the day of the tsunami

after crossing the canal i had to fly out of panama to argentina and miami, and so i did and esteban stayed on the boat. while in miami i woke up with the news of the earthquake in chile and the tsunami warning for all the pacific coasts… i was afraid but soon learned from the news that everything seemed to be ok. esteban on the other hand was on board without his radio operator, or gps handler or otherwise crew or mate…. all alone and woke up to see all boats leaving the anchorage and one sailor from the next boat screaming, tsunami, tsunami…! esteban brought up the anchor and prepared for the worse while taking the boat out several miles without having much news from land to let him know what was going on. He wrote this, in spanish only (sorry for those who can’t understand)….


Que puede asustar a un velerista mas que un Tsunami???

Por lo menos a mi nada, tal vez un huracán fuerza 5, pero lo sabríamos con varios días de anticipación.
Esta es mi historia, hablo en singular porque por suerte mi mujer se encontraba en Miami, bien lejos de esta escalofriante noticia.

crossing the panama canal, for real this time!!

this time we crossed the canal with puerto seguro. A scary but very exciting feeling of going to the pacific at last. We were given our turn for 4:00 pm to cross nested with other two sailboats. the one in the middle was s/v sea mist, a beautiful and big oyster steering for all of us with very nice canadians on board; to the starboard side was the second boat, s/v nica a bavaria with a very cool family from australia. we were the smallest boat on the port side and our crew was made of one danish, an american couple from california, and our panamanian canal advisor.



we tied all the boats together and went inside the first set of locks on the atlantic side (the gatun locks) at 6:00 pm behind a small colombian freighter named macondo. when we finished, we moored at the gatun lake and spent the night after a relaxing wine and a great conversation with all on board.

check out this video of one of the chambers of the gatun locks being filled up with water:


the next day we started at 6:00 am and motored across the gatun lake for 5 hours and after we went through the pedro miguel and miraflores locks in the afternnon. by 3:00 pm we had finished the crossing and anchored in panama city. a very rolly anchorage but we spent the night there very happy after having crossed the canal safely and without a scratch to the boat!!

leaving bocas and sailing to colon

My aunt vesna came to sail with us on what was one of the most splendid sails!! We said good bye to all our friends in bocas del toro and also in the red frog marina and left the bocas area on February 16. it was a 30 hour sail due east with 2 knots of current in our favor and 20 knots of wind blowing from the north. We were glad to have so great conditions, almost to the point we could not believe it! generally when sailing the conditions are all against. the wind is coming from the nose, when there is any, or the current is against, etc, etc… so it was surprising to see the boat making 7 and 8 knots on sail power alone!!

We arrived in colon and the wind from the north did not stop for days. vesna left and we stayed at shelter bay marina where we provisioned for the pacific and we also made the payments and errands to go through the canal without an agent!!!!!! So on top of saving 500 dollars for doing it ourselves, we prepared everything and crossed the canal only 5 days after having arrived at the cristobal port.

self tailing winches

remember that wreck back in san blas????


well, turns out the owners sold the wreck to the kunas and they in turn sold the winches from that boat to us, for a very GOOD price!!! and that is how we were able to upgrade from our standard winches to this self tailing ones. now, i can turn the winch handle with two hands and therefore adjust the genoa all by myself without needing esteban's strength all the time. this really improves our sailing!!!




so after carrying them from san blas and taking the old ones apart and selling them (so far only a pair, the other pair is still with us waiting for a new owner), we finally installed them as the last project in bocas del toro.





here you see esteban installing the last one (and badly needing a pair of new pants, don't you think?!)

solar panels

as the circumnavigation started we realized we needed to turn either the engine or the generator to charge the batteries more often than what we wanted. every hour of the engine or the generator represents diesel consumption and deterioration of belts, increase in frequency of oil changes, filters, etc... so we decided to go lighter on the budget and boost the charging power of the wind generator by also going solar. we found two 85 watt solar panels from the catamaran light speed in san blas, and purchased them for a good price. we carried them on board and placed them on deck initially only to find no free deck space to maneuver.



we finally decided to install them on top of the bimini which was the better place for direct sun light exposure and the better option considering the costs of materials and our boat size. We are quite happy with the installation. now we can only hope they will really work and provide the 9 amp average per hour as they are supposed to.

the second anchor roller

the circumnavigation started but the works on the boat never end. we are constantly doing maintenance on board and changing or improving systems. this project was in fact never finished and it was now time to get it done. we had purchased a second anchor roller back in florida to support our second anchor; a CQR of 35 pounds. the roller was shipped to colombia, where we thought we were going to tackle this project. turns out, the shipment was delayed and when we left colombia the roller, together with a box full of stuff, had not arrived. finally the roller arrived around christmas and we brought it back with us when we returned from argentina. now we just finished installing it and the CQR is nicely secured on its place instead of being stored in a place we would never dig it out of, specially in an emergency.






as far as anchors go, we are done!! we fixed the first roller with the bruce which was badly damaged after a storm in bahamas; we installed the second one for the CQR and; we now have our fortress on board, which we had left in miami... and believe it or not, was brought to us on a plane by garry and alex. from now on be careful when you offer to carry anything for friends or family when traveling. You never know…! someone might just take you up on the offer and ask that you to take a 20 pound anchor in your luggage! :-)