SV Yohelah – Pacific Loop

We’ve been in the Pearl Islands for a little over two weeks now and have had a wonderful time. We are traveling in the company of Brit & Axel on Hello World and met up with Shared Dreams, Legacy and Warrior for a marvelous Christmas potluck. The Pearl Islands are a group of islands about 40 miles south of Panama City in the Bay of Panama, with about 30 different anchorages on several small islands around the large island of Isla del Rey. We’ve seen alot of the area in these two weeks, but could spend much more time here.

The Christmas turkey we brought down from Panama City was a huge success, thanks to Rob’s roasting. At the potluck that night we had enough food for another 5 boats and everyone enjoyed the feast. A little excitement was added to the evening when Rob dropped the very sharp carving knife on his big toe and did some serious projectile bleeding all over Hello World’s cabin sole. But they all came to the rescue and bandaged him up and the toe is nearly back to new now.

There have been many beautiful white sandy beaches to explore, lots of nice shells to collect, mostly clear 80 degree water for swimming every day, some kayaking, and even a little snorkeling and diving. We did a dive with Brit & Axel in a shallow area with 30′ of water and some pretty good surge. Being my first dive in quite a while, I didn’t relax and get comfortable until the dive was nearly over. But the good news is that we finally had a chance to fire up the compressor and succesfully refilled our air tanks in the cockpit of the boat.

For New Year’s Eve (called Silvester by the Germans) we shared an anchorage again with Hello World, Shared Dreams and Legacy. We kayaked in the morning, had a late potluck, and then we played a game of cards to keep us all awake until the midnight hour. We all managed to ring in the New Year and even tried a little dancing on the aft deck of Hello World. Now we’re heading back north tomorrow to get back to Panama City.

Sadly we need to get reprovisioned and start moving west. There is much to see in Western Panama before we head back up to Costa Rica to meet up with T2. And the reprovisioning stop in Panama City is a huge one, as this is the last place we’ll see the convenience foods and products we’re used to from home until we get to New Zealand in November. Supplies in French Polynesia are amazingly expensive, so I’m going to stowe as much stuff as I can into my little cupboards and freezer.

We’ve agreed to meet back up with Hello World for some diving on Cocos Island, which is about 200 miles west of Costa Rica in the Pacific. Cocos is a very well protected marine park where divers pay thousands of dollars for an opportunity to explore the clear warm waters. I thought it would be a great opportunity since we’re going in that general direction from Costa Rica to the Galapagos. What I failed to understand when planning the stop is that the waters are teeming with hammerhead sharks and that’s one of the big attractions for the divers. For some reason we’re still planning the dive, so stay tuned to see what those pictures look like (and if I’m even in the water while Rob’s taking them)!

And just for the record, we finally got the last piece of equipment that we bought in Seattle installed on the boat. Last week our wind generator was finally mounted and wired up and started pumping amps into the batteries. So my brother Dale can stop snickering now at all the boxes of “stuff” we had in the cabin when we left, and any future cruiser getting their boat ready to leave can believe you don’t have to have the boat ready before you go.

Today on Yohelah we’re tanned, relaxed, bug bitten and ready to start moving on……

The Pearl Islands are here

One of the tiring things about living in a tiny boat is the fact that you can never just open a cupboard, reach in and get out what you want. You always have to move 6 things to find the one you’re looking for, then put them all back in exactly how they came out. That is now exaggerated to the max here on Yohelah after my trips to Costco, Mega Depot and two grocery stores, and the resulting loss of $1,000 from our bank account. How I stashed a thousand dollars worth of food I have no idea, but I do know that every locker and the freezer is brimming to the top. We even disconnected the starboard water tank and filled it up with canned goods (and a little beer and wine too). Hopefully we have enough food to get us through French Polynesia and into the Cook Islands where we can afford to reprovision again.

We also took a day off from projects and took a little tour with a bunch of other cruisers up the Rio Chagres. There were some indigineous families that moved from the Darien province in the 70′s into Panama City looking for a better life and opportunities. Finding the city no place to raise their children and missing the rivers of the Darien, they found the Chagres River about an hour outside of Panama City. They moved up the river and built a village. In the 80′s the Panama Canal Authority declared the area a national park, but allowed them to remain as long as they didn’t clear any more land or harvest food and fish commercially. Today there are 120 people living in the small community of Embera Drua and they’ve embraced tourism as an opportunity to make money so they can remain on the river and raise their children. We were motored up in canoes and toured the village, ate a delicious fish lunch and shopped for handmade baskets and goods. They then treated us to some music and dancing and sent us along our way home. All in all it was a lovely day and an interesting tour. The people were all very friendly and it was refreshing to see them managing to maintain the lifestyle they enjoyed in such a remote and beautiful area.

We also took a trip through the Panama Canal with our friends Chris & Heather on their boat Legacy. We first met them in Mazatlan in early 2007 and have seen them off and on several times since then. They’re headed up the Caribbean and to Florida next spring. We delayed our departure from Panama City because we wanted to make a trip through the canal as line handlers and it was nice to go on a boat that we knew. Fortunately and unfortunately it was all very routine and there was little excitement. Everyone knew what to do and the uplocking through three locks went smooth as can be. We were lucky to be side tied to a big charter power boat who has been through many many times and knew the drill completely. On our way out we were tied to the wall with a huge freighter right behind us. All in all it was completely uneventful and we made it through all the way to the marina on the other side before dark.

