Friday, March 20th. Isla Contadora, Las Perlas Islands, Panama. Yesterday seemed like the first day I was back on track from my 9 month detour that started when I didn’t get through the canal last year. I suppose that technically when I transited the canal a month ago I was moving in the right direction but it didn’t feel the same. Yesterday I sailed from the anchorage just outside the Panama Canal to here, and it just “feels” like I’m back on track. Even though I made this same sail (round 1) a week ago, it didn’t count since I had a girlfriend with me and I new I would be sailing her back to the mainland. I’ve got what I expect to be a few days up to a week here waiting for good weather then off to the Galapagos.

The sail here was basically uneventful. I started off with a light breeze and was sailing at about 4kts until the breeze died down to around 5kts and I was still able to maintain around 3kts of speed on a reach. When the wind got to around 2 to 3kts, I had to put a preventer on the boom to keep it from swinging around and still sailed at around one knot. That went on for around an hour, and then over the next three hours the wind picked back up to over 10 kts and I was racing along at 5.5kts again. I did consider starting the motor, but I knew that the wind should pick up and that I would be able to make the 35 mile trip without motoring as long as I was patient enough. So far I have used the motor for about 30 minutes total since leaving Panama, about 15 minutes to pull up the anchor and another 15 to put it down. I have weighed anchor and anchored without the motor plenty of times before but in these crowded anchorage’s it’s a little dangerous especially with a little current. Last time I tried it here when I was leaving I was drifting within a few feet of a few other boats, I’m sure that didn’t make them too comfortable, then again I wasn’t very comfortable either! Having left Playita anchorage around 7am and arriving around 5Pmish, I probably only averaged around 3.5kts or so, but that’s acceptable to me, I got in before dark and didn’t have to use the motor.

Well I’m not going to go in to perfect detail at this time but here are the basics. I figure I need to arrive in Australia by November and will encounter mostly expensive food in the South Pacific. Based on those assumptions the general consensus among budget mindful sailors leaving Panama is to buy as much food as you can, or enough for 6 months. I think I have accomplished that after three taxies full of food. Basically I have around 25lbs of spaghetti and pasta not counting the 60 packages of Chinese noodles. Another 20 lbs. of rice, couple pounds of sugar, and flour, maybe 5 cases (24 each) of canned veggies, Chile, beans, corn, peas etc. Plenty of spices, coffee, dried milk powder, Soy-meat stuff, some other dried food, but that’s basically the bulk of it. Fresh stuff is just a few lbs of cheese, lunch meet and chorizo (sausage), I have a very small fridge but generally don’t use it all of the time but I have almost enough meet and cheese to get me to Galapagos. Then there is the produce, I bought a lot of extra veggies since I have other friends that have already been in the Perlas Islands for a week and need to restock, so I figure I bought about triple what I needed, 50lbs potatoes, 50lbs onions, 15 lbs tomatoes, 15 lbs cucumbers, 10 lbs limes, 10 lbs carrots, apples and bananas, 6 pineapples, 20 garlic cloves, 5 lbs green peppers, about 50 eggs, and I cant remember what else! I also brought about 4 cases of beer, 15 liters of wine, 5 gallons of rum (for trading). I have 50 gallons of water, I plan to up that to around 60-70 after leaving the Galapagos for Marquiesas. My diesel tank holds 15 gallons and I carry another 20 gallons in four jugs, so that’s 35 gallons of diesel, plus I have three two-gallon gasoline jugs for the dinghy outboard motor, I only filled one with gasoline, and one with diesel, so total Diesel is really 37 gallons, most I’ve ever had on board, and around 2 gallons of gasoline. 2 gallons alcohol and 5 gallons kerosene just for the stove. Not to mention 8 rolls of toilette paper, 6 rolls of paper towels, two cases of Coca-Cola. 10 liters of fruit juice, UGH how did I fit it all!? Well you can. I probably could have even fit it and kept the V-birth empty if I wanted to jam-pack all of the cockpit lockers. However I Think salsa is REALLY heavy, about 4 inches deeper than the original waterline, the top of the white boot-stripe that is normally well above the waterline is more or less submerged. This makes cleaning the bottom a pain, weird seaweed grassy stuff grows on the waterline and has to be scraped off regularly in addition to the scraping of the bottom. I guess that’s to be expected, I haven’t even mentioned all the extra equipment like wind vane, solar panels, 4 anchors, 250’ of anchor chain at one pound per foot, life raft (80lb) dinghy and outboard (100lb), the list just goes on and on, I didn’t even realize myself until I started writing this!!! OH, probably 50lbs in charts and guides, another 25lbs in novel type books, over 300lbs in batteries making up the 600amp hour battery bank. Its amazing salsa isn’t already sunk! The best part about having all this crap on board is that salsa is still sailing great! On a trip here I averaged over one knot faster than a 35’ boat, and in 15kts of wind I can still sail upwind almost close-hauled at 6kts, so everything seems just fine!

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Everything is going well. Just got back to Panama City from a great 6 day trip to the Las Perlas Islands 40 miles or so from Panama City. Plan to do final provisioning over the next two days and hope to depart for Galapagos around Thursday and spend a few more days in Perlas before making the big leap into the Pacific. Salsa is more or less ready with no major issues while I have used some spares and have not replaced them do to budget cutbacks, they were just basic engine parts I figure I can live without anyway. Trying to provision water, diesel, plus food for as much of the Pacific as I can (general consensus is that food all across the Pacific is very expensive) has proved logistically complicated on a 30 foot boat. I may even have to cut back on some of the beer and booze I was planning to stow. Sorry I have been playing too much to give a proper update once again but I plan to do plenty of writing underway with better updates in Galapagos, with all the sunshine here in Panama I’ve had extra power and should be able to charge the laptop as needed to keep a decent blog. Hope everyone is doing well and if I don’t get a chance to update once more before leaving hopefully you’ll here from me in about three weeks from Galapagos! -Kirk

Salsa has successfully transited the Panama Canal, and is now anchored in the Playita anchorage, Panama City Panama. The plan is to stay here for about one more week and then head off for a few days in the Las Perlas Islands about 40 miles off the Panama Coast, then head on to Galapagos, hopefully arriving there around mid March, departing Galapagos late March, arriving in French Marquises around May 1. Then Island hopping across the South Pacific hopefully arriving somewhere around Brisbane Australia sometime around November this year before the start of the cyclone season.

This year, at least at this early stage of the season for cruising boats transiting East to West through the Panama Canal (did you know that technically you exit the Canal on the Pacific Side further EAST than the entrance on the Atlantic Side, The canal actually runs more or less SE/NW). Anyway, the good news is that this year so far there seems to be only a few days wait to get through the canal, in either direction really.

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