it looked like the squall
was not passing us, it just seemed to hit us then the leading edge
would slowly dissolve. So within an hour the entire squall was
gone, nowhere to be seen, infront or behind!

The clear weather line out in front was now over us and it was
looking great. Clear skys, stars coming up and a light breeze
filling in from the SW!!

Day 5

Big day today as we will cross the equator!, except it will be at
about 10pm!. So much for the beer and pizza party we were planning.

Wind is up and we are having a good sail, slow but moving forward to
the Galapagos, it's quite hot and no boat traffic to be seen.
Listining to the radio nets that are coming up in the morning we
hear that there are a few boats close by. We are positioned more
west than any of the others which seems to be playing well for us as
we have current on our side. The other boats took a more south
course and seem to be getting stuck in a north setting current
(the Humboldt current which runs northwards up the coast of south
America).

Our water temperature is quite warm so we are in the right spot, if
it starts to cool off a little then we will be touching the edge of
the north setting current.

Really getting into the LOST series!, as the going is quite slow,
we are watching a few episodes a day of Series 1. We have
celebration plans for the Equator crossing but were too engrossed by
LOST. When we checked our position we found we were already in the
southern Hemisphere!! Whoops! better get back to the series as
something BIG is about to happen!!!.

Wind is up now and we are beating into a solid 15-20 knots from the
south, so the going is a little bumpy, we are sailing quite high at
around 30 degrees and the boat is doing a great job as we eat
up the miles. Our plan of being quite west of the rhumb line is a
disavantage here as it causing us to sail much higher into the wind
than if we were further east. But we are still making much more
speed than the other boats so it's not too bad.

Around 7pm the wind backs off a little and moves more east, this
makes the sailing really nice, we can ease off the sails a little
and maintain good speed. Looks like we will arrive tomorrow
morning!!

Day 6

Great sail through the night, Reverie was really moving well,
comfortable, good speed and steady wind. We are in sight of the
Galapagos as the sun comes up.

Sailing down the island of Santa Cruz we see a few other boats also
arriving.

We swing into Academy Bay at about 7:00am, drop the hook have a
coffee, breakfast and relax.

Total trip took us just under 6 days, not great speed but a big
section of the passage is windless so we were delighted with the
time we made.

Cheers!
J&J

GUNS fired!, speed boat chases, explosions!

Panama,

We arrived into Panama after a great calm sail down from Jamaica.

Panama hasn't changed much, well Colon hasn't, it's still a dump,
crime, run down buildings, run down everything for that matter. It
would certainly rank as the most run down unpleasant place we have
visited.

We arrived on a Friday night ( later afternoon - right on beer-o-
clock) so that was ok, we sat on Reverie having a quiet beer
looking over the smog and enjoying the fumes coming out of the 100
or so ships that were here waiting to transit the canal or who have
just come through from the Pacific.

Saturday we were right into the provisioning for the long pacific
leg. Colon is not a bad place to provision, good food and good
prices so we were into it. Monday we would complete the clearance
formalities and get the boat "measured" for the canal transit.

Tuesday we were measured, paid the fees. We would find out later
that day when our transit would be.

Tuesday night we were on the phone to the transit office to find out
transit date - What a shock 3 weeks!!!!, we were thinking it
would be 1 week at best! So Tuesday was not a great day - it was
only to get worse!

Wednesday morning we woke up to the crisp smell of smog, stepped
outside, something was wrong....

THE DINGHY, where's the bloody dinghy!!!! some prick stole our
dinghy!, another yachtie saw them driving off with it and their
panga ( local fishing boat), they came at dawn, cut our line and off
they went with it.

Losing your dinghy is like losing your car, we were without a
car, and couldn't get off the boat. Had to wave down passing boats
to get a ride into the dock to work out what we do next.

The Local panama canal security folks, were able to recover the
dinghy, without the engine, fuel tank, oars etc... it had a few
holes in it as well, thanks to the marvelous efforts of the
fisherman in trying to sink it after they removed the items they
wanted. Shows their intelligence, if you try and sink an inflatable
boat you need to put holes in ALL the tubes and in the double floor
not just two, so their was still enough air in the dinghy to keep a
small car afloat!

After a few phone calls and emails it looks like the insurance will
cover the engine and other items! - thank god! We then spent the
next couple of days repairing the dinghy and trying to source a new
outboard, and after a couple of days we were up and running again.

