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.

Read the rest of this entry

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html?cam=Expansion

Cant be 100% sure of the schedule until just before the transit but normally we pass the Gatun locks to enter the canal around 8 or 9PM and are in those locks for over and hour. Then the best view should be from the Mira Flores locks around 2PM on Saturday. I can give spot checks along the way so you know about where I am, or I can try to call from the cell phone at least just before the aproach to the mira flores locks. If you can try to use the high resolution and I will try to get the camera operator to zoom onto Salsa, we have been able to get them to do that before on other transits. You can try the link out now to see how it works.

Oh well, might as well make this a short website update too, The panama Canal transit is this Friday February 13th, the plan is to spend a week or two in Panama City or the surounding islands and then depending on the weather set sail towards Galapagos around March 1. Updates from Cartagena and the last trip to San Blas coming soon, photos are allready on the website! -kirk

1/17/09 Sat East Lemon Cays, San Blas, Panama.

The italicized text is more or less the ships logs. The other text was added in retrospect as comments or additions.

12/20/08, 2:30 PM, Depart Cartagena Colombia, anchor up, ran motor 20 min.

(Time, Position, speed, heading)5:30 PM, 10.22.65N 75.47W 5kts, 260’ Salsa was pissed off. The sails were trimmed for close hauled and yet the wind was now just behind the beam, nearly a reach, the wind vane’s reluctance and straining to steer gave the secret away. After trimming the sails speed went up to 6.2kts. Apparent wind around 15kts, some white caps 4-6’+ seas, light howling through the rigging and an occasional wave splashing into the cockpit.

I basically was able to turn off the motor as soon as the anchor was up. I had great wind for the sail to San Blas, 15kts, from the NE (the trade winds) and I was sailing a 200 mile course at 260’ (WSW) This put the apparent wind just behind the beam, nearly a perfect beam reach. The 6.2kts I was averaging was with two reefs in the main. I initially wanted to leave early so that I would have a full 48 hours (two nights and two days) to make San Blas, at the rate I was sailing I left late and was still going to get there very early (during the night) and would have to take measures to slow down for a morning-daylight arrival. Oh! As I’m writing this in San Blas I’m eating a nice bowel of fresh lobster pasta. You can get 5 or 6 small lobsters here for $3, throw that in some pasta with some milk or butter if you have it, garlic, onions, one can of mushrooms, mmm..

6:44PM, 10.21N, 75.54W, 265’ 6kts, why is it so hard to sail down wind sometimes!? Jib is luffing here and there and Salsa wants to round up into the wind, thinking about trying a third reef and full genoa, dunno.

The whisker pole should have solved this but it was getting dark and I didn’t want to have to wrestle it down in the middle of the night if the winds picked up. So I just lazily changed the course about 10 degrees to appease the jib gods.

8:25PM, 10.18N, 78.04W, 6kts, 265’, 163 miles to go, just passed the “Submarine Zone” for Colombia on the chart, no close traffic, just now accepting that there wont be any ‘girls’ to chase for at least three weeks while I’m in San Blas. Also just did the math, for a daylight arrival in two days I need to average between 3.7 and 4.5kts, rather than the 6kts I’m doing now for a daylight arrival tomorrow I need to make something like 8kts (impossible, I normally average 5!) Oh well.

The chart says something like keep a close look out for Submarines, and mentions that they may be submerged, how exactly am I supposed to watch out for submerged submarines!? I actually avoided this zone on the way TO Cartagena, but after being anchored next to the Navy Base for almost Four months I can see their Submarines come and go, they only have three that I saw anyway. As for the girl comment, it’s not like there aren’t ANY girls in San Blas, there just aren’t any cute, single ones. Severely lacking in comparison to Cartagena. On the up side you save all kinds of money in San Blas and it truly is beautiful here, been spear fishing almost daily catching more than my fill, and have spent well under $10 a week during the last three weeks, mostly on fresh veggies and fruit, and a $9 12 pack of coke.

12/21/08 1:05AM, 10.11N, 76.31W, 5.8kts, 265’ small vessel popping up on radar dead ahead 5.35 miles from me, now that it’s dark I cant see the waves I can hear them growling at me just before they splash into the cockpit and soak me (well only a few have). I don’t think the wind has increased so much as the fact that I’m further offshore (70 miles) so the waves always seem to grow bigger out here. All of the Cartagena freighter traffic (wasn’t too much anyway) are off the radar, just what looks like a small sailboat in front of me.

I thought I might even know the boat since one other guy was supposed to leave earlier that same day, and I also figured, knowing him, that he would be going a bit slower. None the less it’s always hard to take a nap when you know there is a blip on the radar screen dead ahead, even if it is 5 miles away and going about the same speed and course as you, making it almost impossible to get close to him anytime soon. As for the waves splashing into the cockpit, the conditions were rather benign, that or I’m just getting very tolerant of this kind of sea-state. I have talked to crew from much larger sailboats that just finished the same passage as me talking about how they got “beat up out there” when all I noticed was a little swell and a wet ride. The worst part is that as I’m sitting below typing this up in San Blas I think I just missed the twice a week veggie boat and I’m fresh out of onions, coke, beer, peppers, etc, ugh!

3:12AM, 10.08N, 76.42W, 260’, 5kts, got some sleep, was pretty tired.

