Willie's Adventures Sailing and Fishing

After all the fretting about whether there would be enough wind to set off , we departed Esmeralda today at about 12.30 in light winds as forecast. However, within a couple of hours the winds were gusting from 25 kts on the beam. While we were in the process of shortening sail, Myra’s fishing line got taken by something big and no-one noticed. By the time we did notice all the line was out and the fish ,which was big, was being towed behind the boat. Inevitably the line broke and she lost the lot. Not good when that was the whole supply of 200 lb breaking strain line. Looks like my system of rod and line is going to have to turn up trumps if we are to be eating more fish. We were slightly caught out by the strong winds. We had rigged a light wind sail called a genneker but it ended up just getting in the way and it was a three man job on a rolling deck to lower it and pack it away even though it was furled and not in use. The good news is that our average speed is up around 6.5 knots which is a great start to chewing up some of the 900 or so miles we had to do before setting out. The watch system is now in place and it is about 19.30 and dark as I write this. My next watch is from 3am to 6 am tomorrow which means I will catch the sunrise. The temperature is in the high 20s centigrade so it is shorts and a T shirt 24 x 7. Unless the wind drops we will not stop now until we reach our anchorage in San Cristobal. We should start making water tomorrow . Let’s hope that works with no hitches.

More later…

Some of our welcoming party on Esmeralda

Esmeralda's minister for tourism and trade

We spent a bit of a rolling night at anchor and awoke to another hot still morning. I think I said before that we all turn in at about 20.30 because it is dark. I try to read but pretty much fall asleep straight away. That means I am fully awake by about 0430 when I get up and go out and look at the stars. They are incredible, even here where there is still a small amount of background light. The milky way is clearly visible but the normal constellations we see in the UK are not there. No pole star or plough, so I am trying to learn the new ones here. I have a great app on my i-pad which tells me what I need to know. Venus is the brightest in the sky followed by Jupiter . Mars actually does look slightly red which again you can’ t see back home. The one to navigate on here is the Southern Cross which is low and just west of south. One I have not seen before and which is magnificent is Scorpio. We took the dinghy out today and visited the local village of Esmerlda. When we anchored yesterday this guy paddled out about half a mile to say hello and ask did we want to buy any fruit. We said possibly and he paddled back and reappeared a bit later with papaya pineapple and bananas. When we approached the beach today in the dinghy he was there to meet us and give us the grand tour. The people were all very friendly and none of the tourist rip off stuff I have seen elsewhere. Beers 85 cents, cheaper than Panama. There are a couple of photos which will help capture the atmosphere. In Panama, I went to the equivalent of the pound shop and bought lots of colouring books, pencils, sharpeners, etc etc to give away to the kids. I took some today and a few of the kids were very happy.Thanks for the idea Jeremy if you are out there. Back to the question in hand which is when are we going to launch off. Answer is I don’t know. We will try to pick up a weather forecast later this evening by radio. The way the radio works, the signal only tends to get through at night so we will have fresh data in the morning. We don’t really want to put to sea unless there is sufficient forecast wind that we can sail most of the way. It is about a further 800 miles and with luck will take about 7 days. Fingers crossed for tomorrow. I have been gone for just over three of my 15 weeks so am keen to crack on. More later….

Today is 21st March. I have been here 3 weeks so far. Cruising offshore is not like the flotilla sailing we have been doing in the Med. if there is no wind in the Med you just motor to the next place. Here, if there is no wind you just stay put until some wind shows up. There are always plenty of jobs to do around the boat. Today we got out a light wind sail called a Gennaker and rigged it. We are expecting to do a lot of sailing with the wind coming more or less from behind us. This sail will be useful for that. It is likely that we will fly the genoa out to port and the Gennaker to starboard with no mainsail when the conditions are right. All this is good stuff for me as I have very little experience of rigging and sailing these configurations. The rest of the day will be reading or possibly a bit of fishing either just around the boat or in the dinghy.

Well, we finally set sail from Panama around 10.30. We motored out using the channel that the huge ships use. It was low tide so there was not much traffic. Once we cleared the channel we found about 15 knots of wind on the beam and set all three sails. The electric winches will take a little getting used to but they make the process of raising and lowering the sails incredibly easy. No need for Hosey knots or any of that malarkey. The boat sailed beautifully making 7 or sometimes 8 knots with virtually no heeling. We trolled lures looking for tuna or wahoo but no success. We dropped anchor as planed at Isla Contadora around 5 pm and settled down to a St Patrick’s day dinner of Willie’s chicken curry. According to the guide book we are anchored by chance off the only nudist beach in all of Panama. It’s name translates to ‘Swedish Woman’s beach. I haven’t seen her yet . The one fly in the ointment was the news that Ireland had gone down heavily to England at the rugby in Twickenham. So Mike, Richard, Trevor, Kev, Phil A, Chris, John B et al enjoy your day in the sun and I am glad I wasn’t there to watch it. There is still a bit of light pollution here because this island is populated, however the sky was spectacular and bodes well for later in the trip.