Back to bad ugly Colon, there are benefits to looking like this. One
is that Movie producers like the look of it!.

Yep movies!!, James Bond. Now we are both big Bond fans so finding
out they were filming a lot of the scenes for the new Bond movie,
"Quantum of Solace", here in Panama was real exciting. Even better
was that the filming of alot of the action boat scenes was being
done not far from where we lost the dinghy. So once we had a new
engine we were off!. We anchored with about 30 other boats. All were
being used for "props" in the boat scenes!!

This was fantastic, being right in the middle of the action scene,
filming was great, we had "bad guys" zooming past us chasing James
Bond ( his double), boats jumping, explosions, this went over and
over again. The work these guy's put into this was incredible, 7
weeks of filming for about 4 mins of film! There was even more
excitement when the "real actors" were driven out to the set to do
the close up shots. All the women in the anchorage were glued to
their Binoculars watching Daniel Craig in action!

Will Reverie be in the movie, good chance. Will Jason or Jo, doubt
it but you never know, hopefully any footage won't end up on the
editors floor.

One morning, Jason was coming out of the shower, naked as you are,
inside the boat walking from the front cabin to the back cabin, and
right outside the windows in the hull looking in ( well it looked
like it) was the camera crew (about 25 people)!, They were filming
the bad guys just as they were about to take a shot at the hero,
Bond. Jason quickly made for the towel just in case the film gets a
new XXX rating!

The filming went on for a few more weeks. This was great as we
needed something to do while we waited in Colon for our transit
date. We couldn't really leave the boat to do any inland travel as
there is always a small chance that the Canal authorities might move
you up the line! and we were keen to get through to the Pacific.

Good news!, we were moved up a few days for our canal transit!, We
called the transit office every day in hope for another move but we
only had the one move. Lucky for us, there didn't seem to be a lot
of schedule changes so we were grateful.

Our transit day was fast approaching, we had 10 old car tires
wrapped in garbage bags hanging all around Reverie, and 5 fenders,
just in case there were any mishaps while we were going through. All
we needed now were 2 more lines ( you need 4 lines of 125ft long -
we had two already on the boat), we were able to rent these from the
Panama Canal Yacht Club ( in Colon) for $15 each. Once the boat was
sorted all we needed to do was fill up with extra booze and food for
the transit. When you transit you need 4 "Line Handlers" + the
Captain, so we needed three extra people. We picked up a young
English couple from a Catamaran "Rahula" and one other Swiss Guy -
Christoph from his beautiful 48ft Halberg Rassy. We first met
Christoph in the Canary Islands! He arrived in Panama 4 days before
our transit from Cuba. Poor Christoph had a 6 week wait to transit!!
Madness!!! - He could sail up to Jamaica, spend a month there and
sail back and still not miss his date!

Transit date March 31 was upon us. Around 8pm the Advisor arrived
on the Pilot boat ( the Advisor will guide us through the Canal).
Our first phase will be to "Up Lock", where we move Reverie into
three locks one after the other that lifts Reverie ( or any ship for
that matter) up to the Gatun Lake.

There we will spend the night before another Advisor will guide us
through the 28 miles of Lake Gatun before we "Down Lock" and enter
Pacific waters. Our up locking went fine, lots of waiting though,
we went through with two other boats "Lady Sara" and "Pauleric". So
on the way up we were rafted up next to Lady Sara, great boat and
great couple Peter and Claire on board.

Once in the Lake, around 11pm, we tied Reverie and Lady Sara around
a large shipping Bouy for the night - Time for a mid transit
celebration!!, Drinks went on till about 2am when it was time to hit
the sack and get some sleep for the next day of motoring and down
locking.

Deep asleep I was dreaming of a stadium and all this cheering!, not
sure what it was, as I very slowly woke up opened my eyes the
cheering kept on going!!, odd it would go quiet then start up, then
go quiet again!. Well the howler monkeys were right into it this
morning, these little guys make a hell of a racket, hence the name,
one yells out then they all join in, then they stop and wait for
someone to start the yelling, it's a very bizarre sound and bloody
loud! Panama has a LOT of really cool wide life, Howler Monkeys,
and others, Toucans, Sloths, loads of weird stuff - Much like
Australia I guess. But Australians don't think our stuff is that
weird - Do we??

