Pacific 2019: Panama to the Galapagos
Panama Canal Transit then on the the much-awaited Galapagos Islands!
Shelter Bay Marina, Colon, Panama 18 – 22 March
I rejoined Willem to prepare to embark on our second ocean crossing together…
Panama Canal Transit 22 – 23 March
You need to have four line handlers when transiting the Panama Canal. I’ll be one of them and Willem arranged for Jesse, a sailing friend he met earlier in the season, and Chris, the neighbor boat waiting for parts, to join us. We hired the last line-handler from the agent arranging the transit for us. Boats transiting from east to west were anchoring overnight in Lago Gatun (Lake Gatun) and then proceeding the second half of the way the following day – much preferred (at least for me) to going through non-stop. In addition to the line handlers (4 including me), we had an advisor, plus we had a trainee as well, so we were seven on board all together for two days. All BIG eaters – I was making sandwiches and handing out snacks all day in-between meals!
The actual transit was interesting and a great experience. We were rafted up to two other sailboats and placed in the “nest” (how they refer to the box/cell that floods or drains to raise/lower the boats). We then proceeded as a single unit with the center boat providing propulsion and the other boats – port and starboard – adjusting steerage left and right to maintain position. As we proceed in, line handlers ashore throw lines with “monkey’s fists” (a hard, weighted knot wrapped in line) to the boat. Had we not been previously warned to cover our solar panels with cushions, we may have had one land there and break it, as we heard they actually sometimes target unprotected panels… really?… not sure, but better safe than sorry. We had one slight near miss of another nature when the yacht on the port side didn’t pull in the lines quickly enough and we almost hit the wall. There isn’t much room for maneuvering three boats tied together.
Anchoring in the lake over night was both festive and relaxing, with a beautiful sunset and nice pasta Bolognese, made by Jesse who is also a chef as well as a sailor. All five (the two advisors left) slept soundly and were ready for day two – 30 miles across the lake then through the last set of locks.
We needed to motor the entire way. During the second day Luis, our professional line handler and someone who should have known better, used the toilet and instead of using toilet paper he used kitchen towels. He stopped up the entire system and poor Willem spent hours taking it apart and cleaning it out. Awful! Beyond stuffing up the toilet, he didn’t tell anyone about it so it wasn’t until the next person needed to use it that the mess was discovered. Definitely a low-light of the transit.
In the Miraflores lock, we were in front in the nest. We had to wait for a tanker to pull up behind and join us. While there, we got online and onto the page that shows images from the live webcam in the canal. So, we were in the nest and able to see a live picture of us in there!!! Once through, we dropped off the advisor and line handler along with the huge pile of lines and fenders rented through the agent. We proceeded on to La Playita, an anchorage just past Balboa. We stayed there for two weeks provisioning and preparing to set out into the Pacific. I also made a quick trip to Florida to pick up parts that wouldn’t have made it to AZ in time.
La Playita, Panama City to Las Perlas Islands, Panama 12 – 15 April
One of the best things about anchoring in La Playita was the daily visits by pelicans… lots of pelicans! We enjoyed seeing them each day and once there was a total feeding frenzy right by the boat! We also had some land neighbors we liked very much…
On my last visit in Panama, after my voyage from Aruba, I had a lovely Uber driver named Rafael. He was interested in hearing about my sailing (as much as I could communicate with my limited Spanish) and he gave me his number for when I returned. We stayed in touch and he invited Willem and me to his home for dinner and to meet his family. They were lovely and Willem was so sweet, playing with the kids.
After fueling up and picking up our fumigation report (we checked out the day prior), we were ready to set sail. Willem suggested we sail, or rather motor, slowly over night rather than going to a nearby island as we had originally discussed. We arrived in Chicicime Bay at day break and anchored with no one around except the hundreds of pelicans (even more than at La Playita)!!!! We spent two nights and went exploring up river with the dinghy. Despite hearing otherwise, there was no cell service and I had a moment of panic when Willem said Iridium deletes inactive accounts after one year without use. That would mean no way to set up a new account and only phone calls to communicate. Luckily, both our accounts were still alive and well when we checked.
Las Perlas Islands, Panama to San Cristobal Islands, Galapagos 15 – 24
Day 1:
And we’re off! On our way to a dream come true – at least for me. We lifted anchor and were on our way by 13:00. We said goodbye to our dozens of pelican friends and motored out into the Bay of Panama. We were able to sail for most of the day in glorious conditions, and just a little off our desired course. Willem went below to rest and then came three separate groups of dolphins to join us and totally delight me! They were gray with speckles, and all very wonderful. There were so many that it seemed as if the water was boiling with them. And then, as if that wasn’t enough joy, a big ray jumped up out of the water and dove back down. I saw about 3 others at the surface with just the tips of their wings visible above the water line. Wow!
