At Long Last - Paradise!

After 6 days and nights at sea and traveling over 800 nautical miles, we've finally arrived at our beloved Isla de las Mujeres. It is the culmination of a many years dream - to finally have the Sanotorini in the harbor. We dreamed about this day even before we owned her. Now it's real, dreams do come true!

This journey was the longest continuous period at sea since we left California. It was rough, but we were able to sail four out of the six days - at times surfing down waves over 10 knots. We were glad to have Canaan as crew to help with this part of the trip.

My friend from junior high school, Laurie is coming to stay here with us for a few days, then we'll head for the Florida Keys next week. It's a two day/night sail - about 320 miles. We're ready to get back to the US and start our new life in Florida. 

We're Through!

We left Panama City at 8:30 am on 2/15 after our Canal Advisor William arrived on board. In addition to Tom and I, our crew included Canaan (who joined us in Golfito, Costa Rica), Michael from Switzerland and Laurie and Damon Jones from Austin, TX. We had an amazing two day journey though the canal.

We ended up being side tied to tugs both days. The first day it was a commercial tug and we ended up with some damage on the toe rail when a large wave from the freighter in from of us slammed us into the tug. Fortunately, it's not too bad and Tom said he can fix it. We anchored in Lake Gatun overnight, having just missed the window of time needed to transit in one day (most sailboats take two).

The second day we were side tied to a Panama Canal tug - they were absolute pros! Although the day was gray, cloudy and raining, our spirits were anything but damp. As you can see by the looks on our faces - it was an incredible experience! Thanks to Laurie for taking such amazing shots!

Ready To GO!

We've been busy provisioning and are ready to leave tomorrow morning. Our crew is lined up and coming on board tonight. We went to the Miraflores Locks last week to watch the ships go through, go to the museum, etc. The link to the streaming video is http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html. We hope someone can capture a photo of us going through. We are very excited. Panama City has been great this past week, be we long for our Panama City in Florida - and going home to the USA. 

What a SUPER Super Bowl Sunday!

We took the 9:00 AM high speed ferry from Isla Tobago to Panama City, barely making it. We thought we got up early with plenty of time to pack and get ready to leave the boat & cats for a night. Unfortunately, we did not realize that we'd changed time zones. We'd been in Central and were now in the Eastern time zone.

On top of that, I miscalculated the kick off time. I knew we usually watched the kick off around 3:30 pm in SoCal, so it must be three hours earlier - around 12:30 pm EST, right? Wrong, that would be three hours LATER - about 6:30 PM - oops. We thought for sure the Balboa Yacht Club would have a Super Bowl Party, but no one even seemed to know it was happening.

We took as taxi and told the driver what we wanted - football Americano. He proceeded to take us to an empty grassy football field! (LOL) We explained: No - a sports bar/cantina/ mas televisions. The thought about it and decided to take us to a sports bar in a casino, so we agreed. When we arrived we went upstairs to the bar and it was dead. Of course we didn't know about the kick off time at this point. They only had a few pre-printed 8 ½ x 11" Super Bowl XLV signs scattered around the bar, no big screens only little TVs and not so comfy looking chairs. The scene wasn't working for us.

I pulled out my iPhone, connected to the casino wifi and googled "sports bar panama city, panama. What came up was the Royal Casino, near the Marriott Hotel, the description mentioned special events: specifically that they host a Super Bowl Party. That was our place. It turned out we were just a few blocks away.

We went upstairs and there were a handful of people in the cool looking sports bar arranging tables and chairs. We spoke with New Jersey native Jon Schwartz, its proprietor and explained that we'd just sailed in from San Diego (one of his favorite cities as it turned out), found him on Google and came for the party. He said they were sold out, be he'd see what he could do if we'd just hang out.

Having nowhere else to go at that hour, we did. While waiting I got on to NFL website and that's when I realized the game was at 6:30 pm. It was 11:00 AM - long day ahead. No problem, I needed to find a hotel for the night anyway since there were no late ferries going back to the island after the game.

Admission to the Actions Sports party was $25 per person and included all you can eat and drink (quality booze, plus a raffle. When I looked at the prizes I noticed they were giving way a 42" HDTV with DVD home theatre system. Since I'd left our 1989 27" Zenith on the curb with a "FREE" sign on it after we couldn't unload it at our pre-move garage sale, we needed a new one. So I decided to win it, and I said so - to the owner Jon, Tom, Canaan our crewmen, and others at the party.

At half-time they did the drawing. Unfortunately, they called someone else's name for the TV, which as actually the second place prize. They called MY name for the Grand Prize: a three day trip to Brisas - a swanky, new, all-inclusive resort in Panama City. Jolene, is Jon's wife and we'd met her earlier so she knew our story. They tried to get the guy who won the TV to switch prizes, but he wanted the TV too.