Later than we expected, around 9am, the pilot boat turns up with our
Advisor for the day. We have "Manuel" we had a "Manuel" also last
transit, great guy, this one was awesome - we really lucked out
here. Lady Sara got "Captain Cooper" total jerk, full of himself
and quite incompetent. Which is not ideal for us as while we are in
the locks ( after our 28 mile motor) all three boats will be tied /
rafted together again, with Lady Sara in the middle, this means that
their pilot will be in charge of all of us for the actual down
locking. We felt sorry for Lady Sara as you are with these guy's for
a long while and he was someone you wanted to minimize your time
with.

The second phase of the transit went without a hitch. Very hot up in
the lake, our down locking went fine with a few "interesting
moments" no thanks to Captain Cooper. Jason however was getting a
little worked up over the Captain on
"Pauleric". The way it works when you are rafted together, is that
we on Reverie work our lines to keep us in position in the lock when
the water comes in and goes out of the lock - Basically we keep
"Pauleric" off the wall as they are on the other side of Lady Sara,
"Pauleric" through their line work and a bit of engine work keeps
Reverie off the wall of the lock chamber. Well the Captain and crew
on "Pauleric" were not really paying enough attention. They were
more concerned in video recording the event and taking photo's, with
little attention being paid to the situation at hand. So we had to
throw a few glances and words to get them to stay by their wheel and
lines and pay more attention, after all they had Reverie in their
hands!

But Peter on Lady Sara who was basically steering all three rafted
boats did an awesome job, it was quite stressful for him and he did
a stellar job at bringing us all through.

We are now back in the PACIFIC!!!! in Panama City. Yippee!!!!!

More from Panama soon!

Cheers

J&J

Jamaica to Panama

It took us three more days after reading the news of John to muster
the guts to make a run at the sail to Panama.

We pulled out Monday March 3rd morning at about 5am. The weather
looked good,
15 knots from the NE and forecast to drop as we get closer to
Panama. Crap
thing was it was raining and it's no fun leaving at 5am in the
rain - but we did.

We had about 25 miles of solid upwind sailing to get around the
eastern point of the island, once we were there we would be able to
run off and make the trip on a beam reach.

As the morning was less than pleasant, rain, up wind slog, still the
lingering feeling of John. We both decided to make a stop on the way
south.

About 35 miles south of the corner of Jamaica is a small ( VERY
SMALL)
sandy cay and a few reefs called the Morant Cays.

With the wind and swell direction we figured that we could make a
stop here for the night, anchor in the calm lee side of the sand
bank and reef and have a nice first night out.

We arrived in the Morant Cays about 3pm. Not much there, two big
sand
banks, and a reef. Not an ounce of vegetation. But to our
amazement
there were people living on the sand bank!! Only three ( fisherman)
god knows how they do it. The sand bank would be 200m long and maybe
50m wide!!

We motor around looking for a spot to drop the anchor. It's still a
bit lumpy as the sea is managing to get over the reefs and is
curling around the "anchorage". We drop the hook in about 4m of
very clear water. It takes a LONG time for us to get the anchor set,
lots of noise coming up the chain meaning that there is a lot of
rock / coral down there, finally it sets.

Jason decides it may be worth jumping in the water and having a look
at the anchor to make sure it's hooked in ok - last thing we want to
do
is drag in the middle of the night!

Getting down to the anchor he finds it lying upside down just
holding on... have to do something here...
So with Jo on the boat driving the boat forward to take the load off
the anchor, Jason is walking the seabed with a 30kg anchor in his
arms over to a big rock that he can hook it under. Would have looked
quite odd seeing someone walking barefoot holding their breath with
a big anchor in their arms.

But job done and we are hooked in well for the night.

After sorting the boat out one of the fisherman comes up in his
little boat and asks if everything is ok!, lovely guy he seemed
concerned for us which was really nice. Wish we had some cigarettes
to give him (they all like to smoke over here).
He is on his way and we settle in for a few episodes of Seinfeld,
early dinner and sleep!

Next morning the wind and sea looks a little more friendly, we make
a move around the civilized hour of 9am!, (after a coffee and
breakfast of course).

It was a little troublesome getting the anchor out of the rock as it
was well jammed under, but after a few goes - left then right we
were
free and on the way to Panama.

Day 2:

Well so far (knock on wood) we couldn't have asked for better
conditions, the sea state is very mild, the wind is around 15-20
knots and we are averaging around 8 knots. No squalls, and so far no
kookey seas.

Coming down this part of the Caribbean you need to think of the
shoals, the shallow patches of water. Now when we say shallow here
we don't mean 3-4 meters, we mean 300-400 meters of water.