7:30AM, 10.01N, 77.04W, 5.6kts, 101 miles to go (half way) got some rest last night and feeling better, huge flying fish in the cockpit but I just don’t feel like cooking him, maybe Ill try him as bate.

7:43AM, Bored and noticed that the small boat is now 4.4 miles away and I’m going a good bit faster than him now so I alter course to get a look since he wont answer the radio.

8:30AM, listening to the HF radio net, forecast is 4-7’ seas, NNE wind 10 kts today 20 kts by tomorrow. One reason I left Cartagena when I did is that I had loose plans to meet to good friends Henning and Erika on the sail boat “Two Captains” in San blas, I was at least able to get a hold of some mutual friends of ours and find out where in San Blas they were expected to be in any day. Yay.

9:03AM, 10.02N, 77.24W 270’ 6kts, Small sailboat is now only 2.2 miles away and still wont answer the radio, odd. I’m close enough now to see that it is definitely not my friend, it’s a much bigger boat, a ketch rig (two masts) and I’m amazed that they are going so slow, around 4kts.

Maybe they are like me trying to time a daylight arrival so they slowed down. Technically I shouldn’t be averaging over 4kts if I want to arrive during daylight tomorrow, I figure Ill keep going fast since you never know if things might slow down, even though that’s not expected, the wind is forecasted to increase. I won’t risk a night time arrival into San Blas so I’ll probably slow down some time this evening or tonight.

10:49AM, 10.02N, 77.24W, 260’, 6Kts, 82 miles to go!

1:00PM, 10’N, 77.36W, 260’ 5kts, 71 miles to go, now I should be averaging a max speed of 3.5kts, min of 2.5kts for a daylight arrival I guess I should try to slow to 3kts or so, somehow.

1:30PM hove to, just to slow down, make some food, rest, wow, it got so calm I could even open the forward hatch!!! Hove to with second reef and tiny jib, hove to I was making 1 kt at 180’, drank a beer.

2PM? 9.59N, 77.37W, 188’, .85kts, 69 to go, but I’m barely moving!

4:30PM, finished cooking and sleeping, time to close the hatch and get underway.

5PM, 67 miles to go, 260’ 6kts, now I need to average between 3 and 4.5kts, so I’m still a bit fast…

7PM, 9.54N, 77.46W, 256’ 4kts, headache, only 51.2 miles to go, finally put in a triple reef in the main to get the speed down to 4 kts so now my ETA for tomorrow morning will be during daylight. Also finally fixed a small leak in my kerosene stove (took about 30 seconds to tighten the nut, why didn’t I do it earlier in Cartagena?) wind is about 15kts still just behind the beam, a little rolly now with the shortened sail, the radar is acting up a bit not wanting to go into its standby mode but otherwise works and its nice sailing slow, this is almost perfect sailing weather.

748PM Ship at 6.22 miles relative bearing (RB 135’)

I often log ships even if they look far off and harmless just so I have their position marked and I can check the log in 20 minutes to roughly establish their course and speed determining if we are anywhere near a collision course. The way I normally sleep at night, at least for up to a few hours at a time. I set several alarms. One on the GPS that beeps if I go off course, another one for the depth finder if I’m closer to shore just incase I get into shallower water (I may set it to 200’ if I’m sailing coastal, this gives me plenty of warning before I hit a reef or an island, usually. Fortunately I’ve never had to have it go off to save my butt, I usually pay close attention near shore, and then slack off a bit with the navigation when I get 20 plus miles offshore. Finally I set the radar with a “guard zone” alarm. You can set it anywhere from 0 to 20 miles out to look for ships and it beeps if it sees any. It usually works best around the 4 to 10 mile range, and I usually tell it to look out about 10 miles, for one minute then standby for 15 minutes and then repeat the cycle, this saves power from running it continuously. The problem I was having was that it wouldn’t come back on from the standby mode that means I wasn’t protected by the alarm. I was able to still use it by not using the standby mode, just leaving it on, I had plenty of power anyway. I eventually fixed the problem by ‘resetting’ the radar to default settings so it’s fine now. The alarm works GREAT!! It almost always sees ships before I can, and always sees the ships I can see, so it has now proven to be a very reliable and useful tool. I don’t think I would get half as much sleep without it as I would want to wake up every 30 minutes or so to do a visual look. Now at night I wake up several times to check on things but I don’t feel a need to fully wake up and do a thorough watch for ships, the radar is much better at that than I am. It almost always picks up ships (even small sailboats) well before I can see them.

12/22/09 1:10AM. 9.45N, 78.08W, 4kts, 260’ Only 28NM to go YAY! Just ran a spot check.

I know, I didn’t make a log for like six hours, oh well, there just wasn’t much going on, I was probably reading and sleeping.

2:56AM, 9.43N, 78.14W 3.2kts, 250’, sleeping well!

4:06AM, 9.41N, 78.17.5W, 245’ 3.3Kts

5:00AM, 9.4N, 78.20.5W 4kts, 250’

7:13AM 9.37N, 78.29.5W, 4kts, 260’

11:30AM Hook down in Eastern Holandes Cays, San Blas, Panama. “The Hot Tub Anchorage” used motor 30 minutes, less than one hour the entire 200 mile trip. I´ll add pictures soon!