We had a nice relaxing dinner in the cockpit and then after cleaning up I went below to sleep – 20:00 – 24:00 – until my watch. That’s when all the fun started… well, not that much fun in fact. It went from mellow and the wind dropping to very wild and crazy! Willem woke me at 21:00 to help him set a reef in the sail. He waited a bit longer than he should have because he was also in the middle of the shipping lane with heavy traffic at the time. The winds were at 25 knots and we were in the shipping lanes… did I mention that we were in the shipping lanes to/from the Panama Canal?… a little busy? Something went wrong with the process and the cars on the mast (they attach the sail to the mast for hoisting and lowering the sail) jammed, so the main sail wouldn’t lower properly. Willem tried to loosen them while I held the boat in position into the wind and the waves. We both got swamped. He couldn’t fix the main so tried deploying the cutter sail (smaller forward sail just behind the jib/genoa) just for stability, but that was blocked by the spinnaker pole we had attached to the dinghy to stow. So, we unfurled a small patch of the genoa. The boat was rocking strongly side to side and taking waves over the side from time to time. We were both exhausted and it was 23:30. I had only slept an hour and I had only 30 minutes left before my watch. I asked Willem if I could sleep an hour, but although I laid down, I couldn’t sleep due to the rolling. Still, the rest helped and I was able to take my watch. Willem went down below at 00:30 and also couldn’t sleep. When I went below at 04:00, I was so tired that I slept despite the roll. I woke at 06:45 and although I could have slept until 8, I went up and told Willem to go get some sleep.
Day 2:
The wind and waves have backed down and we are motoring beside the shipping lane, which we’ll cross again at 90°, a little further south. I had a nice (quick) shower to rinse off the remaining salt from body and hair, made a BIG cup of coffee, and had some of the delicious yogurt Willem makes for us. Willem was able to repair the sail cars on the mast, so we reefed and were back in business for the afternoon. We motored then sailed then motored again. The sunset was lovely, orange with diffuse cloud cover, but not nearly as beautiful as the moonset later that evening. From 21:00 on, we were able to sail… a lovely, comfortable and steady pace. I didn’t have to touch the sails at all and could focus my full attention (well almost my full attention – still checked the plotter and horizons) on gazing at stars. There is nothing like seeing stars in a place without any light pollution.
Day 3:
A beautiful morning, sailing slowly but moving forward none-the-less. The fruit all ripened at once, despite what the vendors promised, so we had a huge plate of delicious papaya, banana, cantaloupe, pineapple and mango… yum! We got updated waypoints from MetBob (our weather router) and are continuing on a mostly westerly course, to keep wind in the sails and avoid an area of counter current. Onward and onward!!! We were visited by two different types of booby birds, one brown and the other either blue-footed or red, hard to tell as feet are not visible in flight.
From lovely and calm during the day, it became a stormy night and pretty scary! We had major thunder storms most of the night with lightning – including a significant strike less than a mile from the boat – that’s WAAAAAY too close for comfort!!! We put GPS, phones, and computers in the oven and unplugged as much of the critical electronics as possible, including charts and AIS. So, if there were any other boats out there, we’d need to rely on visuals and their lights. It was my watch but thankfully Willem stayed awake and in the cockpit in case the wind came up strongly with the rain and we needed to run with the wind. It was a long night and when the lightning bolt hit so close to the boat, we decided to go below for safety. We napped on and off a little in the salon, ready to spring up on deck if we needed to. Yikes!… did I mention that was really scary?!!!!
Day 4:
It was still rainy, but there wasn’t any more lightning this morning, thankfully. We also didn’t have much wind. We have over a knot of current against us, so we logged only a scant 60+ miles yesterday. Normally, we should make at least 120-140 miles in a day. Hopefully the situation will improve and we find some good sailing wind, or my friend Michele is going to be waiting for us to show up in the Galapagos rather than the other way around! We are waiting for our next update from MetBob… hopefully he has some good routing for us! Somehow it seems like there’s always stuff to do and I haven’t made any progress in my books.
It’s a little past 17:00. Willem is resting and the seas are flat as could be. Good thing we have lots of diesel fuel! We are currently only doing about 3 knots speed. That means we could be walking to the Galapagos faster than we are sailing, LOL!
