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