Passage notes: Isla Gamez to Isla Cavada in the Islas Secas, Panama

Log book

• Port of departure: Isla Gamez, Panama
• Departure date and time: Friday, January 31, 2014 at 1:30pm
• Port of arrival: Isla Cavada in the Islas Secas, Panama
• Arrival date and time: Friday, January 31, 2014 at 8:00pm
• Total travel time: 6.5 hours
• Miles traveled: 20.6 nm
• Engine hours: 1216.4 begin – 1216.6 end – 0.2 hours
• Fuel consumption: 32.8 begin – 32.7 end – 0.1 gallons used
• Fuel economy: 206 mpg
• Maintenance notes: Missing half of our folding prop. Clean bottom.
• Tides and currents: Low tide at 10am (ish), high tide at 4:30pm. No effects from current.
• Weather: The week long forecast showed light but regular thermals, with winds from the E/SE in the early morning, W/SW during the late morning and afternoon, shifting to winds from the N/NE after sunset.

This passage offered up a little bit of everything – some light upwind sailing, heavy downwind sailing, swimming, relaxing, fishing, nail biting, anchoring under sail in the dark…more nail biting. The day prior, as I was cleaning the bottom of the boat (and just generally inspecting things) I noticed that half of our prop was missing, which explains so much (slow speed, new vibration). We have a folding prop that opens when it’s in gear, but closes when we’re sailing. It reduces drag under sail. At some point in the not too distant past the set pin that holds one of the two halves in place must have slipped out. We can still move forward under power, but we go SLOOOW and we really shouldn’t use the prop until we find a replacement. Consequently, it looks like we’ll have time to improve our sailing skills while we figure out a solution.

The S wind didn’t really pipe up until after lunch, but once it did we were ready to get a move on. With SV Vagabundo leading the way we hauled anchor under sail and set out slowly. With 8-10 knots from the S we were scooting along at 3.5 knots. The doctor did all of the steering while Jeff and I went about feeling at home on the water.

I dangled my feet off of the transom and dipped a lure in the water, letting it trail a couple hundred feet behind us, then reeling it towards the boat as fast as I could. And wouldn’t you know it? I caught a fish. My first catch on the ocean using a pole. I’m simultaneously embarrassed and proud to tell you that it’s the first time I’ve fished with the pole off of the boat. Embarrassed because we’ve been traveling on this boat for over a year and more two thousand miles, but proud because my first attempt was a SUCCESS! It was a beautiful Pacific Sierra, with golden circles marching across its body. Tack flew to the cockpit to see what all of the commotion was about. He gets as excited about fish as we do these days. We all kissed the Sierra, including Tack, for good luck and to express our gratitude.

I’ve decided to move fishing up on my “Stuff to learn about” list for a number of reasons: 1) We check into the morning Ham net on a semi-regular basis and there’s a woman who talks about fishing with such excitement that she kind of passed the bug along to me; 2) I’ve been slowly picking up tips and stories from other cruisers and finally feel like I might be able to crack the code (maybe it’s not as mysterious as I make it out to be?); 3) The only decent canned meat they have in Panama is tuna and I can only handle so much tuna (Spam and “decent” don’t belong on the same sentence – I tried to like it; 4) We use our fridge intermittently, but it doesn’t stay cold long enough to keep fresh meat fresh very long…so if we want meat, we’ve got to catch it.

While I was fishing, Jeff succeeded in taking a freshwater cowboy shower with one small mug full of water. This is quite a feat. Jeff washed his hair, his whole body, and shaved with one tiny cup of water, using a Tablespoon to make it stretch. Now that’s efficiency. He was pretty excited to use the Sandalwood soap we picked up at a market in between David and Boca Chica. The scent of Sandalwood lingered in our cabin all afternoon.

As the sun dipped towards the horizon, we started to notice swell coming from the North. This wasn’t just any swell, it was the kind of swell that commands attention, large with a short period. The cotton candy clouds above us were moving in the opposite direction of the wind down at our level. In the distance a dark band of water from the North was bearing down on us. We prepared the small jib in anticipation of the wind that was coming.

The North wind hit just as the sun was setting, darkness inviting the band of water ever closer. It was more than manageable at first, 13-15 knots, and we made great speed with our Genoa up, sometimes exceeding 6 knots. When the wind exceeded 18 knots we turned up wind, doused the Genoa, reefed the main and raised the working jib. Earlier in the day we had pulled way out in front of SV Vagabundo, but they were making up for it now. Once we had the working jib up, we returned down wind. The wind had increased to 20-25 with 5-6 foot wind waves that were smacking us around.

The wind continued to build and we decided to sail under working jib alone. At its height we were experiencing gusts to 35 and sloppy seas as the S/SW swell crashed into the N wind waves. Anything not bolted down sloshed around in our cabin as the ocean tossed us around. We bolted towards our destination as the sky darkened. Jeff noticed that our one hand line was taut and after trimming the sails and getting the boat in order, I reeled it in to reveal a striped bonito, its eyes as wide as its gaping mouth, its body stiff and hard. Serenity was moving so fast it must have worn itself out trying to shake free.

Noticing a couple masthead lights in the anchorage, we called on the VHF just to get the lay of the land and make sure there weren’t any boats we couldn’t spot. After checking in with our friend Ron on Mar de Luz, we approached the anchorage under sail and readied the anchor (with the engine on as emergency back up). In 25 feet of water we quickly doused the jib and let the anchor spill off of the bow roller. The North wind blew us backwards, setting our anchor quickly and easily. We stayed on deck making sure all of the halyards and sails were secure and kept an eye on Vagabundo as they pulled into the anchorage and scoped out a good spot to drop the hook.

We had a single cold beer in the fridge to celebrate the full day and enjoyed our fresh fish dinner. What a day, what a rush!