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
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