It's our first night out on our way to the Galapagos and we've just finished a big spaghetti bol. The breeze has only just filled in after a day of variable winds from mainly around the west to north west. We have only been able to manage from 4-8kts at times and have now began to sit on 6-7kts steady as the winds filled in to about 250 true giving us around 195 COG. Ez departed Spirit in Panama city and it's Johnny and I onboard now. Were doing the watches in two hour shifts from 8pm until 6am and will divide the day time hours as we feel. Yesterday (Thursday the 9th) we departed Panama city after provisioning the day before. We were going to leave the day we provisioned but we had a call from a vessel near by that asked if we could postpone incase there was some parts we could take with us to the Las Perlas Islands where we spent last night. There was an Australian yacht that was there and in need of a new seal for there main engine cooling pump. As it turned out they didn't have the parts and we were off the following morning early after a weather check. We got away from Panama about 10:00am and it was another morning of variable winds until about 20nm from the Las Perlas group when the wind filled in from the north west at around 5-10kts. It ended up being a magical sail into Isla Pedro Gonzales where we sailed right into the anchorage dropping the sails about a mile out. Flat calm water with a steady breeze and Spirit doing 7-9kts it was bliss. It was such a nice sail that I was able to get into the dinghy and get some shots of Spirit ghosting along in the light airs and glassy seas. The small village on the island where the cruising guide offered two anchorages was not so nice looking so we sailed past to the following bay where there was also another anchorage located. Once around the corner the bay opened up to a gorgeous clear sandy beach that was lined with hundreds of palms. It was a magical spot and with the flat calm water it made a great stop for the night. Johnny and I scouted around in the tender and had a nice walk along the beach spotting a sea snake making it's way out on to the beach, old building foundations, flower gardens behind the beach and a wonderful little spot that had been cleared with flowers a few seats and a hammock, a small peace of paradise. Sunset was spent enjoying a few beers and some fine dinner that we had kept from great little Columbian restaurant the night before in Panama. Off to bed early after a big feed and few beers ready for today's departure. Last night was also the first night for our new anchor set up. In Panama we dragged anchor as we lost our CQR. To try and make anchoring as easy as I could I had the anchor on a clip that came undone. It just proves if it can happen it will. So back to the drawing board we went. We now have a Fortress 27FX on 80ft of 10mm chain and then 100ft of 14mm three strand nylon. It's much easier to pull onboard now as the fortress holding power is great for it's weight but it's still bloody hard. We definitely need a anchor winch as we don't even have a bow roller getting it aboard isn't fun. We have also set up the anchor on a float so we an retrieve the float first hauling the anchor aboard then pulling up the chain to reduce the total weight being lifted and it seemed to work well today. When we have some wind and wave action will be the time to tell how well it works. Friday 10th We departed about 1000 after a nice breakfast. This place is so testing with the light winds being so variable. It's just crazy. I have never seen such large areas of no wind. We seem to have it come in for an hour then die out. Then an hour later it'll come from the other direction for 30 minutes and then die out, we'll get all excited when we see some cloud the wind will pick up rain starts then it's over. This has been the day all day today. With grey all around some sun in the afternoon and a great little burst from a squall giving us just over 18kts which is a new record for the trip since leaving St Maarten. Not bad as it was around 16kts of true breeze at about 40 degrees apparent. Johnny was on watch and just about fell over as the boat took off. As with everything else out here it didn't last long and five minutes later we were drifting again. Tonight is a clearer night we have some steady breeze just settling in now, and we're doing wind speed, which is around 4-5kts and we're on the rhumb line. Saturday 11th Well that didn't last long. It's now 0200! for those that can't read 24hr time that's am! The wind died out hours ago and we've been motoring along at about 1500rpm giving us about 3-4kts. Johnny had a bit of rain while on watch and I've just had a ship pass behind us by a small margin. Amazing how you can be in the middle of nowhere and have a 1000ft ship bearing down on you at 21kts. And the ship just happened to show up in the squall on our STB side about 13nm away. This is where the AIS comes into it's own. Never did we realize the amount it would help out on this trip home. As the radar couldn't see the ship so far away within the squall the iPad and iNavX with AIS integration was awesome. Instantly we could see the closest point of approach, the bearing the ship would be at that time and also the amount of time before this all happened and this all happens instantaneously. Giving us this info allowed us to increase our speed for about 15mins so we passed a safe 1.5nm in front. This is about the smallest limit most commercial boats want you pass ahead of them. From memory it's about .7 nm astern and 1.2 ahead. In the photo above you can see that our AIS is receiving data from ships over 70nm away. Unbelievable! May have had something