Panama to Galapagos: Day 6 - Equator!

Saturday, March 30, 2013

We crossed the equator today! Woo!

We have now officially graduated from Polywags to Shellbacks. This is not a reference to Pokemon, it is an old American Navy term. Once you sailed in the Southern Hemisphere, you could call yourself a 'Shellback', otherwise you were a 'Polywag'. I am not sure where they got those terms from though.

We fired off some expired flares in celebration and had some wine. (It was daytime and there was absolutely no one in sight to see the flares.)

We had to reduce speed in the evening, we were making too good of time (8.5 knots) and were looking to arrive in Galapagos in the middle of the night. We are now aiming for a noon arrival tomorrow.

Panama to Galapagos: Day 5 - Bird

Friday, March 29, 2013

We had this sole little bird flying the same pattern around our boat for hours this morning and last night. We called him Petey. He was a pretty bird.

At first, we thought he was trying to land or find food, but after I got out the camera, he started getting really close to the boat and doing tricks. I think he was putting on a show for us. He would land in the water just ahead of our boat, float by like a rubber ducky, then when he was a bit behind us, he would quickly jump up and fly with the utmost intensity to the starboard side of our boat, coming within a foot of our lifelines, land in the water, and then repeat.

Still no fish were caught today...I really hope we have better luck on our big 30-day passage next.

It looks like we'll be hitting the equator tomorrow night! Celebrations will be in order when we do!

Also, we are looking at a Sunday afternoon arrival in Galapagos!

Panama to Galapagos: Day 4 - Halfway there!

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Nothing happened today. I had the fishing line out all day, and no bites. No dolphins swam alongside our boat. There was one point where a bird almost landed on our boat (on top of the radar dish), but he couldn't quite stick the landing.

I spent the day studying this learn to speak/write French book they have aboard. I am halfway through now. Je veux attendre le français avant nous arrivons en French Polynesia.

We hit the "halfway-there" point today. It looks like we will be arriving early Sunday afternoon. I am really excited about seeing the Galapagos. They have such unique animal species there that we get to interact with, including:

- Giant Tortoises
- Sea Lions & Seals
- Warm-Climate Penguins (the only place in the world you can find them in their natural habitat in the northern hemisphere!)
- 4 different types of iguanas
- Whales, hammerheads

The islands were/are formed by active volcanoes, so there are a lot of exciting things to see!

Panama to Galapagos: Day 3 - Genneker

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

I woke up this morning to the sound of the Genneker sail going up (a big, colourful, light-wind, down-wind sail that just parachutes in front of your boat catching as much air as possible). Jan and Gary were trying to raise it and catch some of the light wind we were having. Unfortunately, the sock got stuck halfway up when raising it and the winds were picking up slowly. (The genneker sail is rolled up inside a big sock-like thing that "slides off" and upward after you've raised it and the sail fills with air. Think of a handkerchief stuffed in a condom.) I jumped out of bed to give them a hand. Shortly after, the sock un-stuck itself and the full genneker was up, but the winds were starting to get too strong. We had to get it down as quick as possible, and it was not easy. Minnie got up shortly after and we had all-hands on deck trying to bring this beast down. You are supposed to release the clew of the sail and then pull the sock back down over the flapping sail. Then you would just easily lower the big sausage-like mass of sail down to the deck and roll it up. However, the force on the sail was incredibly powerful already. The sail was starting to bend and break the shackles holding it to the boat, and we could not untie the clew. I ended up just cutting it with a knife before things got any worse. The sail flapped around like mad and we could NOT bring it down. Minnie and I tried pulling down on the line leading to the head of the sail, but it just lifted us and slipped out of our hands (luckily we had gloves or the rope burn would have been horrific). We ended up forcing the sail into the water and doing a wet-retrieval (the weight of the water in/on the sail holds it down for you so the wind can't keep it up). The sail ended up under the boat, with the full weight of the boat on it, so it took a long time to pull it onto the deck.

So, it was an exciting morning! This was after only 2 hours of sleep too.

The rest of the day was pretty relaxed though, nothing big happened. Minnie and I saw some odd blinking lights on the horizon though on our night watches. We are hundreds of nautical miles from land, and over 9,000 feet depth of water, so it couldn't have been buoys or fishing boats? Must be aliens or some secret government-testing site I guess...

Panama to Galapagos: Day 2 - Dolphins!

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

We had dolphins swim along side our boat a few times today. The one time though, it was as if they were all on speed. It was the most amazing dolphin acrobatic show I had ever seen. You couldn't get a show that good at Sea World. The pod must have had 20 dolphins in it.