So now the to-do list is clear enough to launch out of here and head west and north. We’re very excited to be exploring more of the beautiful islands of Panama and get back into warm clear water for some diving. We don’t have as much time as we’d like but it seems we just never do. There are a ton of anchorages in Panama and a few in southern Costa Rica we’ll chose from as we scoot north. I’ll update the passage blog as we travel towards Costa Rica, where we’ll meet up with T2 in mid-February. Then my after T2 leaves my sister is coming down for some cruising in the waters of Northern Costa Rica.

Today on Yohelah we’re loaded up and ready to launch….

The Balboa Yacht Club is here

We finally made it out of Panama City and are headed towards Costa Rica. We had to make a stop in the Pearl Islands to meet up with Frank & Gisela from Shared Dreams to trade outboard props. Theirs had spun right after New Year’s and we took it to Panama City to get fixed and loaned them our spare. With a new prop in hand we arrived yesterday at Isla Espiritu Santo in the eastern side of the Perlas and enjoyed a lovely night with good friends.

Now we’re motoring south of the islands to cross the Bay of Panama into western Panama. The forecast is for winds to 20 knots for the next two days and we’re hoping as soon as we clear this large island we’ll have a nice beam reach for about 30 hours. Sadly we have to do an overnighter to get around Punta Mala (Bad Point), but luckily we should have wind and current in our favor. So other than being sleep deprived it should be a relatively easy passage. I say relatively because you should never trust that rounding something named Bad Point is going to be easy. But I think we’re doing it in the right direction and have my fingers crossed.

Our sail out of Panama City was a nice downwind run in fairly brisk wind. We need to have wind for this passage so we can save fuel for Western Panama. The weather charts show very little wind in that area so we’ll likely spend much time motoring back up to Costa Rica. Then when we get to the Gulf of Papagayo where we’ll meet T2, it’ll be howling wind on our nose for the last 20 miles into the anchorage.

We’re looking forward to some diving in Western Panama. There are some gorgeous islands and bays to explore and the water is reported to have 80′ visibility in recent weeks.

Espiritu Santo is here

Sadly, Punta Mala (Bad Point) was correctly named. The rounding was boisterous, which in sailor talk means it sucked. We had 25 knots on the beam, with 8′ seas 6 seconds apart. Which means they were steep and close together. And with them on the beam we were thrown around all night long and very little sleep happened. We had up a reefed mainsail and no headsail, which was unfortunate because a little headsail would have stabilized us a bit. But it was gusting really good all night and with just the reefed main and current we were making over 6 knots. We don’t like to go fast at night, so it was better to get sloshed about a bit.

It took us all day yesterday to get into an anchorage for the night. The wind kept blowing from the north and in mid afternoon just after a 20 knot wind gust it stopped instantly. Just the wierdest thing. Then it turned and started blowing from the south about 12 knots. We tacked the sails and kept going. The anchorage was one of the prettiest places we’ve been in a long time, with rolling hills and pastureland mixed with tropical jungle. Wish we could have stayed for a while, but it was pretty exposed and bouncy and we’ve got some miles to make.

Today we’re sailing west towards a bay called Bahia Honda where we’ll hang out for a couple of days. Maybe we’ll get the kayaks out. On our way into the Perlas we finally caught a Sierra, which Maya couldn’t get enough of. It’s a lovely firm white fish and is excellent just alone on the grill. So we’ve got our hand lines trailing and are hoping for another treat for the kitten and us.

As we were crossing the Bay of Panama I was happy that we had spent the $200 and bought an AIS (automated information system) unit. All of the commercial ships and some pleasure craft have senders that transmit information about the vessel. Hooking it up to our radar and adding a data feed from our GPS gives us a visual on our plotter that shows each ship. We can read who it is, how fast they’re going in which direction, and what our closest point of approach is. If we need to we have the ship’s name handy and call hail them on the VHF. It was really nice late at night rounding Punta Mala while we were getting pounded to see all the ships and know they weren’t going to smack into us in the dark!

Punta Mala is here

That was the asking price from the man in the cayuca who stopped by late afternoon yesterday. Rob, Yohelah’s offical hunter-gatherer, heartily agreed and proceeded to clean and prepare them for the grill. They made a yummy dinner and capped off a very nice stay in Bahia Honda.

An old guy named Domingo was at Yohelah’s side before we even got the hook set on Tuesday afternoon. It had been a long sail across and we weren’t really ready for company yet. But Domingo charmed us as he does most of the cruisers passing through Bahia Honda and promised to return in the morning with some fresh fruits for sale. Behind him in another cayuca was his son Kennedy and daughter. He had a lovely pineapple for trade and wanted to know if his wife Olivia could return in the morning to trade fruit for t-shirts.

As promised they both returned the next day and we tremendously enjoyed meeting them and doing business with them. Domingo returned the next afternoon to give us a “tour” of the river. He guided us up the Samonetta River several miles to an inland village where we learned that the land was all government owned and the people could just build homes whereever they wished. There were about 300 people living in the village and they seemed quite content and welcomed our visit.

When we returned to the boat it was getting late and we didn’t have time to go to Kennedy and Olivia’s house as we had intended so we sent Domingo home with some cupcakes for both families. Sure enough, an hour later Kennedy & Olivia showed up in their cayuca to say goodbye and bring us some avocados from their tree. If we all lived in another time and place we would have been good friends with them, we’re sure of that.

Bahia Honda is here