There is a current running here of about 1 knot to the west, the
average depth we are sailing is around 3000m (3 km!) so when you
have a "shoal" of 300 meters rising up from 3000m there is a lot of
water that has to go somewhere and it usually goes into waves and
current in other directions. So as we are sailing we are zig zaging
down to avoid running directly over the shallow areas.

Just passing one now (in the next two hours) it is 387m coming up
from 2917m! We are in the deep areas and hopefully we will find a
nice bit of zooming current being deflected from it. Yesterday we
were moving over the ground at close to 10 knots, but only through
the water at 7!. as we skipped off the edge of another "shallow"
area. It was really neat looking at the GPS with 9+ knots on it and
the water around the boat barely moving.

At the current rate we should hit Panama in about 24 hrs ( at midday
Friday 7th March).

Day 3: 5:00pm March 6th.

Well we didn't pick any favorable current as we passed the sea
mounts. Actually a small counter current, about 1/2 Knot.

Getting MUCH warmer in the boat than in Jamaica, currently 30 deg C!
inside - Air con would be nice.
Wind and seas are much the same, 15 knots and quite calm seas!!
Starting to see some more ships as we get closer to the
entrance of the Canal.

So far we have totally lucked it with the weather, the wind has been
so light that we've even had to turn on the engine a few times.
Looks like
it'll be a squall free evening as there is not a cloud in sight out
in front. We settle down to our last dinner under way and then get
into our last night of night watches...YAY!!!

Day 4: 4:30pm March 7th.

Last night was A VERY calm and beautiful night!

Still haven't hooked any fish and we have just started to enter
shallower water as we approach the Canal wall, we've got an hour and
a bit to go. Just had a big strike, but the poor fish got away
leaving only his lips and a few teeth behind...
Overall it's been a great passage with light winds and VERY calm
seas, so not what we were expecting, we fluked the weather this time
once more! (Last time coming down to Panama in 2005 it was just as
calm).

Gotta run, the entrance is approaching......and there are BIG ships
anchored off everywhere, looks like we'll have to dodge our way in!

Cheers
J&J

Yeh Mon Jamaica!!

Jamaica,

What a wonderful place!

Before we arrived we hit the books and internet researching what
Jamaica has to offer, what it's like etc. One impression was that
there seemed to be a lot of "advice" on how dangerous it is, "crime
is rampant", it's a VERY poor country with a current of resentment
towards "white" people. Other people we spoke to expressed concern
about going to Jamaica!

Interesting thing is that most of the people telling us how bad
Jamaica is were heading off to Venezuela! Hmmm..

Our impressions of Jamaica, certainly where we are in the north east
quadrant of the Island could not be further from the "advice" we
were given.

The place is fantastic, the people are VERY friendly, show no ill
feeling towards "whites", visitors, themselves or anybody for that
matter. We would walk into town and feel under no more threat than
any other Caribbean island. Jo would head into town to the local
market by herself and feel fine. Of course we get the looks, and
the occasional "hey white man" but it hasn't been in a
threatening or derogatory manner. After all we are "white"!

In all the eastern Caribbean islands only two would we feel safer
than Jamaica, that being St Barts and the BVI's! We've certainly
been in far more dodgy places in other parts of the eastern
Caribbean for sure, recalling that once in St Lucia we even slept
with the boat locked up. ( We think that's the norm now in most of
the eastern islands).

Jamaica is quite poor though, but no poorer than most of the
other Caribbean Islands, infact it comes across as more affluent
than Fiji and certainly Tonga. The main Captial city Kingston is a
real city, glass buildings, shopping centers etc. Kingston has it
all, a big contrast the the "country" areas.

Jamaica is wonderful with the rhythm of reggae music playing
everywhere, chicken and pork cooking on BBQ's in the streets, and
school children dressed in perfectly ironed uniforms walking the
streets.

By far the most dangerous part of Jamaica is the roads, they suck!,
determined to destroy any car's suspension and displace all but the
stongest necks and backs! Some work really needs to be done here.

On our second day in Jamaica, we were visited by Rachel, the
immigration officer. Rachel sat in the cockpit filling in the
documents for our visas quietly singing to an old Bob Marley song.
Once she was done we were all cleared in and officially in the
country.

We ask the marina office staff about the security situation, how bad
is it - not knowing yet!, They give us a smile and say "its ok Mon,
there's no crime here in Portland ( the district where Port Antonio
is).