Contrary to weather forecasts, we had some decent wind today and were able to get the jib sail up. Also, contrary to weather reports, the current has been in our favour and has been dead on the stern all day. So we were able to hit up to 8 knots today. We have officially left the Bay of Panama and are in the Pacific Ocean!

I put the fishing rod out today, but didn't get any bites. There was this weird pink slime on the line when I reeled it in at the end of the day though. It was really tough, and I couldn't knock it off with a screwdriver. I have no idea what it is, so I didn't want to touch it. Almost like little pink sea slugs or something. The ocean is a weird place...

Panama to Galapagos: Day 1 - Departure!

Monday, March 25, 2013

Sailing Across the Pacific Ocean (Part 8) - Panama to Galapagos

We finally were able to fuel up, fill our water tanks, and head out at around 1500 hours.

The ocean is as calm as i have ever seen it. It feels like we are sailing on a small lake. The area of the Pacific Ocean right around Panama is famous for being calm, but this is just ridiculous.

We spotted a whale in the distance as we were leaving Panama today. We saw its water spout spray a few times and some fins coming out of the water. It was far too distant to get a picture though.

We are back on the same watch schedule as before, I am on from 3:00-6:00, both AM and PM.

Panama: Day 14 - Actual Last Day

Sunday, March 24, 2013

We dinghied into town this morning to get one last shot at internet before departing today. Gary had to order some parts and we wanted an up-to-date weather report. Things look the same weather-wise, no wind until later in the week and 2-3 knots of current acting against us the whole time. It won't be a fast or pleasant trip, but we don't want to wait any longer.

UPDATE:

What are the odds?! After 14 days in Panama and several hikes through the jungle in hopes of seeing a sloth, I get nothing. Then on the way back to the dinghy after getting some last minute internet before we leave, we run into a family of sloths by the roadside at the last POSSIBLE moment that I could have seen them. They were everything I hoped them to be, lazy, slow, friendly, and smiley. This one guy even posed for us!

So we have decided to leave early tomorrow rather than today for Galapagos, so we have one more night at anchor...

Panama: Day 13 - Last Day in Panama!

It looks like we are going to be all ready to head out tomorrow! I am really excited to get to sea again. I wonder if the Pacific Ocean will be much different from the Atlantic...

It looks like it will be extremely calm for the majority of our trip, and the current is going against us the first few days at least. So we will be motoring quite a bit this trip. The pacific coast of Panama is famous for extremely light winds, and it seems to be living up to its name.

We tested out the water maker today, and it worked great. The product water in the end has an odd bitter taste to it. It's very "dry". Some people fix this by adding a couple glasses of wine to their water tanks, but we don't want to waste any wine.

This is where the adventure really begins. We will be visiting places that so incredibly few get to see in their lifetime after months at sea in all kinds of different weather. I can't even imagine the feeling I will be experiencing at that moment of arrival in the Marquesas after being at sea for so long.

Panama: Day 12 - Water Maker

Today was a really productive day. We dinghied over to the dinghy dock because we needed to grab a cab into town to buy some supplies. I have never in my life seen anything as sketchy as this dinghy dock. It is a floating dock loosely attached to a couple vertical i-beams (that keep it from floating away) and crashes and slams into them with each wave. Remaining in a standing position is a real accomplishment on this thing. The entire dock was rust, a real tetanus breeding ground. If that wasn't enough, there is no bridge to land from it. You have to step off the crashing/slamming/rusty dock into this half-bouyant, tiny, plastic "toy" boat and pull yourself along a rope to get to land over chest-deep water lined with jagged-rocks and jellyfish.

Jan and Gary went on this little boat first, and came SO close to falling out. Gary got in okay, but just as Jan was stepping in, a huge wave came in and slammed the dinghy dock so hard, which LAUNCHED Jan into the little toy boat. Gary and Jan struggled to keep it balanced as it swayed back and forth, the sides dipping under water and filling the boat. I was so sure they were going to fall, but it never happened. They had their laptop and cellphones and whatnot in their backpack, so that would have been disastrous. Minnie and I learned from their mistakes and got across with little problem.

We spent the afternoon on the boat and got a ton of jobs done. Gary fixed the GenSet, so we have a working generator for power underway. Minnie and I ripped up all the floorboards in the boat and traced out the whole water maker, so we could figure out exactly how it worked.

This was necessary because Gary and I will be at sea for 30-40 days crossing the pacific and will need to make our own water to survive. We're going to stock a ton of water too and rig up a rain-catching system. But having a water maker that takes sea water and converts it to drinking water at a rate of 40 friggin gallons an hour would make things easier.