to do with us being 100ft above sea level? even though we were able to get even further once we were on the Pacific side where it was showing ships as far away as the San Blas back up to the North of us. Sunday 12th Clear skies today and in the morning we had some great sailing with about 8-10kts of boat speed. It lasted until the afternoon when it slowly disappeared into nothing which we have now. We had some kind of seabird stay onboard last night and it was still there in the the morning along with the dragonfly we spotted on the bow rail. Will be interesting to see if they're with us again in the morning. Did some laundry today mainly boxer shorts and tea towels. Refilled the diesel and we now have around 80lts remaining. Glad we bought two more jerry cans in Panama. Monday 13th Another really nice calm day. Unfortunately no wind and what there is on and off is variable and testing. Seems to go as fast and it comes and never stays in longer than an hour. The calm weather means we can cook and clean and living onboard is easy. Even though it's frustrating we try not to complain about the lack of wind as it can always be so much worse. Made a great curry for dinner and did some laundry and general tidying of the boat. Also started to read some of the many guides we have onboard for the Pacific. Tuesday 14th Later Monday afternoon the wind picked up and became steady from the south west. Put two reefs in the main when we spotted a large grey cloud south of us and then questioned why we were even thinking about sailing through it when we had so much ocean to cover. We tacked out away from it on a port tack and was clear a few hours later. It was a big system and for sure some weather in there. We're now making good 260 COG and have the wind tending south all the time. Just about on the rhumb line another 20 degrees south and we are sitting pretty. Man for such a short passage it's taking us sometime to get south. Swapped the paddle wheel over in the log as the old one was missing a blade. Hope to be able to get the B&G set up more accurately now. Wednesday 15th I think we may break a record here for the quickest boat to do the slowest passage from Panama to the Galapagos. There is no wind at all and we are going backwards, parked with no handbrake. Very testing and frustrating you can understand how they went crazy in the old days trying to get through the doldrums. Today we had some wind from the West and we were making great time compared to now. At one stage we were doing around 7kts VMG the best we have seen so far. Now as you can see from the screen shot above and below we are heading the wrong way flopping from side to side, if only we could harness the power of the flop to give us some forward momentum! our weather guru back in Australia says we should have 15-20kts from the south west at the moment and this is also what our latest grib files say, so much for weather forecasting? Better than a gale on the nose. I better put the kettle on! Today we had the wind go from 270 degrees to 370 degrees true in a matter of seconds. We had two reefs in the main and headsail up so it was a quick jibe over onto STB tack and off again all this going on in about 18kts of true wind with squalls all around. Then we decided to put up the staysail and to put another reef in the main as the seas were getting large starting to break a little and we needed to slow down a touch. Well that did it the wind died and we had the worst washing machine Johnny and I had seen with waves coming from three directions and us in the middle like being in a fight with the ocean. We yelled you've won! leave us along. Still out here flopping now! Hard to believe we have had variable winds all the way since the coast of Columbia three weeks ago. No more than a few hours of steady breeze, man can not wait to get into the trades and some stability. Thursday 16th The wind came in again strong but this time from the South East as it had been predicted for the last few days. And it seems to have settled in and become consistent at around 18kts true or 25-30 apparent. Crap weather no reports just wet, tired and wanting more then three hours sleep, also without the sound of the mast trying to come through the deck, which has returned with the rough weather. Below was an old forecast for the 16th was it was correct? Friday 17th After the strong winds that we had through Thursday today has been a great surprise. The weather file we received and the info from ashore has not been at all correct. We did have stronger winds than forecast but from different directions, not stable at all and it has been for different durations and strengths. Not as reliable as we have found it in the Atlantic and other regions. The wind strength began to subside yesterday afternoon and we had a few hours during the night where we parked. Earlier this morning the wind came in at about 10kts true and has been shooting us along from 8-10kts so we are finally making some good ground. As we get closer to the Galapagos there is more and more bird life around us. We had two birds land on the float bow yesterday but with the residual waves they were finding it hard to stay on and it was quiet a sight watching them land again and again trying their hardest to remain onboard. Saturday the 18th The wind that came in yesterday increased in the afternoon and we had a wet and wild ride during the night. It seems to be steady with direction and strength at around 160-70 true and 16-22kts apparent. We were just off the breeze with the apparent angle being from 30-46 degrees and when it cracked off away went Spirit with speeds from 12-14kts and a constant 10kts. Johnny and I have been hand steering since last night when the autopilot dropped out on Johnny. I'll have to look into it when we arrive. We powered along for the last 24hrs doing an average speed of around 10kts and getting into Academy Bay on Santa Cruz Island around 1400 local time Saturday. From what we had read and seen on the charts this bay looked like a pretty poor anchorage. Open to the prevailing South winds and swell. Looks can be deceiving so we thought we'd better head in to look for ourselves before making our minds up whether to head to another of the islands. Also our agent was here and the services ashore offer more, which made it our preferred place to be.