The marina at Port Antonio is now called the Errol Flynn Marina.
Reason is, just off the marina there is a small island which used to
be owned by Errol Flynn! called Navy Island.

There is a lot of history here in the north of Jamaica, Ian
Flemming used to come here to write his James Bond Novels, his old
house is still here called "Golden Eye" and a few of the James Bond
Movies were filmed here as well, "Dr No", "Live and Let Die". There
is even a beach here called "James Bond Beach", Mr Fleming
certainly made his mark on Jamaica. Noel Coward also used to have a
house here called "Firefly".

Not far from Port Antonio are two awesome beaches. San San beach and
Blue Hole. San San is a small cove with a great little beach and
lots of coral. There are houses perched right on the water and it is
very spectacular. The beach scenes from the movie "Cocktail" were
filmed here in San San. Blue Hole, is a natural wonder, it's a
small bay open to the sea, and at the end of the bay the water drops
to 280ft deep where a natural fresh water spring pumps fresh water
up
from the depths into the salt water above. The movie "Blue Lagoon"
was filmed here. ( we thought it was done in Fiji! - but no it was
done in Jamaica!).

So while we were in Port Antonio we did a few boat things, met a
bunch of folks and got to know the locals. On the dock working as
"day workers" on arriving boats were Mike, Presley, Fire, Donovan,
and the "Fat Man" - Steve. These guy's help with your lines and
docking and are allowed to work on boats while in the marina. We had
Presley polish all the stainless steel on Reverie and WOW what an
awesome job he did, even shined the threads on the life lines and
rigging turn buckles!

The following day we took Presley up to "Boston" (not Boston in the
US) but Boston in Jamaica, the Jerk captial. What is Jerk? it's the
spice mix they use in their BBQ's, it's hot and spicy and tastes
fantastic. The taxi ride up to Boston was a killer. What should
take 10min took 30min, we were in this car that no other country in
the world would call roadworthy, all the suspension was gone, the
tailgate was held shut with duct tape, breaks questionable, steering
looked very loose and the driver more concerned about chatting than
dodging all the massive holes in the road. But we got there on one
piece.

We expected Boston to be a town, but what we found was a section of
a road filled with small shacks with fires in them cooking chicken,
fish, pork, lobster and bread fruit ( brought to Jamaica by the
British from Tahiti to feed the slaves - Mutiny on the Bounty fame).

A few beers, some jerk pork, chicken and fish and we were back in a
taxi to Port Antonio, this taxi was a little better but the driver
was
#%^&#ng crazy, thought we were going to die! it wasn't just us
Presley was quite nervous as well!

In the Marina we were next to an American boat, an Island Packet 38
called "Carioca" on board was John, just him, he was planning on
sailing around the world alone!. He kinda got stuck in Jamaica for 2
months and was getting ready to leave when we arrived. As the
weather didn't look right he took a few more days to leave for
Panama. Right where we would be going in a week's time. It can be a
tough trip down to Panama, takes about 3-5 days ( depending how fast
you go) you have the full trade winds right on your side with the
Caribbean rolling into the same side, so unless you are lucky you
neen to plan on it being windy with a stong sea running.

John Pulled out Sunday Feb 24th morning about 6am, looking at the
weather it looked like he was in for a nice trip, the forecast
looked like 15 knots from the NE all the way to Panama.

Five days after John left we were getting Reverie ready to go, wind
was up a little as was the rain squalls but we were ready to move.
When we reach Panama we will transit the Canal and sometimes there
is a wait, usually 1 week but sometimes it can move out to 5
weeks!!!. We thought we would check Johns website for an update on
his trip down to Panama and if he mentioned anything about the
transit wait as he should be well there by this time.

Logging into his website www.adventurecarioca.com

we were shocked
to read his ordeal. On the 4th day he had some engine problems,
while looking at the problem it seems that he may have been "knocked
down" he unfortunately dislocated his shoulder and was unable to fix
the engine or manage the sails on the boat. With what must have
been a terrifying night he had to abandon Carioca to be rescued by a
Ship coming up from Panama. John is alright but Carioca was last
seen quite submerged in heavy seas.

When we read this we both felt sick in the stomach - what an
ordeal to go through and to leave your boat, killer decision. We
read this the day before we were to leave for Panama. We couldn't
leave, it just felt all wrong.

More soon.

cheers

J&J