On Thursday morning, 23 May 2024, we woke before the alarm, weighed anchor and exited Spanish Waters, finding little to no wind, after it had been blowing a gale for more than two weeks. Regardless, we set a course to pass Aruba to our port side, bound for Bocas del Toro, Panama, another passage we hadn’t bargained on, but, since Paw Paw was still not sold, we had no choice; it was Bocas del Toro or the northeast coast of the US to satisfy our yacht insurance stipulation of avoiding a named storm materialising during the upcoming hurricane season.
By 1100 we were motor-sailing on one engine with a light breeze out of the east-southeast as we approached the northern end of Curacao, hoping to pick up the forecast easterly winds once we were out of the shadow of the island.
Thankfully, the winds kicked in as forecast and by 1230 we were sailing on headsail alone, enjoying a SOG (Speed Over Ground) of 6 Kts in a light breeze. However, the lumpy seas that had developed didn’t quite correlate with the light winds we had and we certainly didn’t care much for the nasty northeasterly swell that gave us a side swipe every few minutes, knocking Paw Paw off her stride.
Fortunately the lumpy seas were a precursor to the stronger winds that arrived later in the day and stayed with us throughout the night, allowing us to trundle along with a SOG of anything from 6.9-7.8 Kts as hourly averages, under a beautiful full moon to light our way, making for a very pleasant first night at sea.
When Elaine came up for her early morning watch at 0400 on the morning of Friday, 24 May 2024, the wind had started to lighten, forcing us to motor-sail again for a few hours to keep our speed up, given that we wanted to capitalise on the progress we’d made and possibly shave off a night at sea.
Over breakfast, since we were unable to procure a simcard for our Iridium-Go service, we tuned into the SSB/HF radio weather broadcast out of the US. This was to become a daily ritual for the remainder of this passage.
By 1030 the winds had kicked in again, allowing us to jibe and set up a wing-on-wing configuration to continue on our course to give the Colombian Cape a wide berth. By then the overcast skies, which had been with us since the start of our passage, had started to clear too, allowing the sun to peek through. Unfortunately this didn’t last long and by 1430, the skies had clouded over again, but we were still scooting along nicely with just over 650NM to go. Thankfully we hadn’t had to contend with any squalls either.
Overnight the winds picked up a little more, giving us a SOG, at times, of 9.4 Kts, averaging 8.1 Kts. We were delighted to be making such good progress. However, during the midnight change of watch when we turned Paw Paw into an Outremer for a few minutes, hitting 13.2 Kts, we decided it was time to reef again, putting a few turns in the headsail, since the main was already double-reefed.
By noon on Saturday, 25 May 2024, after jibing and trying a configuration change to a broad reach, we settled back to wing-on-wing instead, accompanied by
a slight change to the wind-vane angle in order to maximise our VMG (Velocity Made Good) as apposed to continuing to hurtle west-northwest after the winds changed to east-southeast and caused us to loose VMG. A SOG averaging 6.5 Kts was better than nothing; we were still sailing!
This passage, while very pleasant from a sailing perspective, was very difficult from an emotional perspective, given that we had no idea what the outcome was with Elaine’s dad; was he still in hospital or had he been transferred to the nursing home and was sat propped up in his comfy new home getting the professional care he needed or had he passed away. The anguish was unbearable at times, but there was simply nothing we could do about it, but to soldier on to our destination in the hopes of picking up cell phone connectivity the closer we got to land. This was indeed the worst possible time not to have data connectivity, but that was Murphy’s Law; the one and only time in all the years of sailing when we needed data connectivity, we didn’t have it!
Setting that aside, we went through our normal passage routines; our three hours on, three hours off watch schedule, eating meals together, reading or writing in between. There was, however, no fishing on this passage, since we’d given all our fishing gear away during our clear out in St Lucia in December thinking Paw Paw had been sold. Silly us for jumping the gun!
From a weather perspective the overcast skies that settled back in continued, although the waning gibbous did peek through from time to time overnight.