I still haven’t updated my adventures throughout Colombia and a side trip to Peru however I wanted to get the message out now that I’m heading out soon to Panama via San Blas. The plan is to sail from Cartagena this weekend either Saturday or Sunday for San Blas Panama. The islands of San Blas has been one of the best places I have been yet and a logical stopover on the way back to Colon Panama to transit the Canal. I will likely repeat the same itinerary I kept coming to Colombia from Colon only in reverse. First stopping in San Blas for a few weeks up to a month, and then another week making short hops along the Panamanian coast in Isla Grande, Isla Linton, Portobello and then finally to Colon. Maybe another week or two in Colon and then hopefully through the Canal and into El Pacifico. I’m estimating my Canal transit date to be some time around mid to late February putting me on the Pacific side (Panama City) plenty early for the Pacific crossing season. I had more engine problems here in Colombia that have since been resolved. Basically I couldn’t start the motor one day and after a day of trouble shooting I called in a professional local mechanic. After taking off the cylinder head we discovered that the gasket, rings, and valves were all looking very very sad causing a major compression issues. Essentially the top half of the motor has been rebuilt and she is running great now. I still have plenty of minor things on my to do list but over all salsa is ready to ship out. On the off chance anyone has some free time and no plans for Christmas I have plenty of room for one or two folks to sail from Cartagena Colombia to Panama, you would need at least a week total to get back to Panama City to fly out but if anyone is serious about that trip they would need to call me ASAP (phone number on sailingsalsa.com should be good till I depart this weekend).

I will be doing some writing on my way to Panama if I don’t before I leave to get the blogging up to date, and hope to keep better logs and records underway from now on in hopes of providing more detailed passage reports. That’s it for now; I’m off to check the weather and provision! Hope everyone is doing well and if you don’t here from me before Christmas have a very merry Christmas, I know I will, and watch out for my Spot-Check position reports on the website! -Kirk

At last the most procrastinated blog entry of all. San Blas to Cartagena Colombia. Almost exactly 200 miles, from San Blas Panama to Cartagena leaving from the Holandes Keys. Salsa can comfortably do around 4kts if there is any breeze at all or if you feel like running the motor. 5Kts doesn’t really push her too hard either but requires a nice breeze or quite a bit less economy using the motor. My weather forecast was the best one I had seen in a week and I had to be in Cartagena within a week to meet with Jen and Dave who were flying in to meet me. So light, variable winds that wouldn’t be against me on the nose seemed reasonable even if less than ideal for sailing. After much internal debate I opted to leave early in the morning knowing that I would spend a minimum of two days and nights at sea (48 hours) with up to to 58 hours to make the port before I would have to spend a third night offshore. This seemed pretty reasonable, I only had to average 3.5kts to get there in two days and couldn’t go any faster than 4kts or I would arrive before dawn on day three. I probably spend too much time thinking about this stuff.

Around 8am I optimistically uncovered the main sail and motored out of the anchorage. An hour later… Still motoring, no wind to speak of and I could see a big black cloud creeping up my stern; I mean a big one, taking up half of the sky. Then on the radio I heard reports of strong winds and rain in the anchorage I just left a few miles back, but nothing to get worked up about, just people warning others to close their hatches and take down their biminis. I thought that at least when the squall got to me I could kill the motor and start sailing, and I was right. I think I saw around 15 to 20 kts of wind mostly from behind allowing me to keep up the full genoa, no main and run at about 5 kts, making me very happy. This lasted a few hours and I was excited to start out well ahead of my self imposed 3.5kt minimum speed. Plus I think about things like every mile I make at 5kt, there is another hour I can afford to go only 2.5kts, which given the forecast was a likely scenario. The wind shifted a bit, and started to diminish, and I don’t recall getting very much rain either. Soon it was up with the full main and full jib, and constant sail trim to keep the boat moving over three knots as the wind continued to diminish, seems I was only on the edge of the storm and it wasn’t a strong one at that. Shortly after noon it was time crank up the motor again and drop some sails.