Jon & Jolene were so cool, they said "No problem, we'll give you the money for another TV/DVD system. How cool is that?? They also threw in a $50 gift certificate for one of the nicest restaurants in town. On top of the prizes, it was an awesome party, a great football game and the fellow central division, and Minnesota Vikings rival, Green Bay Packers won the game. What a day!

Chuey & Susan's Place

The mean North Wind finally abated this morning. After low tide, we pulled anchor and peeked around the corner of our protected anchorage to see what we would find. Thankfully, we were greeted by calm seas and very little wind. It was only a short 12 miles to Isla Toboga, so we could see it immediately.

We caught several fish along the way, all not-good-eating Jack Crevalles so they went back to the sea. As we approached the island we saw dozens of freighters lined up waiting to go through the Canal. We are getting closer. We found the Marina, got moored and Chuey, the owner, came out with his dog in the dinghy to greet us. His prices are great, and he’s a wealth of knowledge. We are thankful to finally be safely moored and have Panama City within sight.

Tomorrow we’ll take the high speed ferry over to watch the Super Bowl somewhere. There's no late ferry back, so we'll get a hotel room and return on Monday. Wow, we haven't spent a night off the boat since we left in October! How exciting.

Isla Otoque: A Safe Harbor

We finally dropped the anchor just before sunset at Isla Otoque. It's a little island that's about 22 miles from Panama City. In the center of its crescent shape is a calm anchorage, with tall hills that block the nasty "Northers". It has a few more islands and rocks that create a fairly protect "cove". We were all pretty beat up after such a grueling sail so it was nice to have a good dinner and go to bed early knowing we were safely at anchor.

Just after dinner we saw a light from a sailboat approaching the anchorage. With a new moon, howling winds and rough seas, we knew it couldn't be fun trying to get into the anchorage. We saw they had a flood light trying to scope it out. Tom jumped on the VHF at tried to hail them to give them a hand getting in, but there was no response. We flipped on both our front and rear spreader lights to make it easier to see us, and hopefully define the anchorage area.

As they came closer, we saw it was a catamaran and thought they might give us a shout. They didn't, just dropped - a little too close to us, and went to bed. We thought they were probably exhausted like us and maybe we'd chat with them the next day.

The wind howled from the north all night, this time I slept well knowing we were safe. I was awake at first light and went up to watch the sunrise - with Chico of course. It was a beautiful morning and I was in the mood for coffee, which we hadn't had since getting sick.

I pulled out one of the three bags of coffee we bought in El Salvador and asked Tom if he cared to join me -it was divine. I made pancakes for breakfast and banana bread from bananas Canaan brought with him. We'd hung them in a hammock from above the mirror in the saloon. They'd banged around spattering the mirror in the rough seas. All they were good for was bread.

After breakfast, about 8 am I noticed the catamaran leaving. We had decided to stay and extra night, hope the wind would quit and we'd have a nice run on Saturday. We watched the Cat try to go around the west side of the island - getting pounded by the waves, barely making progress. No "thank you". No greeting of "good morning". Puzzling.

We all swam ashore to the beach we'd anchored off of. Pelicans were everywhere, diving for fish and coming up with full mouths. Sadly, the beach was littered with lots of garbage - mostly plastic. It's sad that most third world countries care so little about their garbage. A beach cleanup day is sorely needed here.

Although provisions are running a bit low, we grilled the last three turkey burgers for lunch. I made marinara sauce from scratch to go with the last of the chicken breasts and a brick of mozzarella cheese for Tom's favorite dish: Chicken Parmesana. We will continue north tomorrow morning after low tide has passed, hoping with Norther has blown itself out by then.

Aptly Named Punta Mala

For those unfamiliar with Spanish, Punta Mala translates to mean “Bad Point”. They weren’t kidding! It was a short 12.5 mile run from Ensenada Benao to Punta Mala, and we had a great sail. After we cleared the bay, I went down for a nap. We went to bed early the night before, but I woke up at 10:30 pm unable to sleep because the wind was howling.

We anchored at the recommended spot, but when the wind came over the hill and we dragged anchor the large island was right behind us – a lee shore. So I sat up in the cockpit, with Chico from 10:30 pm until sunrise, wide awake most of the time. It’s called Anchor Watch; my eyes were glued to the GPS coordinates to make sure they didn’t stray too far from those we jotted down when we arrived.

I wanted to make sure the guys got a good night sleep because I knew the next night we’d be at sea and it could be a rough leg. I just didn’t know HOW BAD it could be.

Tom followed the cruising guides’ advice to go wide around the point due to vicious winds and currents. When we rounded the point, we couldn’t turn to go north. We had to go out at al east 5 miles then tack back to barely make it past the north side of the Point. The wind was blowing about 25-30 knots steady, from the north with about 4-6 ft seas, AND a 2 knot current going against us.

Motor sailing (sails up and the motor working) we were doing a half a knot at times! Probably the most frustrating of the legs we’ve done. It took us 34 hours from the time we left Ensenada Benao to arrive at Isla Otoque, which is still 12 miles from the marina we’re headed to in Panama City.