During Elaine’s first watch of the night, our third night at sea, we crossed the halfway mark; we were on the downhill run, although rougher seas and stronger winds forced us to reef the headsail to stop us surfing, but we were still making good time with an average SOG of 6.5-7 Kts.
On Sunday 26 May 2024, the winds lightened again to around 15-18 Kts, the sea state settled too, except for the occasional series of large following swells, the sun came out during the late morning and the altocumulus and cirrus clouds, which had been hanging around for days, looked like they were trying to burn off. With the moon rising much later, it was also the first night we could see stars, including a shooting star, much to Elaine’s delight.
However, since our VMG had dropped significantly, we had to jibe at around midnight. To avoid dealing with the headsail in the dark in order to bring it over to continue wing-on-wing, we decided to drop the mainsail instead, jibe and continue on the headsail alone. This set our COG (Course Over Ground) exactly to our waypoint at Bocas del Toro and improved our VMG to match our SOG, instead of loosing more than a knot on the previous tack.
During Roy’s early morning watch, unfortunately the wind dropped and the current turned against us, forcing us to start an engine to retain the possibility of shaving two nights off our passage. We were determined not to loose the gains we’d made at the cost of burning diesel. Adding isolated squalls to the mix provided that extra dollop of fun we definitely didn’t want to be dealing with at this stage of the passage, but we’d been lucky enough to avoid them thus far. Fortunately, less than two hours into Elaine’s watch she was able to turn the engine off providing a far more peaceful sail.
Roy’s morning watch on Monday, 27 May 2024, was pretty uneventful until Elaine surfaced at around 1030. We’d barely finished our morning coffee when we got clobbered with our first storm of the passage. With an associated wind reversal, coupled with the length of the storm, we figured a coastal front must have moved over. Regardless, it forced us to furl the headsail and change course to port to get behind the storm as quickly as possible. It took roughly an hour before we could adjust our COG again, unfurl the headsail and switch off the engines. Fortunately the bulk of the storm passed in front or behind us and, while the rain wasn’t enough to give Paw Paw a good freshwater rinse, but rather turned all the dust to mud, we were thankful for the cooler temperatures. The heat and humidity had been brutal the entire passage, making sleep difficult.
With less than 180NM to go by 1230, we were on track to shave two nights of our passage, giving us an ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) of sometime late on Tuesday, 28 May 2024 and making this our fastest passage ever; we were flying on the wings of angels. Gaining an hour on the time zone change would hopefully afford us the opportunity to get anchored well before sunset.
It was hard to believe, based on the way the cookie had crumbled, that we had spent the last year sailing from one massive cul-de-sac to another, both with the only exits either back the way we came or through one of the manmade canals; either the Suez Canal from Türkiye or the Panama Canal from the Caribbean. This was definitely not preconceived or planned, but rather a forced hand of fate. For what reason we have yet to discover!
By 1400 the wind had dropped completely as we entered the well renowned bubble of the Panama Basin, an area of light and variable winds with flat seas, or so we thought! At this point we had envisaged motor-sailing anyway the rest of the way per the forecast. While we were certainly grateful for the winds we’d had, we had no idea what awaited us. On the upside we’d spotted land ahoy a few minutes later. It was the coastline of Colon, the entrance to the Panama Canal.
However, it’s fair to say by 1700 we definitely weren’t very happy bunnies at all and couldn’t believe the conditions we found ourselves in; our best laid plan of shaving two nights off our passage was in serious jeopardy. Within minutes we had 15 Kts of wind on the nose; yes, out of the west-northwest, and a 2 Kts of current against us, turning Paw Paw into a bucking bronco. With 150NM still to go and, with each passing hour, our average SOG dropped from a respectable 6.3 Kts to 4.4 Kts with both engines on as the counter-current strengthened further. Clearly we weren’t going to be in our anchorage the following evening as originally thought. What made matters worse was the extremely uncomfortable sea state; it felt like we’d been transported back to the Red Sea as Paw Paw slammed into standing waves. After enjoying a very pleasant, fast sail up until this point, this was an unexpected twist indeed. It was about to deteriorate further, though.