I get VERY good economy with my 18HP universal diesel, especially under 4kts I can burn just over a liter an hour or four (at least three) hours on one gallon. If Salsa’s economy was rated by the EPA she would be a gas hog getting only 15MPG or so (about the same as my old suburban, however salsa weighs about five tons, and is not only transportation but my house and every possession I own, so I think that’s pretty damn good. Then when you factor that most of the time she is under sail and getting infinite miles to the gallon, now that’s an efficient way to travel. Anyway, as I was saying I’m motoring along at just under 4kts, waiting for the next breeze to come along. This leg was one of the worst for fishing, two days and nothing but seaweed. Eventually I got another little breeze along with a little bit of current to help me out and I was sailing along at just over 3kts, not making my quota but I had a few bonus knots from before. Few hours later back on the motor and rolling along in a mild but very noticeable swell. When the wind stops offshore, the waves don’t, at least not for a long while. So if you start motoring without the sails up, depending on your course relative to the wave direction, you can have the boat rolling from side to side violently, even in a light swell of only a few feet. Now one thought is to put the main sail up even though it won’t make you any faster, it can and does stabilize the motion. At the expense of wear on the sail and often a loud FWACK! FWACK! FWACK! With each wave as salsa tries to lean over with the wave and the sail catches the wind as she rolls and tries to hold her upright. I opted for the rolling. Later I discovered that if you put a reef or two in the main sail when using it to stabilize the boat it nearly eliminates the fwack noise of the sail smacking the wind and still works pretty well to cut down on the roll. But none of that really matters as long as you have at least SOME wind then the sail seems to stay filled on one tack and doesn’t present such a headache.
The passage was slightly less than fulfilling, not to say it didn’t have its moments but hour after hour of motoring tends to make me a bit crazy. The most exciting part of the passage was waking up in the middle of the night to a very loud THUD. It literally took me three seconds to get on deck and see, well I saw nothing as usual when you’re sailing at night and look in the water! The next day I saw LARGE trees passing by and realized that there is no way to avoid one, it’s more of a game of chance. I’m am at least comforted knowing that I probably wont assume any serious damage in this kind of a collision considering that I have a strong full keel that ‘dampens’ the blow of a collision, especially something floating. Another embarrassing yet interesting tidbit was when I was asleep under power and the autopilot shut itself off. Normally under sail it’s very obvious if there is a major change of course, sails luff, the heel changes, you feel the waves at a slightly different frequency, all these things alert you. In a calm see under motor, there are almost no audible signs to wake you up, especially if you fall off course very slowly. I woke up, checked my position to learn that I was going the wrong way, lovely. Wasted time, wasted fuel, wasted sanity. Then I see the Autopilot went to standby at some point while I was dosing, maybe for 30 minutes. The neat thing about GPS is you can look at your old track and see where you were, it showed two BIG circles, (maybe a total of 2 miles traveled) just going round and round. At the moment I caught the error I happened to be on the part of the circle pointing back towards Panama, otherwise I might not have even noticed and gone back to sleep!! No big deal, reset the autopilot, plot a new course, go back to sleep, at least for a few minutes at a time.
I spent about half of the total 50 hours motoring or motor sailing at very low speeds. The other half sailing or drifting in the right direction. There were a few brief squalls that got me moving nicely with full sail but nothing sustained long enough to make a real difference. The biggest surprise was arriving in Cartagena with so much extra fuel. I hadn’t bought diesel since Colon Panama over a month ago, and I only carry 35 gallons, and still had 10 or more gallons left upon arrival in Cartagena, expecting to be empty. I arrived around 10 am, so in theory I could have motored slightly less and sailed a little more and arrived a little later that day with plenty of daylight, but I was tired, ready for rest, and at the same time anxious to see Cartagena. Plus as I closed on the coast I noticed significant increase freighter traffic and didn’t want to risk sitting off the coast tired a third night with freighter traffic, so I got in early during and was happy to do so.
Entering the bay of Cartagena is as straight forward as it gets. Well marked, well charted, few hazards, plenty of room, and lots to see. You sail right past the hotel district of Boca Grande, along with several of the forts and other land marks of the area. It is a few miles from the entrance to the anchorage so you have plenty of time to take in the new city from the water before you drop the hook, and after the gloom of Colon Panama, plus the beautiful yet isolated San Blas islands, Cartagena was a joyous sight! I cruised around the 40 or boats in the anchorage and found a good spot right next to an old friend from Panama. I don’t have much blogging from Colombia yet but there are plenty of pictures on the website, mostly from when Jen and Dave were visiting, including several shots of the reefs around the Rosario Islands with my new waterproof camera mom sent me (THANKS MOM). More to come!

The Holandes Cays is only about 20 miles from the East Lemon Cays and even nicer. The entrance through the reefs and islands is as easy as the Lemons even though it appears a bit complicated when you look at the chart. Luckily there was enough wind and or current to move along at 3.5kts making me happy. A few other boats making the same run under power passed me around noon having left later than me and arriving earlier but of course burning all of that precious diesel, I was very satisfied just to have enough wind to make a sail of it. Plus I didn’t know how much Diesel I would need going to Colombia and it was difficult at best to find fuel since I left Colon Panama. When I did finally leave the Holandes I had only used about Five Gallons since Colon Panama over the last month.

The first anchorage I chose is known as “The Hot Tub”. It has a VERY narrow cut through a reef where you can easily see the bottom and the reef on both sides so entering was no problem as long as you keep your eyes on the water rather than the GPS. There was only one other boat and I anchored on the opposite side a considerable distance away. My spot was close to a long narrow cut in the reef that was amazing snorkeling and great fishing. Once again I struck out with the spear gun, but in just one snorkel I saw a large nurse shark, spotted eagle rays, large lobsters and boatloads of other reef fish, even one very large jack (I think) that I took a pathetic shot at and of course missed. For me the best part of the anchorage was the fishing. I usually keep a few slim-jims in the tackle box for when I don’t have any other decent bait. I didn’t get any hits all evening until around 11pm, then I had a nice size jack, then an hour later another, and two other fish I wont try to identify (you can look at the picture) but they were all great eating. After two days in the Hot tub I had the engel/refrigerator running with several filets for later and a belly full of fish so I was ready to move to another very nearby anchorage (only one or two miles) “The swimming pool”. This anchorage seems to be one of the most popular anchorages in all of San Blas. I think there were around 10 boats, several faces to put with the voices and names that I had been listening to and talking with on the SSB radio net daily. I knew from the radio that one particular person had a lot of success spear fishing the reefs around the anchorage so I asked him if I could go out with him and learn some pointers. Sure enough he speared a very nice Red Snapper and I got a smaller Blue Runner or Jack. When I say smaller it was a perfect size meal, I even had to cut the head and tail off just to get it to fit into the frying pan, sorry I didn’t get a picture of him. The reef itself was a great snorkel, this was a wall about 10 feet deep running along a cut between two reefs leading all the way outside to the ocean.