Days 5 – 7:
Finally, on days 6 and 7 we have wind from an advantageous direction – or at all! We are sailing more or less close to our course and we have gotten past the halfway point. It isn’t so much that we don’t want to be at sea longer than planned, but somehow the expectations of a 7-day passage turning into almost two weeks is surprising and at times makes the passage feel endless. At other times, and especially when sailing and not burning lots of diesel with motoring, it feels lovely and then “who cares” if we’re delayed by a few days or a week. Really glad that Michele has now changed her plans so that she’ll fly in on May 7th. No pressure then to get there in a hurry and that will give us time to rest and clean up the boat before she comes.
We are now at about 2° N so the storms we encountered are behind us. The sun and wind are wonderful and the stars at night twinkle brightly until the moon rises and shines a whole level of brightness higher… it makes it seem almost like daytime!
Day 8:
We are now at about 2° N so the storms we encountered are behind us. The sun and wind are wonderful and the stars at night twinkle brightly until the moon rises and shines a whole level of brightness higher… it makes it seem almost like daytime!
Another fine day and sailing. I’m not nervous any longer about our diesel supply. With less than 300 miles to go, we could easily motor the entire way if need be. We have been enjoying having booby birds along for the ride.
Another fine day and sailing. I’m not nervous any longer about our diesel supply. With less than 300 miles to go, we could easily motor the entire way if need be. We have been enjoying having booby birds along for the ride.
So yesterday, he was officially evicted and Willem spent at least two hours, maybe more, scrubbing. He still couldn’t get it entirely clean, so we have what seems like a permanent souvenir of Lefty’s time with us on board. But despite the eviction, Willem was totally sweet and deployed a light-weight spinnaker pole tied to the lifelines on the port side… this was done solely to expand our capacity for hosting weary boobies needing a rest and a ride. We had up to 8 on the bow at one time, but there was a lot of squawking and bickering, so now 7-9 should fit comfortably, lol! It’s 09:00 and currently we only have 2 up front that I can see – one may be hiding behind the genoa. They usually start coming in in the evening or during stormy weather. So far, all the boobies have been brown with red feet with two exceptions – one white with gray wings and yellow feet, the other was mottled gray. When do the blue-footed ones arrive, I wonder??
Day 9:
We crossed the equator today!!! First time crossing north to south! I crossed south to north in 2013 heading from Indonesia to Singapore, but somehow crossing into the “South Pacific” is somewhat more spectacular and magical! My sailing dream destination – South Pacific and Galapagos!!!! Yippee! We celebrated with hugs, coconut rum, and chocolate! The sailing remains amazing and we have topped 6 knots at times. We’re making up some time and distance and should arrive tomorrow!
We decided, based on timing and daylight hours, that we weren’t going to make it into the harbor until 0-dark-hundred, so anchored on the north side of San Cristobal island. We weren’t technically allowed to do so, but we also needed to check/clean the bottom of the boat before arrival and inspection, so thought it best to do that first thing the next morning and then proceed to the south end of the island and the harbor for check-in.
As soon as we set the anchor, there were sea lions swimming about and checking out what we were up to. We celebrated our unofficial arrival with coconut rum and chocolate (are we detecting a theme here?… my influence mostly) and an amazing blanket of stars above. We slept well and deeply after the tiring passage.
Day 10:
The Sea Ranger 7 woke us in the morning, telling us we needed to go to the harbor immediately. We managed another two hours and Willem cleaned the waterline before we headed off. We had a lovely sail down the west side of the island, did a ring around “Kicker Rock” (sleeping lion rock), which we didn’t know at the time was one of the most noteworthy icons of the Galapagos, then proceeded on for the check-in process.
We didn’t even have the anchor set when a water taxi with our agent and officials came calling. We asked for an additional 5 minutes so we could get situated and they said they’d be back. About an hour later we had 7 people on board – two inspectors, two divers, two port officials, and our agent. They needed multiple copies of a bunch of documents (our agent should have been prepared with those), inspected inside (briefly) and outside under the boat, then we filled out a bunch of forms and got our permit and passports stamped.
After all the hectic bustle of check-in and then photos of everyone together, we went with the water taxi to the shore and our agent’s office. It’s sort of a small open-front vendor space with mail-o-gram and two tiny desks… not terribly official looking, but what the heck, we’re not in Kansas anymore Toto. After almost two weeks afloat I was rocking like crazy on land, but happily!
Read all about our time in The Galapagos! and then continue along on our crossing to French Polynesia!