By midnight we were surrounded by thunderstorms, each with their own spectacular display of lightning. While most were in the distance, the best we could do, for those that developed closer, was navigate between them and by midday on Tuesday, 28 May 2024, with just over 60NM to go, we were still surrounded in storms and our SOG was down to 3.4 Kts with both engines running; the deal was sealed; another night at sea!
With that we turned off one of the engines and settled in for the long-haul. While Elaine found a corner in her cabin in which to curl up, she eventually got some sleep. Since Roy was on watch during this time, he baked soda bread for lunch and made his famous homemade soup for dinner. We were both clearly in need of some comfort food!
Trepidation mounted for other reasons too. With each passing nautical mile, albeit a very painfully slow progress, we were a nautical mile closer to land and data connectivity; within the next few hours we were going to know the status on Elaine’s dad, news Elaine was absolutely dreading!
When the current increased in strength again during the afternoon and our SOG was hovering around 2.9 Kts, we resigned ourselves to putting on the second engine again and soldiered on, bouncing around in the delightful - NOT - sea state. This was beyond painful and more frustrating after finding text hidden in the cruising guide that indicated two things for the area we were traversing; one, during the wet season SOMETIMES winds blow out of the west, although the forecast had shown light and variable for this entire area and two, a LIGHT equatorial counter-current flows eastward. We had anything but light! According to the guide hugging the coastline within a nautical mile is what is recommended when leaving Colon for Bocas del Toro, a route we never intended to take on this passage, although when we spotted land ahoy on Monday, we discussed changing plans and heading to Shelter Bay to clear in there and take a break before continuing on to Bocas del Toro in a few days. Opting to stick to our original plan, given the great progress we’d made, turned out to be six of one and half a dozen of the other; we still had a 2Kt current against us right up until we entered the channel into the archipelago and we definitely wouldn’t hug a coast at 1NM out at night anywhere. The bottom line is that apparently these weather conditions arise from time to time and we happened to hit them on this occasion.
On Tuesday, 28 May 2024, after crawling along at a snails pace in the extremely uncomfortable sea state, fortunately we didn’t have to deal with anymore thunderstorms, only a few isolated showers. By 0300 we’d picked up data connectivity again and received the latest news regarding Elaine’s dad; he was still alive under the most extraordinary circumstances. The latest blood tests and a lung x-ray revealed that the lung infection was back and the cause of his delirium was due to a blood infection. To make matters worse, if that was at all possible, he’d also contracted COVID-19 and had fallen out of bed while trying to get out of bed. Thankfully when he fell, he had the good sense to pull the blankets and pillows with him, providing for a softer landing and allowed him to place a pillow under his head while he awaited help. Of course he wasn’t anywhere near his call button at this point! After being resettled in bed and administered another antibiotic drip, the following day he was sitting up and joking about his failed escape.
Currently we await news of his transfer to the nursing home today, Thursday, 30 May 2024, and our flights to Ireland and stopover hotels en route have been arranged, making for a few very busy days ahead of us to get Paw Paw cleaned and ready to be left unattended for a while.
Early yesterday morning, in the dark, we navigated our way through the marked channel and entered the protected waters of the Bocas del Toro archipelago. By 0700 local time we were anchored off the main town of Bocas and awaited the arrival of the officials to clear us in to Panama. Breakfast and a nap preceded their arrival. Once all the paperwork was completed, we were taken ashore for a drive to the local airport, where our final immigration process was completed. A water taxi ride returned us to Paw Paw and by lunchtime we were safely berthed in the Red Frog Beach Island Marina, having enjoyed the unusual, but beautiful, scenery along the way. This was truly a unique destination with mangroves surrounding the many forest cladded islands backed by the mountains of the mainland. As the immigration officer pointed out to us this morning; this was “a place where you felt closer to God”. By the time we’d explored our new home for the next six months we were in no doubt we’d found paradise! It was perfect!
After clearing in at the marina office and completing our golf cart tour of the island’s facilities, our day came to a close while sipping on a cold beverage in the shade of Nachyo Mommas beach café overlooking the Caribbean Sea, where no stupid people were allowed!