The next day I fished the same area alone with no success but again, it’s such nice snorkeling I really didn’t mind. Plus I would later find out that my spear gun was insufficient for anything more than very short ranges but Ill explain how that got straightened out in Colombia.

One reason why people like the “swimming pool” so much is that you can anchor in around 10 feet of water and clearly see the bottom all around you as opposed to the 30ft deep anchorages in most other areas of San Blas. It’s nice to just jump off your boat for a swim and easily see reef fish, Often rays and sharks, lobsters, all within a hundred feet or so of the boat. There are also several different types of reefs to swim. Some of them are little mountains that pop out of deep water where you can free dive down to 30 feet or swim near the top of the underwater “mountain’ in only 3 to 5 feet. Other areas are like big shallow fields of amazing coral. Pam, another single hander there offered to take me out for a night-dive/snorkel witch seemed it bit odd at first but was great. Basically you go snorkeling with water-proof flashlights after dark and the result is all kinds of creatures that you normally don’t see during the day. We saw a few small octopuses, lots of anemones that seem to mostly only come out at night, weird sea spiders, lobsters, and the coolest part is that a lot of the fish are just sleeping around the coral, so you can right up to them and even touch them if you want, even though it wakes them up and scares the heck out of them.

It seems like a lot of the semi-permanent cruisers staying in the swimming pool have formed a very tight community, every week there is a pot-luck dinner and sundowners on BBQ island were people chat and swap books and food, then drink until dark. This was probably the nicest anchorage I’ve ever been in, only lacking the seclusion found in some of the less popular places. Other people reported catching ocean trigger from their boats but I didn’t have any success catching fish on a hook. I was still very happing just to spear my first fish, lots of other cruisers caught fish trolling along the reef in their dinghies and one even got a 35 to 40lb Red Snapper on a spear, along with two other large fish (see pictures from Holandes). I could probably go on raving about San Blas but I’m already in Colombia trying to catch up the blog so this will have to suffice unless anyone has any questions. Next the passage from San Blas to Cartagena Colombia!

The trip from Chichime to the Lemon Cays was very short, only a few miles with light wind and I didn’t even bother with the main sail only flying the Genoa part of the way. The entrance caused me a bit of grief since the charts in my Panama Cruising Guide did not completely agree with the paper charts. No harm done but I did abandon my approach twice since I was expecting closer to 60 feet of water under the keel yet I only had 10 feet or so. I just motored VERY slowly hoping not to bump into the reef that I could clearly see looking over the side. That’s one down side to single handing, you can’t put a look-out person on the bow to alert you of visible obstructions or to point you towards the deeper water. Once I crossed the reef there was plenty of water in the anchorage, almost too much! The anchorage is between a few islands with a very deep hole in the middle, over 50 feet if I recall correctly, with a few eight to ten feet deep areas near the islands, not really an accommodating place if you have more than three or four boats in my opinion. I decided the safest place was in ten feet of water over 150 feet from another boat. After an hour or so the other captain came over is his dinghy and told me I was too close, that was the first time I’ve had that told to me ever even though I have seen plenty of cruisers complaining about it to others. Stupid thing is that we were not very close but this guy decided he needed 300 feet of chain anchored in only 10 feet of water giving him a 600 feet swing, so in fact with the ground tackle he ignorantly chose to deploy I was too close, but it just seems awfully rude to me, putting out well over three times maximum chain needed and taking up half of the anchorage, and unnecessarily damaging coral heads as he swings on his chain.

The lemon Cays had an interesting looking little restaurant and hotel (huts) that I never checked out since I was trying to save money. It was small and secluded and the only customers I saw were ferried in on a small launch presumably from a nearby island. Since I was only here for two days I didn’t do as much snorkeling or walking on the islands. I spent one full day attempting to spearfish on a very nice reef. Once again the best spots always seems to be cuts in a long reef where you can snorkel inside the protection of the reef or swim out through the cut into very deep water. I even took a shot at very large barracuda (and missed of course), I think finally after swimming with them for a month I’m no longer nervous around them, even the ones that are five feet long or so.

I also bought my first Mola here from a Kuna Indian, they are decorative hand-sewn cloths, see my pictures. After two days I moved again, this time to the more popular West Lemon Cays again only a few uneventful miles away. The West Lemon Cays anchorage had a lot more space, probably 15 boats could squeeze in even though there were only five to eight boats at a time during the few days I was there. Unfortunately I can’t recall the snorkeling so it must have been ok, but I probably didn’t find the best spots. What I do remember was that there was good fishing right from the boat, as long as you were willing to stay up at night to land the fish, the first night I caught two nice size Yellow Snappers? And two other large pan fish.