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We have spent the last 4 full days in the Marina awaiting our transit of the canal. Before arriving in Panama we did a lot of research on the formalities and tried to find other people experiences so as we could prepare as best we could for our own. Given the large amount of info on the net and also personal experiences running yachts overseas. It was decided that the best way would be to pay for an agent whom knew the ins and outs and that would take all the pressure and responsibility off us, leaving us to enjoy the pool here, do some odd jobs and some small provisioning. Eric from Centenario was recommended from a few people so we decided to go with him. So far our passage and experience has been great. He has taken on everything delivering the ten tires to the boat two days before our passage along with the four lines of 125ft needed for the canal. The canal measurer was here the day after our arrival and everything has proceeded smoothly. As we don't have a holding tank onboard he also provided us with a porta poti. He even drove us the thirty minutes into Colon to see the Port Captain as he wasn't happy with our securing points. As Spirit is a race boat she has no cleats, fairleads or real securing points. We plan to run lines through snatch blocks and back to the four winches in the aft cockpit. We spoke of this to him and described our plan, we also took some blocks along with their working loads into him so he could see that they were indeed strong enough. It helped a lot when Johnny mentioned that the small line we gave him was stronger than steel. Hard for commercial people to understand the strength of some of the gear we have. It's so small it looks fragile but in reality it's incredible strong. The Port Captain was an American and I believe one of the last to remain here working with the Canal Authority. Once the Canal was handed back most of the American and foreign staff departed. The canal does fifteen transits daily in each direction. The new third locks to be opened in 2014 will allow for vessels up to 1,400 ft x 180 ft with a depth of 60 ft. So far the place has been a real surprise. Not sure I had the best image of this place but being here has changed that a little. The marina and services here are basic but it's kept nice and the service is good. Eric has saved us time and stress and with the port office and immigration also being here it has save time get our clearance and formalities done. For those doing the same passage here is a breakdown of how we proceeded with things and how much things have cost us so far. -Arrived at Shelter Bay Marina 0130 very easy to enter during night hours. We had rain and squalls and found it easy to slowly motor in. We just pulled into the easiest berth once we arrived. Our berth was around $70 USD a day plus around $10 a week for the Internet. Electricity and water are on top of this but we didn't use any so I'm not sure of the costs involved here. -The next morning after we arrived we registered with the Marina office and paid for seven days as thats the normal transit time. It only took 5 days though so we were refunded when we checked out. - We then cleared in with the Port Captain and immigration that are located right behind the marina office. - Eric has looked after all our transit details coming to the boat meeting. Then delivering the tires, ropes and our toilet all for $1,000 USD. This is the total that it has cost us on a 40ft x 35ft trimaran. The marina here has nice rainforest walks you can do. A great pool area and lounge that is air-conditioned up stairs with cable TV and excellent WiFi Internet. I also have to mention that the Internet here has been the best I have experienced in the a Caribbean. It's super fast, reliable and they have about ten hot spots through out so there is a signal from just about all points of the marina. There is a small chandlery here and also washers and dryers. The restaurant has a limited menu but the food is good and the breakfasts are cheap and really delicious with the staff always smiling and doing there best. We've heard of a few complaints being here but it's nothing that was really anything to bother about. We'll depart the marina about 1230 today for the flats anchorage where will sit for an hour or two before entering the locks at around 1600 we hope. We'll transit the first set of three locks in the afternoon today then stay in the lake over night before motoring through the lake tomorrow and then proceeding through the other locks later in the day. Sounds like fun I'll update you with more tomorrow. All went well for our first transit of the Gatun Lake Locks. It was a real experience with the water rising rapidly at around 4ft per minute for a total of about 40ft. The turbulence created from the water entering the locks through the bottom of the lock is crazy, this along with the ships prop wash when departing the lock made for some fun. We were very lucky as we can raise our centerboard and also Spirits