We went to bed around 8.30 and got up just after it got light around 6 am. While we were having breakfast and trying to decide what we wanted to do today we noticed fish busting the surface close to the boat. Frantic race to untie and launch the dinghy so that Florian and I could take my spinning rod and have a go. First couple of attempts failed. We got too close with the outboard and put them down. Next attempt put us amongst them but no takes. I knew that they were tuna so off with the wire leader and straight to 35 lb mono. Next time we got in range we had a tug but no hook up. Very frustrating. Next time wham , a nice 3.5 kg Bonito. Shortly after another, so back to the boat to fillet them and hand over to Myra who had her recipe books at the ready. The trip has a long time to run but what a fantastic start. More later.

Sailing is about as exact as fishing. Last night, in the middle of the night our skipper came to me and said he was not ready to go. There was a pump that cools the generator that we replaced this week, but he had no spares. Also we were short on battery water and bodge tape. So today was the final ,final provisioning day. We are off tomorrow. It says here. Anyhow what do you think of my old salty crust beard. Comments welcome. Bye the way Trevor, I know that Ireland will beat England on St Patrick’s day at Twickenham, or I will eat the underpants that I am not wearing.

Engine is fixed and serviced, we are shopping for the last of the fresh produce and after taking on fuel and water tomorrow morning we will be off for the shake down sail to the Las Perlas islands which are about 35 miles away. First stop is Isla Contadora. This is a 35 mile day sail and will be a useful introduction to sailing this ketch. It is a very well equipped boat with mainsail in mast reefing and a furling headsail. Both these have all electric winches which is a new thing for me. We will do a second day sail within the Las Perlas and providing that goes well we will be off to the Galapagos, which is about 1000 miles and around a 10 day sail. More news later.

We go through the canal tomorrow so all the little jobs need finishing off today. We are going through in one hop which means we finish up on the Pacific side at about 2 am looking for a mooring somewhere. Despite the fact that the owners of the boat have been through the canal twice so far, they are still a little nervous. Things can go wrong when the massive locks are filling and emptying, that can damage the boat or worse. I am looking forward to getting on the move so the next week in Panama finalising provisioning and doing another raft of last minute maintenance and checking of spares will see me champing at the bit to get moving and sailing the boat. There is a bit of a fishing competition shaping up. Myself with a lot of fancy lures that I have sourced in component form and rigged myself, versus a long thick line with the finger of a marigold washing up glove and a hook. I was very happy yesterday when we managed to install a rod holder for my gear aft on he port side. We just need to get the rest of the sushi kit in Panama and get catching and noshing.

The trip throught the canal proved very eventful. We left the marina in a force 8 gale which even made unberthing quite difficult. On the way across the big inner harbour we discovered that the engine would not deliver more than 1800 rpm which meant that we could only make 2 knts into the headwind. We had a couple of miles to motor before reaching the anchorage where we had to wait for our advisor who helps pilot you through the canal. While we were waiting for him we tried several things to see if we could make the engine perform properly.Unfortunately none of those worked, but fortunately the wind was behind us for the transit and off we went. The whole thing is an amazing feat of engineering. There are three locks on the way up. You share a lock with a merchant ship which doesn’ t fill the whole space. In our bit on the way up there were three yachts, a catamaran and two monohulls. You all get joined together in a sort of raft and each corner of the raft is tied to the top of the lock. When they start filling the lock there is a lot of turbulence and you need to work as a team with the people on the other boats to make sure you manage all the lines so that your raft stays off the lock walls and doesn’t spin around. As you go up you are rewarded with better and better views of the Atlantic coast dropping away beneath you.

At the top of the locks on the way up, you emerge into a very big lake called Lake Gatun. The channel was marked all the way through and it was dark before we arrived at any of the down locks. I think there were four of them, which we transited uneventfully. On emerging we continued further down the channel to our anchorage at La Playita.

At La Playita we are at anchor about 400 yards outside the marina which makes everything quite difficult when it comes to shopping and socialising. There have been lots of jobs to do on board in final preparation for setting off. The four major ones so far have been : reprogramming the instruments that record how much battery power remains and how well the generator is recharging the batteries, fixing leaks in the rubber dinghy, fixing a faulty switch for lowering and raising the anchor and fixing a useful little instrrument that measures the amount of anchor chain that is outside the boat. All those have gone well and the engineer showed up today to service the engine and hopefully fix the faulty turbo which is restricting our power.

The other thing that happened today was that we moved to a mooring in Balboa Yacht Club. That means that we are serviced by a little launch that brings us in and out so no need for the dinghy for now. Once we leave here, there are no more marinas and our only means of reaching land will be the dinghy. Also here we have internet access which is why I am bashing off such a long post. The mooring is interesting. We are only about 100 meters from the main shipping channel exiting the canal into the Pacific. We are also only a few hundred meters downstream of the Bridge of The Americas. The photo shows a little of what it is like.

Tomorrow we finish servicing the engine and get more provisions. We are trying to provision the boat for about 4 months, so there is food stuffed everywhere. Having said that each cupboard or locker or store under the floor has a number and a corresponding list of contents which are listed on a laminated sheet, so if you are the cook, you should be able to find things without continually asking.

This is the season for doing this passage and a lot of yachts and catamarans are gathering here to make the crossing to Australia or New Zealand. There is a sort of social group called ‘ The Pacific Puddle Jump’ which aims to offer support and organise socials along the way. We are signed up to it and came to a party to kick it off here on Saturday afternoon. We got our flag and had our picture taken.

I will try to do a final post before we cast off. After that posts will depend on the availability of internet. I hope to keep an off line diary and upload it when I can. With a bit of luck, we will be on our way in a few days.