I have been sleeping in the cockpit and have been waking up to fireworks in the middle of the night over the Panama City skyline. It is quite the sight.

Panama celebrating our departure!

Panama: Day 11 - Pacific Ocean!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

About an hour before our scheduled canal passage, we were running the GenSet, and suddenly heard an explosion of water in the walls. The high loop for the raw water intake had exploded and was shooting water everywhere. We had to quickly come up with a solution to make our passage in time. We rigged up a softwood plug on a hose to stop any water from getting out. Shockingly, the pressure is great enough in the hose that the water is forced through the material in the softwood plug and seeps out of the soaked plug.

The canal passage went really smoothly. We rafted with a catamaran with a group of French people and went through the canal with them.

Our boat was significantly heavier than the catamaran, so there were a few scary moments when we almost drove them into the wall.

The first thing you do when passing through the canal is meet up with your pilot and any linehandlers you hire. The linehandlers sleep on your boat and you have to feed them and the pilot during the whole passage.

When you arrive just outside the canal at your scheduled time, you meet with your rafting partner boats and tie up side-by-side. One boat is assigned as the 'driving' boat who steers and powers the mass of rafted boats through the canal. The catamaran was assigned this role as cat's are far more agile than monohulls (we don't have bow thrusters). When you enter the first lock, you have to be ready as linehandlers from shore hurl these 'monkey fist' balls (attached to some thin line) at your boat.

You have to 'catch' them, tie them to your rented polypropelene lines (that guide you through the canal), and then they pull the one end of your polypropelene line to the canal walls (the other end being attached to your boat).

They use these to try and keep your rafted boat mass in the center of the canal. However, the monkeyfists are thrown from like 50 feet above and away from you, so they end up just flying over your boat, wrapping around your standing rigging, and hitting your crew.

It then becomes a mad scramble to get them and tie them to the polypropelene line before we drove the catamaran into the wall, haha.

The doors shut after the boats are secure and they start filling the lock with water, and as a linehandler, you just pull up the polypropelene line as it becomes slack.

It was unbelievable, the amount of force on those lock doors. The canal is truly one of the modern wonders of the world and quite the achievement for mankind.

There were three locks before Lake Gatun (and had to repeat this each time). We then stayed overnight in Lake Gatun and waited for our scheduled passage through the second set of locks (on the Pacific side) early in the morning.

Lake Gatun is incredibly beautiful, and it was very surreal cruising through it early the next morning and seeing these HUGE cargo ships anchored everywhere in such a relatively small lake.

On the Pacific side, there was another set of three locks to bring us back down to sea level, and the process was the exact opposite of the first three locks.

After that, we were officially in the Pacific Ocean! We motored around a bit until we found a decent anchorage so we could spend a couple nights preparing the the next month and a half of sailing. The anchorage is amazing here, we get to watch the sunset over the mountains to the west every evening,

and then have the entire skyline and city lights of Panama City to the east.

ps. I didn't see any salt water crocodiles...

Panama: Day 10 - Canal Passage

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Sailing Across the Pacific Ocean (Part 7) - The Panama Canal

We are finally passing through the canal today! We fueled up and did some last minute jobs in the morning and are just waiting for the go-ahead at around 1:00pm.

The canal is really big, so we have to anchor mid-way through (in Gatun Lake) and spend the night. Gatun Lake is supposedly full of salt water crocodiles, so I will try to get some good pictures of them. They supposedly swim up to the boats because they are used to being fed by sailors (or maybe feeding ON sailors? My Spanish isn't very good.). We have a hired pilot and some line-handlers who have to stay on the boat with us for the duration and we have to feed them. If they do not like what we feed them (if it is not satisfactory), then we get charged for food to be delivered to them.

We have to raft up with two other boats and all three of us pass through the canal at the same time. I imagine this is an extremely scary and stressful experience for the boat owners. There is so much potential damage to the boat.

When we arrive on the Pacific side of the canal, we are going to drop anchor and make sure the boat is all ready for the 8 day journey to the Galapagos. Supplies are hard to get in the Galapagos, so we have to make sure we are well stocked NOW for our 30 day journey across the Pacific (when we leave the Galapagos).

I doubt we'll have internet in the canal or on the other side, so this will likely be my last blog entry until I hit the Galapagos. So look for a whole bunch of new entries around March 31st or April 1st!

Panama: Days 8 and 9 - Preparing for the Canal Passage

We sadly left Boquete early Monday morning and hopped on the bus back to the boat. We had a little scare when the customs agent boarded the bus and wouldn't take our passport photocopies. We had no problem on the way to Boquete with the copies, but on the way back he wanted the real passports. I didn't want to spend time in any sort of Panamanian prison of any sort. He eventually just let us go again. We were smart enough this time to bring sandwiches on the bus so we didn't have to eat "rat meat" again at the midway bus stop.