weight of around 4 ton makes her easy to handle. The keel yacht in front did ok as well but you could see them getting pushed around a lot more and they also rolled a bit from the water surging in and pressing on there keel. At each end of the canal there is three locks. At the Colon end they are all together but at the Panama city end there is two sets the first one called the Pedro Miguel locks and then another two that are called the Miraflores locks. It's easy to do the last three into the Pacific as this is just a matter of easing your lines as you slowly get lowered within the lock. The Gatun is the harder one as your being raised and have to keep a good eye on your lines and be quick to shorten them up. We we able to run all our lines back to the cockpit and have them all with a dedicated winch so we could load them with more than just a hand pull. It worked great and the other thing that made it easy was that we were on our own in the lock not nested next to another yacht or tug boat, I think this was mainly due to our beam. We went through the Gatun locks at around 1800 hrs local time. So once through there was about a 4 mile scoot around to the mooring where we were to stay for the night. A bottle of champers was opened to celebrate some roasted chicken was devoured then it was off to bed as we had our advisor arriving around 0600 the next morning to get underway for the passage through the lake. It's roughly 30nm from one end of the lake to the other and with the fresh water being less dense than salt not only did Spirit have water lapping at her cockpit drains she was about half a knot slower. We were flat out trying to keep up with the other yachts but in the end did well and arrived in the middle of the pack. On the way through Gatun Lake we passed some huge ships with lengths of up to 1000ft. These had tug boats escorting them through. There was massive dredges in some parts and some huge amounts of work going on with maintenance and the new larger lock expansions. The main part of the lake is just amazing. It has the thickest jungle you could imagine and bird life and monkeys howling in the mornings. It was a real treat to be able to spend a night there. For the last three sets of locks all the yachts went through together. The two monohulls where nested together and the tris went through placed in the middle of the lock. This end was a breeze as the water exiting leaves very little disturbance and all that needed to be done was the lines eased as the water level went down. It was a surreal feeling to enter the Pacific ocean at the other end. When the final doors opened we all felt the pressure of the last few days preparation drop away and a new adventure had begun. It was another few miles down the channel to the Balboa yacht club where we dropped our two fantastic line handlers off and the ten car tires that Eric had arranged for us. We ended up not going into the dock but just dropping the gear and boys off in the dock tender along with the ten dollar fee for doing so. We then high tailed it around to Las Brisas the anchorage to the North East of the causeway just North of the Flormenco Marina. Its a great spot very well sheltered but with a bit of a soft muddy bottom. The local yachties there do a 0800 VHF net that has some great info on it. They operate on channel 74 and it's a must for any new yachts to the anchorage. We put a call out to see if anyone had an anchor for sale and ended up buying a new Fortress from a yacht while there. We anchored just behind Gorgidup Island in the Coco Bandero group. It's just surreal here with the water silky smooth and clear as can be. We are in about 30ft of water and the bottom is clear as can be. Went for a swim and had a few rums to celebrate our arrival. Soon after we were visited by Serapio a local Kuna Indian that offered his services basically he would bring whatever we asked for the next day. We ordered some diesel, lobster, fruits and he was on his way. He was very small as they're known to be and super friendly and outgoing. After a big dinner we all went to sleep outside on the nets until we had a huge rain storm pass over us. It was such a downpour I quickly got the buckets under the awning as best I could to catch the rain water. Much better to drink than the desalinated water we make onboard with less minerals in it. Woke this morning to glassed out seas all around, behind us two small perfectly placed palm lined islets and dark rainforest peaks on the mainland behind. High dark clouds and such quiet that you never seem to hear. It's so peaceful and calm here the feeling is hard to describe in words. Just imagine sitting on the aft nets after just waking to see an eagle ray glide past on the bottom while Ez swam above it. Ate an amazing breakfast of muesli and fresh fruit and then Serapio came by to deliver our fruit and diesel and take another order for some Kuna bread. We decided to move Spirit over behind the other island near by but still within the same group. Later on Ez and I decided to go for a snorkel while Johnny had a sleep. The coral health and fish life here is incredible. We spotted a large ray under a ledge then two lobster trying to hide further down the reef. There was large hard corals and many types of smaller soft corals. Moray eels and crabs. The bottom was mainly sea grass with coral beds surrounding each patch before the water dropped off deeper. On the way back to Spirit two dolphins surfaced. Ez and I grabbed our gear and jumped straight back into the water and found ourselves surrounded by these two inquisitive mammals. We swam around for about 20mins just floating on the surface with the dolphins sweeping around