The West Lemon Cays had Kuna Venders in their little dugout canoes (ulus) just as aggressive as in Chichime, at one point I saw at least four Kuna boats together close in upon a large sailboat as they were anchoring, all competing to sell their Molas, fish, and lobster. One nice thing about the East Lemon Cays is that there is a very little store (a hut about the size of a typical bedroom) with only the most basic canned goods, oil, rice, potatoes, booze, etc. I didn’t need anything and it wasn’t very cheap however they also sell fresh baked ‘Kuna Bread” that look like little foot long baguettes for something like 15 cents a piece, very good when it’s fresh.

While I was there I heard over the Cruiser Radio SSB net that one sailboat in a neighboring island group had lost a dinghy and motor over night. Only a few days later I saw a Kuna transport boat pull into my area with an inflatable dinghy! After one VHF relay I was able to contact the owner and establish that it was indeed hers so I rowed over to talk to the Kuna who found it while making his daily runs transporting fuel from the mainland out to a small island, he agreed to wait a few hours while the cruiser sailed over to pick up the dinghy, they negotiated a $100 reward for finding it. Unfortunately I suspect the motor will never be found. From what I’ve heard from most people is that theft and crime is very rare in San Blas and Kuna Yala, but I suppose a dinghy left in the water with a new 10HP outboard for the taking is just too much temptation.

Most people actually hoist their dinghy up in the air or on deck with a halyard for the night to protect it, or pull the engine off and leave it chained in the cockpit. Leaving your dinghy and motor in the water back in Colon Panama was almost a guarantee it would be stolen. Something else to point out, is that while James (atomvoyages.com) was helping with the refit and equipping of salsa he insisted I get a small 3.5HP or so motor rather than something bigger. It seems that nearly every time an outboard is stolen it is 10 or 15 HP, something to consider when buying a motor. Mine also very light only 30LB or so, uses very little gas, only downside is that my dinghy will not plane out so I max out around 4 or 5mph compared to the 15mph I could probably do if I had a 5hp or bigger.

Over all the West Lemon Cays is a very nice anchorage, the local islands like most other places had a few families living on them that were friendly and didn’t mind cruisers exploring the islands or having happy hour on the beach. I could have stayed longer but I needed to get to Cartagena since Jen and Dave were flying in within a few weeks, one last stop, Holandes Cays.

Hi Everyone, I just came back from visiting Kirk in Cartagena.

Kirk is doing great! He looked great and was in overall good health. He is also an excellent cook! He cooked for us almost every day. It is amazing what he can do with that little burner.

He is also making a lot of friends at every port. He ran into some people from Panama that were very excited to see him. His Spanish is also great, I don’t know what Dave & I would have done without him!

We spent about 3-4 days at the Rosario Islands (Islas del Rosario) and snorkeled just about the entire time. Dave fixed up Kirk’s spear gun, so he should be good to go.

Back in Cartagena we saw a lot of the historic sites and walked around Old Town (Centro) a lot. Kirk is an excellent haggler and got me a great price on an Emerald necklace. Just when i thought i had the final price he saved me another $25!

Since I have already been to the South Pacific (Fiji) I can’t wait to visit Kirk in South Africa. I am going to start saving now!

I’m not going to post the log but rather give a few highlights. First there was the Dilemma as to when to depart. I don’t think most other boats experience the same issues since they have big motors and plenty of fuel they can pretty accurately plan their arrival time in spite of the wind or lack of it. I usually try to plan my passages so that I can sail all or the majority of it when possible. Now from Isla Grande to Chichime San Blas is about 45 miles. Even motoring at 4.5 kts were talking 10 hours, so for example if I left at the earliest feasible time to allow for visual navigation say 7 AM I would be arriving at 5 PM, just a little too late to see the reefs on the way in to the islands, and no margin of safety. I usually try to plan the arrivals to new islands (especially when there are reefs and shoals to be negotiated) for 4 PM at the very latest. This brings up the option of leaving around 6 PM but that would mean I wouldn’t be able to arrive for at least 14 hours to make a daylight approach around 8 AM so I would have to average no more than around 3 kts and have to sail all night. SO, my solution, imperfect as it may be, was to leave around 3 AM, giving me plenty of time to arrive before dark in San Blas. Only down side was that I would have to leave Isla Grande in the dark which wasn’t too bad since it was more or less straight forward and I had already sailed in once so I had a track on the GPS.

So, I was finally underway to San Blas around 3:30 AM, Dinghy stowed away on deck, and motor sailing along at about 4 kts, I can do 5 kts, almost 6, but slower conserves a lot of fuel and I had plenty of time plus I didn’t want to have to buy fuel before Columbia almost a month away. By around 10 AM several of the big fast boats that left the same area were almost caught up with me, and inevitably arrived to their destinations in San Blas well before me, no big deal. I managed to sail only a very small part of this trip, and motor sail maybe half of it. The majority of the time is was just the diesel getting us there. No fish, nothing exciting, but a nice smooth motor-sail in very calm wind and seas. I think I arrived in Chichime around 2 PM or so with plenty of daylight to spare. I took a picture of the anchorage from the guide that should be on the web site, basically its just two small islands and a reef, with one very tiny little island near the entrance. Tiny as in one or two palm trees, maybe 20’ wide. While I was a little nervous during the approach (as usual) once again it turned out to be rather straight-forward, no problems.