We spent the whole day on busses and finally got back to the boat around 10:00pm. We were tired and just went to bed.

Tuesday was spent getting a few things done on the boat to prepare for our canal passage on Wednesday. I also spent a good 4 hours at the gym to try to get as much of my weekly exercising in before we left. Nothing really exciting happened this day.

Panama: Day 6 and 7 - Mamallena & St. Patrick's Day

After a good 12 hour sleep to make up for the lack of sleep on the bus last night, we packed our stuff up and hopped on the bus to Boquete to check in to Hostal Mamallena. We are looking at booking some excursions through this new hostel. They offer a few jungle hikes that go to hidden waterfalls, hot springs, volcanoes, etc. You can also book a tour of a high-end coffee farm, which might be neat to see.

We originally were going to do a triple-combo walking tour that hit the hot springs, the hidden waterfall, and the swimming gorge but after meeting some cool Dutch guys, we decided to link up with them and go on an all-day biking tour that ended at the swimming gorge. We didn't know what we were in for...

We were warned it was a really tough course, but I felt I was pretty fit and could handle it. The course ended up being the most difficult and tiring 8-hour bike ride up and down huge mountains on the roughest terrain I have ever experienced. It was a real challenge.

The scenery was beautiful and we got to see pretty much all of the mountains surrounding Bouquete.

No Central-American bike tour is complete without a sketchy bridge.

Minnie getting patched up after a few spills, smiling as always.

The swim at the end was incredibly refreshing.

Unfortunately, I had no energy to do any swimming...except for a few badass cliff jumps.

With whatever small amount of energy we had at the end of the day, we bought in to the $7 - all you can drink St. Patrick's Day party at Mamallena. It was a really fun night and I met a lot of great people. We had a guy named Ben who randomly walked in and played the Tin Whistle all night. He was a master at it and could play all my requests.

Panama: Day 5 - Boquete!

We arrived in David at 6am as scheduled and hopped on the next bus to Boquete (an hour's drive). It was on one of their brightly and uniquely painted city buses that Panama is famous for. They are converted school buses that are each uniquely painted in bright colours with random images. The backrests were FAR too vertical though, it was really uncomfortable.

We were dropped off in Boquete just as the shops were opening up and I had a coffee at a really nice little coffee shop there.

Boquete has clearly a MUCH higher standard of living than other cities we've seen in Panama (especially Colon). It is really nice here. Our hostel (La Jungla) was still a short cab ride into the mountains, so after walking around a bit, we headed into the hills.

La Jungla is a hostel/animal conservatory and restaurant.

They have a pet spider monkey (Daisy),

two Capuchin monkeys,

a coarti (racoon/monkey thing),

a Macaw,

a bunch of parrots,

boa constrictors,

pythons,

a horse, goats,

dogs, a bunny, a huge surly rooster, and some other birds. You can interact with all of them except the spider monkey, which still has tantrums sometimes. The spider monkey is huge, I'd be a little scared interacting with her. I did get to feed her...through the bars.

Once settled in, we had a lunch at the restaurant here, and ordered the best pizza I've ever had. Just $8.00 for the pizza and $1.00 for a beer. Minnie and I split the bill and had enough food for both lunch and dinner.

The art work was a little trippy in the restaurant. The capuchins had all-too-humanlike faces and resembled some celebrities (William Dafoe, Nick Cage, Tommy Lee Jones) and there was a creepy sloth who looked like he had just the right amount of mushrooms.

William Dafoe

We went for a walk after lunch and found this little trail going down the steep mountain side to a river where wild bananas, lemons, and oranges grew.

Lemon Tree

The rainforest is much 'cleaner' here than it is down in Colon. You can easily walk through it without a machete and there were few bugs.

Minnie went for a nap afterwards and I hung around in the animal cages.

The owner let me in the Capuchin cage (which was the best moment of my life I think). They went ape-wild and immediately jumped on me when I walked in.

The one started licking inside my ear, at least buy me dinner first!

They both went bananas when I fed them (bananas). I love monkeys!

We bussed back to town for the evening and just walked around a bit. We got on the wrong bus initially (well, it was the right bus, but going in the wrong direction), which I am glad for as we got to drive around and see a lot of the beautiful mountains in Boquete. We saw some wild forest fires on the way back though, that was a little scary. It has been very windy here, so I guess they are spreading easily.

Tomorrow, we are moving to the hostel Mamallena, which is right in town. There are no other travellers at La Jungla and we were hoping to meet some new and interesting people.