Passage to Panama

Our route from Bonaire to Panama.  To avoid the rougher waters off the coast of Columbia, we did an indirect arc up and over.  It worked to some degree. 

 

The passage from the ABC's to Panama is referred to by some circumnavigators as among the top five most difficult passages.  There is an almost constant pocket of high wind off the Columbian coast which brings big waves and swell often from different directions.  The trade winds funnel around the La Guajira peninsula.  And then katabatibc winds off the Sierra Nevada range contribute fierce katabatic gusts.  Instead of leaving for Panama in early to mid December, before the northeast Christmas winds exacerbate the trades, we so enjoyed our time in Bonaire that we delayed our departure until after the New Year when the seasonal winds were well entrenched.  

After studying the weather charts, we decided to leave on the five day (and night) passage on Tuesday.  Due to technical difficulties, we were unable to use our satellite system to upload weather info while on passage.  Peter took multiple screen shots of weather for the five passage days.  And our dear friend, Anne, assisted by husband, Rob, in Canada volunteered as weather router, texting us at least daily with updated info re the red blob - location, size, wind strength, wave direction etc.  We couldn't do much about it but at least we knew what to anticipate.  Along with the weather forecasts, talking with other cruisers who had done the trip gave us the local wisdom - don't do the tempting rhumb line from the north end of La Guajira Peninsula to our destination, Shelter Bay Marina at the northern mouth of the Panama Canal.  Instead, sail northwest from Bonaire, then west, not turning southwest until beyond the red (high wind) blob.  At all times, at least 100 NM off the coast of Columbia.

We left Bonaire with three other boats on January 4th. We had all had lunch together the day before to say good bye, one of the difficult things about cruising.  We had spent Christmas, New Years, hikes and dives with the German and Swiss crew and we were sad to part ways.  All three were headed to Dominican Republic.  We were going west.

Leaving Bonaire, we headed northwest with the waves and swell on our beam.  Big and choppy. My worst point of sail for seasickness but I had taken Bonine - my treatment for seasickness along with chewy ginger candies - and I was grateful to be fine.  No reading but otherwise happy.

Day of departure: The white dot is approximately at our second waypoint and as far north as we thought we would go.  The white streaks are the wind direction, on our stern one we turned due west - very nice.

You notice that the wind direction curls around to come from the north which, thankfully, made almost our entire passage downwind.

Sunday's forecast on the previous Tuesday before leaving Bonaire.   We thought/hoped we would be in the green almost at the canal before Sunday when the blob got more widespread.  Unfortunately, by Saturday when we thought we would emerge out of the red and into green, Anne told us it was red to the Panama coast.  No problem really but demonstrates that this five day old forecast was inaccurate.  We were glad to have Anne watching for us.

Downwind sailing, even in big waves, is quite comfortable.  The boat surfs down the swell, riding the waves with ease.  And these swell were BIG - higher than the arch on the stern.  We estimated three to four meters high.  More importantly, they were steep.  Instead of a long, gentle swell with a period of 10-12 seconds, these were about 6 seconds.  We didn't get pooped - sailing lingo for a wave/swell breaking over the stern of the boat - but we were thoroughly soaked with splashes on the port quarter (back of the boat, port side).  By the third day, we couldn't sit in the cockpit except at the helm, which was high and almost dry.  I had made lots of frozen meals but even heating them up on the stove was not enticing.  Still, we were relatively comfortable and marvelled at the waves after two years off the sea.

The end of my final watch at dawn, brought the ships only visible on our chart plotter at night, into view.  You can see eleven in this shot.  

The little triangular icons are other ships on our AIS, a system which is a godsend, especially at night. At this point there were 250 targets/vessels on the AIS system.  It tells you how fast a vessel is going, it's direction and in how many minutes the closest point of contact/collision with Milly will be.  It always amazes me how often in the wide open sea, we are on a collision course!  The black icon is Milly.  The black line on her stern is the route we have travelled.  The blue vector off her bow is the direction the boat is steering while the red vector is the actual direction we are going with current and swell taken into account.  Each vector ends at where Milly will be in 10 minutes.  The other ships have black dashed lines on their bows showing us their direction, speed (by the length of the vector) and where they will be in 10 minutes.  These enormous 300 m ships move fast!! The dots in the centre of most of the ships indicates that they are anchored - we can go as close to them as we want but you never know when they will begin to move.  The blue x at Milly's stern is our last waypoint we had entered on the chart to put us at the opening in the Panama breakwater directly south of us.  

The final challenge that made this passage interesting was the number of ships we encountered in the final two nights.  Once we turned southwest, we realized that our route was also the same path that these humungous cargo and tanker ships were taking to go to the Caribbean, US east coast, Europe, The Suez, the northeast coast of South America, etc. etc.  To further complicate things, there were the occasional ships that came toward our port beam from Columbia.  

Peter sleeps well on passage because he knows I am extremely (maybe, too) diligent in my goal to avoid ships by at least 2 NM at night.  I would move to the right or the left to avoid ships coming up our stern to pass or coming toward us along the same line.  That was relatively easy although our path jogged a couple of miles to the left or right through my watch.  

On the last night, I felt like a tiny mouse chased by a huge cat that was coming toward us from Columbia.  Although downwind is comfortable, it is limited by gybing if required to go past 180 degrees.  I can manage a controlled gybe on my own but really prefer not to.  It's also impossible to tell whether the ship will pass in front of us (better) or behind us (unnerving since it means we have to squeak by in front of it) until it is quite close and under, say, 20 minutes away.  So it was hard to tell whether I should slow down - at the wind's discretion when downwind, speed up with the motor or head up making us go faster and change direction by a few degrees.  So this huge ship called, Ocean Mystery, bound for the canal, kept me on the edge of my helm seat for my last watch.  Happy ending though.  It passed in front of us less than 1NM distant as the dawn broke.

As we approached the canal, we followed the radio chatter of the Cristobal port officer - very efficient woman - giving direction to the many ships, telling them where to anchor, when to pick up anchor, when to head to the breakwater entrance, where to go once in Limon Bay, how to pick up a pilot etc.  It was fascinating entertainment.  She didn't want to hear from us until we were 1NM away and told us just to keep on going through and to the marina, situated inside the breakwater.  

We entered Shelter Bay Marina, were directed to our slip, assisted by very friendly and efficient dock staff and welcomed by our friends from Carriacou who happened to be there.  After cleaning the salt off Milly's inside and outside and off ourselves we were ready and excited to explore Panama.