Within about 30 seconds of having the anchor down the local Kuna Indians have there dug-out Canoes paddled out to your boat and are offering local hand-crafts, fish, lobster, crab, etc. If you don’t buy anything they start a little begging routing, asking if you have any magazines, chocolate, cooking oil, rice, onions, the list goes on! Funny, I don’t think any of them asked for money. Chichime probably isn’t the nicest anchorage in San Blas but it’s easy to navigate your way in, and there is plenty of decent snorkeling, and the local Kunas are friendly enough. The area is small enough that I didn’t even deploy the dinghy, rather I explored the two small islands and one tiny one simply by swimming from one to the next. There are about 6 families total on two of the islands in Chichime with maybe 5 to 7 in each family, living, it what looks like a little palapa hut. More or less primitive, with no lights, electricity, most of them don’t have motors on their boats. A few did have cell phones, and on sunny days would paddle out and ask if I had enough solar-power to charge their phones, which of course was no problem. Then the kids caught on that I had a first aid kit so I would get a daily canoe of the wounded after a few days, typically cuts scrapes etc. Finally just before I left I even started getting pitchers, coolers, etc, things that needed glued or epoxied for repair, but over all considering that your visiting their islands I would say they weren’t too demanding. After several days of swimming, snorkeling and just plain relaxing I was off to another Island group, the West Lemon Cays, only a few miles away.

I’m going to miss the monkeys on Isla Linton… I just re-read my last post, wow there were a lot of typos! So everyone will just have to overlook them and hopefully not assume that I’m an illiterate idiot. A lot of the time I’m writing these emails on a computer with a low battery, outside, in nearly 100 degree weather, while being attacked by insects. Ok that might be a worst case scenario but it’s often a combination of those factors. More often and importantly I just want to get my thoughts expressed and then get off the computer and back to experiencing everything. Plus times like this (sitting in my cockpit outside at night with full batteries in a cool breeze) that I tend to get too wordy perhaps but you’re still reading so what the heck :-).

So after a few days anchored off of Isla Linton, and one long (30 minute) dinghy ride to Isla Grande next door (allegedly the party island that you should stay away from). I decided it would be an interesting place to spend the weekend. Thursday was dead, there were probably over a dozen bars on the water, a lot for such a small strip of island, one you can walk from one end to the other in about Ten minutes or less. Oh let me back-track. I forgot to mention the Mike from Infini took me up on my offer to do a little offshore fishing / trolling in Salsa, he was so sure that we would catch fish, much more convinced that I was. There are some rocks about 2 miles offshore I think they farlonnes rocks??. The book “The Panama Guide” says that there is good fishing there so we took Salsa for a little sail with a nice breeze and after about One hour is was FISH ON! A nice uh Jack-something? Perfect size for Sushimi for Three and dinner for three later. After fishing a few hours instead of returning to Isla Linton where I was (and Mike and Sue on Infini still are) we anchored Salsa off Isla Grande and then Sue (who was keeping an eye on my Dinghy) towed it over and picked up Mike so we wouldn’t have to stow it or tow it during the fishing.

Back to Isla Grande… As I was saying Thursday was dead and Friday not much better. After dark there were about Four or Five open bars, most small tiki – type bars, very cool, but not much life, most only had a few people, surely families staying on the island. Saturday I ran into a large group of people from the Peace Corps in Panama that were taking a little weekend get-away on the Island. After about 10 beers, see another $10 of beer money to good use, and stories of monkeys and mangrove tunnels two girls decided to join me for a long dinghy ride (no pun intended honest) the next day. The Monkeys, all three this time, put on an awesome show, I didn’t have my camera but hopefully the girls will email them to me so they can make the website. One girl, Terry had TWO monkeys eating out of her hand at the same time while they were hanging from palm trees, made a great photo, and sure enough when she backed away with the food they grabbed her hair and held on! I’m watching this 10 feet away in the dinghy on the beach. Why was I in the dinghy rather than hobnobbing with the monkeys you might ask. Well a neighbor on a Catamaran said that he had heard several stories of the Monkeys attacking. There favorite maneuver being to jump into the dinghy so that you cant leave without fighting your way back into your boat. So I was defending the ship and securing our fast getaway. After the Monkeys made it clear that they didn’t want the girls leaving the island, at least not while they still had food we just threw some fruit and uh, frosted mini wheats (Monkeys like em) on the ground to occupy them while we paddled away. Next a quick ride through the mangrove should be pictures of those on the website now or soon, and then a race back for them to make their bus, which of course left early so they missed it. That turned out OK for them since the next one was only three hours away and I explored the little town on the coast opposite Isla Grande to discover, vegetables, gasoline and a very cheap restaurant, all things that I thought I Might not see again before Columbia. After doing basic exploring on Isla Grande with some hangover worthy partying I still needed to find the path up to the light house. Totally worth it! It’s a great view, after you climb up the actual tower to light itself. I’m only in Panama do they leave these things wide open to they general public. Then again maybe its not open to the general public since you need to hike up a hill through a jungle with a path that resembled a really small stream, I wont describe the view, you just have to see the pictures. But I will mention that climbing a light house is weird, definitely not for the claustrophobic! The thing is tall and really narrow, the only thing that fits inside besides the light at the top are stairs, a VERY narrow and windy series of steps. Then up top, there is of course the light, and a very cool ledge / overlook with a 360 degree view. Finished exploring, fueled up, and fairly well provisioned I was fully ready make the 40 mile hop to the San Blas Islands.