us in the water. They seemed to be playing with each other, swimming close and pressing into each other. We would loose site of them and but be able to hear there whistles, clicks and screams underwater then they would appear again flash by and disappear into the deep. What an amazing morning and incredible place. In the afternoon we had a nice visit from the local Kuna ladies that wanted to sell us some Molas which are stitched pattern work that they wear around the stomachs to increase their beauty. Here is one that we bought below. The ladies were great and we offered them a coffee onboard and then Johnny got into the dugout with them and headed for the shore. We chilled out in the afternoon and relaxed to the settling sun and some quiet tunes. Yesterday was another crazy day with weather. We decided to head to Rio Azucar near the mainland so we could head up the river and have a look. We first went to the town on the island to make sure it was ok to take outboard motors up the river as we had read that some rivers are too important to allow for the pollution of motors. As we pulled in we could see Serapio loading provisions onto his boat. He had two teenage Kuna boys helping him out and they offered to come up the river. At first we thought it was to have a ride to a village but later turned out they were being tour guides. Showing us different birds and navigating the river shallows and fallen trees with precision. There were many different kinds of birds with Johnny spotting a Kingfisher and also locals gathering fruits from there plots of land that were carefully cleared on the river banks and in the rain forests. After venturing a few miles the river shallowed and we pulled into the bank. Everyone walked up to the river a little while the guides in broke English and Spanish tried to explain something about a large mountain and mud slide? And a very big water fall with all types of animals. It was funny and frustrating not being able to converse with them. A must to learn some basic Spanish! The mountains were slowly being devoured by a huge dark cloud so we headed back to the dinghy and the small village to try and get back to the boat before the rain. It turned out we just made it back in time as the weather started to deteriorate quickly once back onboard so we headed off to what we thought would be an easy 7nm trip across the passage to the most eastern of the group called the Cayos Holandes. Not long after departure the rain came in hard and the wind increased inn the end we had wind from the south west to the north from 10-35kts and rain falling in blankets with no visibility. We were doing 6kts bare poled at one stage having to slow down and see if it would clear before we got close. Crazy place, crazy weather, underwater life is awesome and today we have had gorgeous weather with thunderstorms in the distance but nothing close just 10kts from the north. Wonderful! Ez swam into the reef that was behind the boat today with myself joining her about 20mins later and Johnny coming in in the dinghy just after me. It was about a 300ft swim into the shore and the water was deep. This is always when the thought of big things down there enters your head. I always try and think of other things and not get to worried but the thoughts always there. The reef was nice, kind of up and down in depth with no normal coral wall and deep water. We swam towards the island were Johnny had the dinghy and Ez was further on swimming out to the boat. I spotted some large Trevally and just after that two sharks! They swam straight in and buzzed me. Wasn't much fun so headed straight to some shallower water where I hailed Johnny to give us a lift back to the boat. On the way back he explained his reason for taking the dinghy was the thought of sharks! I'll stick Johnny in the future I think. Headed to Dog Island after this to snorkel the wreck there. This end of the group is really catering for the tourist. We've noticed beach restaurants on most of the small islands up here with tents and locals selling small items to the tourist. Tomorrow we'll head over to Provenir to try and clear in and will also get some fresh lobster and provisions. Well as it turned out they didn't want to know us in Provenir so we've headed out and will now make a fast paced trip down to Colon and the Shelter Bay Marina. After some major rain squalls and RAIN we made it down to Colon. It was about 1:30am when we pulled into Shelter Bay. So glad to be here after the trip down the wind was so all over the place. Really crazy here with one minute from the SE and then the next from the NW at 20kts just all over the place. Below you can see the AIS info on iPad. It shows all the shipping around us and their information, things like their destination, speed, name, length and what they are carrying are just some of the amazing things that can be obtained. Luckily most of them were at anchor! Stay tuned next the panama canal! The weather is looking great so we plan to head out in the morning around 10am after clearing out, having a nice big breakfast and checking the weather again. Our passage is clear from here and is about 1,000nm straight to the San Blas islands just to the east of Colon in Panama. We hope to manage about 200nm a day or more so should be there in 4-5 days. Also hoping for a nice light downwind run all the way but we'll have to wait to see what the wind gods give us. Below is a picture of the weather file we received today for our departure tomorrow. Looks perfect with the wind filling in from the east the further west we get. I'll be sure to update the blog with our news and goings on as much as possible. All the best for now. Spirit. |