more travels

to panama and back...

we sailed again to san blas in panama. some 240 miles west of cartagena to one of the best and most beautiful places we saw in our voyage.

we stayed in san blas several weeks with family. it was awesome, except for the weather which brought many bad storms… we had some nasty squall every other day. but still it was as beautiful as we remembered it from our first visit back in 2009 before we crossed the canal. we ate a lot of lobster, although substantially more expensive than a few years ago. the fishing was not so abundant this time; in fact the kunas were not selling fish anymore. we met other boaters but the place now seems to be packed with sailors that bring backpackers from colombia rather than families cruising around. definitely a different atmosphere from what we remembered. maybe this is common when you visit the same places a second time around. or maybe the place has really changed. the fact is we did not feel so welcomed anymore by the locals. they expected money but not in exchange for much. I guess they are and feel entitled to charge for people cruising in their paradise…   

 

after panama, we sailed back to colombia and are still here in cartagena enjoying land life.

fishing in the nearby islands

esteban is getting better with the spear gun!! the problem is that the waters in the pacific, at least in this area, are very cold and the visibility is poor, but at least we are catching something!!! near contadora there are a few islands, one of them is bartolome and we went a few times by dinghy to catch some food. luckily esteban was with the spear. i tried bottom fishing with no luck, so at least one of us was catching something... i hope the next post will be with a picture of us getting a big tuna in the pacific.. until then... more chicken and canned tuna, i guess.....!

here is a picture of one of those small islands. they are all beautiful and mostly inhabited. fish or no fish the dinghy trips were very nice!!

welcome to the ham world

or welcome again, because i was already introduced to the ham world when getting the radio operator licenses back in florida. the truth is that i never really used them and the operation of our single side band radio was limited to the weather reports and some emails.... until we decided to change e-mail providers and our radio was giving us some problmes. it was when we came to contadora looking for Gunther, a ham aficionado and a great person that for three or four days spent hours with us in his house teaching us about the radio we have and how to actually use it. now we can get news on board, talk to other hams all over the world and still get our weather reports as we sail. thank you gunther and suzanne for the wonderful days in your house and the wealth of information you gave us. we will be contacting you from remote areas for sure!!!!

contadora, las perlas

contadora is one of the many islands of the perlas archipelago. the islands are 30 miles south from mainland panama. the name contadora is after the spaniards that used this island to count the pearls before they were sent to europe. the island is full of huge houses, little restaurants and pretty beaches. it was a perfect stop to refill on diesel and some food before our trip to galapagos.

leaving panama city

believe it or not this is the tide change in our anchorage. what you see in the picture is all covered with water every six hours.


there must be at least a 15 feet change of tide every six hours here…. no wonder why some people have wheels next to the outboards of their dinghies. they might have to roll them out through a newly formed beach…


but tide or no tide we have enjoyed panama city, and literally the city. we have decided to go to the movies and a couple of restaurants and generally do things we might not do for a while. in about a couple of days from the day i am writing this we will sail to las perlas (the last archipelago we will visit in panama) and from there maybe a 10 day sail to galapagos. after that, we will cross the pacific for over a month towards the french polynesia. so not much civilization from now on…. precisely why the cinema has been so wonderful in the last couple of days. i will continue updating the blog. just be patient because I might not have the same internet access for the next few months.

until the next port…!

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! :-)