Location as of 8/17/08 apprx. 7:45 AM DST

Location as of 8/16/08 approx 8 AM DST

Location as of 8/-4/08 approx. 3 PM DST

9:30AM up anchor, 2800 rpm 4.8kts no wind.

1Pmish anchor down in Isla Linton Anchorage.

OK, not much of a log, so I feel in the gaps. After leaving Portobello there was very light winds at best, I was able to fill the Genoa only barely as I motored sailed half of the way, but basically I was motoring the whole way. About 2 miles outside of the anchorage as I began to make my approach I had a fish on the hand line! Turns out it was some kind of a mackerel, totally guessing it was about 3 ft’ long, and around 10lbs, just perfect! The fish book didn’t have an exact picture but it had a very similar fish labeled as the ‘tuna-mackerel’ family. I didn’t have time to deal with the fish as I was approaching a reef at the entrance of the harbor, so I just tied the gaff off to the side of the boat, squirted some alcohol into his mouth to calm him down quickly and then continued in to anchor. Almost as soon I had had the hook down Mike and Sue anchored next to me on Infini stopped by to say hi. I had seen them leaving Portobello shortly after I arrived but didn’t have a chance to chat with them. Mike mentioned that he wanted to try some fishing since there are fish schooling and jumping all over the anchorage. I told them I had enough for all of us and pulled up the gaff to show the fish, they actually got excited and offered to cook dinner after I filleted the fish. Mike came back while I was still busy cutting out four very nice fillets and we poured some soy sauce on the fish (as fresh as you can possibly get it) and enjoyed some VERY good sashimi! For dinner they grilled some, fried some, and rolled up some sushi, for a very satisfying dinner aboard Infini. Cuba Libres filled the rest of the evening and day two here consisted of snorkeling around the island with my dinghy tethered to me so I didn’t get run over by Jet skis that were flying back and forth through the anchorage, luckily that only goes on during the weekend. The snorkeling wasn’t bad with several tropical fish (small ones mostly) and some interesting coral. So far I’ve been here five days and the additional highlights were an inexpensive ($5) dinner at a small restaurant on the beach in the cove here. I also got to know the monkeys on Isla Linton while I was scavenging for coconuts. The guide book says that they appear friendly and will sit in your lap and eat out of your hand until you try to leave the island at which point they might become aggressive. I had one of the monkeys follow me to the dinghy dock, where I went in my bag, and just happened to have an apple that I left in the middle of the pier and sat near the dinghy so I could make a quick escape. The monkey followed me to pick up the apple and stared at my making strange monkey noised while she ate it slowly, skipping the seeds and some of the peel. Then she kept sliding towards me on the pier. Funny, she didn’t stand up and walk over, but sort of slid her butt over a foot or so at a time until she was within lunging distance of me. That’s when I moved into the dinghy and held onto the pier so I could make a quick getaway if I needed to. She just sat there right in my face staring at me only a few feet a way asking me for more food. Then her boyfriend showed up and walked out the pier on two feet like a human with his huge tail curled up even over his head. He hugged her (weird) and then ate the rest of the apple and then showed me his intimidating teeth so I shoved off the pier but just sat there watching them for another 15 minutes before heading back to the boat. If I see them again I’ll get some pictures but now I’m even more nervous since another cruiser here said that there had been several recent ‘attacks’ and that the monkeys even like to jump in your dinghy while your on the island presumably so you can’t leave. Apparently they have been fed enough to have a strong association between people and food / feeding! Two more adventures, one was a dinghy ride to Panamarina through a mangrove forest, in a channel only a few feet deep and too narrow to even row without your oars hitting the mangrove on the sides of the trail. The mangrove was so thick it even forms a canopy over the water so you completely surrounded, was kind of eerie as well hearing the howler monkeys in the jungle as I paddled through, I assume the monkeys on Isla linton I fed earlier were not howler monkeys but I really don’t know. After cutting through the mangrove you pop out at another cover where Panamarina has moorings for sailboats. They also have a very small office and restaurant where you can access the internet for $2.00 and hour (that’s where I sent this and the last update). The last little adventure here was the 30 minute dinghy ride to Isla Grande next door. A big tourist destination in Panama, but not much there really, at least a dozen beech bars but only a few had any appeal to me. The best part was that you can walk half way around the island on a path, and then you can continue if your willing to climb rocks witch I did until I got to a very steep rock wall that I figured I could save for another day. On the walk back I stopped at a tiki-bar restaurant on the beach (no shirt or shoes required here, its right on the sand 5 ft’ from the water) so I indulged in three $1.00 beers (I love that part of Panama) to re-hydrate myself before coming back to the boat last night. I think I’ll be here one or two more days and then maybe one day anchored off of Isla Grande to check out the nightlife, if not I’ll head off non-stop to the San Blas Islands. So if there are no more updates other than the spot-checks it just means that there is no internet! Hope everyone is doing well. –Kirk