Smooth sailing

Not fast, but smooth. The long Pacific swell is so nice after the short steep waves of the Caribbean. We're still beating to the Galapagos; another day hard on the wind. For the non-sailors, that means we're sailing as close to the wind as we can. Think taking a walk, do you want the wind in your face or at your back? Normally this is pretty much a dreaded point of sail. There is even a saying that "gentlemen don't sail to weather"; "to weather" being another way of saying "hard on the wind". But the long smooth Pacific swell, moderate wind, clear skies and warm air combine to make this about as good as it gets if we have to sail this close to the wind.

And we do have to sail this close to the wind if we don't want to motor. Late this afternoon the wind moved around to directly on our course, and dropped to about 5kts, too little to sail. So we shattered the peace and quiet and motored for about two hours. A really unpleasant reminder of what we had done much of the first two days to get through the ITCZ. Fortunately the wind came back and we were able to continue sailing.

The only negative is that we also have about .6kt of adverse current. So when we're sailing at 6kts (remember - light air), we're only moving over the ground at 5.4kts. Add to that the effect of the current on our course (it pushes us off about 10 degrees), and 6kts of sailing quickly becomes 4.5 - 5kts of progress. The adverse current is total mystery since normally there is about .5kts of favorable current flowing from Panama to the Galapagos. It's well documented and referenced in many books; even the Galapagos natural history book I was leafing through this afternoon. So how did we get .6kts of adverse current? And to further confuse things, the water is 84F. Normally the favorable current carries warm water to the Galapagos to meet the cold water of the Humboldt current. If water is flowing from the Galapagos to Panama (or at least Columbia), how can it be 84F? I'm sure some oceanographer has the answer, but they are not onboard.

The upshot of all this is that from 1pm yesterday afternoon to 1pm today, all sailing, we moved 104.6nm closer to the Galapagos. That's about 5mph. But of course if we wanted to get there in a hurry we could have flown.

This evening the sky is totally clear and I can see the Southern Cross for the first time. And while the Big Dipper is still there, the North Star that it points to is no longer visible. Our equator crossing ceremony can't be too far away...

Beating to the Galapagos

We came out of the ITCZ about 5am this morning. It was nice to leave the rain, lightning and high humidity behind. Or at least I hope it's behind. As I write this evening, lightning is flickering in the sky to the north.

Today was really delightful sailing though not very productive. The wind is coming from the Galapagos, as is an adverse current. So we're sailing hard on the wind in 5-10kts of true wind into about half a knot of current. In the last 12 hours we traveled 62 miles and got a nice rest. Fay served up a great mid-day dinner of spaghettini and meat balls, with freshly grated parmesan and some ciabatta that I made a couple of weeks ago that has been in the freezer. Mid-day dinner while sailing along on a sparkling sunny day with smooth seas and 7kts of breeze. That's about as pleasant as sailing hard on the wind at sea can be. As Fay wrote in the log - sublime.

But in the last 12 hrs we only made 38 miles towards the Galapagos which is a little too slow. The breeze has pickup to a steady 8-10 and faired us a bit so we're only about 10 degrees off course and we should do better in the next 12 hrs.

Tonight it's almost cool. I still have just a t-shirt and shorts, but Fay had long pants and a hoody before she went off watch. There is an almost full sky of stars and as we've reached 3 degrees south, the north star is no longer visible. Fay has made preparations for crossing the equator with suitable props, costume and script for King Neptune! But first we need to sail another few hundred miles.

ITCZ comes to us

We departed the Las Perlas islands yesterday morning around 7:30am and began our passage to the Galapagos.

We've been watching the daily NOAA surface analysis weather faxes to try to avoid the ITCZ. It had spent a lot of time further west and north which convinced us to not stop at Isla Coco. Instead we plotted a course recommended by Jimmy Cornell that went south early, then turned west later on. This looked promising since the ITCZ jumped around a lot, but getting south and staying east would improve the chances of making an end run around the ITCZ.

Well the ITCZ came to us anyway! The surface analysis about three hours after our departure showed it had moved right onto our course! We had about 4-5 hours of smooth, light air sailing, then the wind died and we had to start motoring. Last night was all lightning and confusing winds. We were able to sail for 3-4 hours this morning, though about 30 degrees off our course. Then we came into a very large area of rain from which we could not escape. Heavy at times, very confused seas, but no lightning. At one point a ship crossed about 2nm behind us and we never saw it, visibility was really poor. AIS is really fantastic. I think the south then west course did help us with the ITCZ, even though we were hoping to not pass through it at all.

We finally escaped the rain about 5pm this afternoon, but the wind was 3-4kts on the nose and the seas very confused and sloppy, so we're motoring. Ten minutes ago we had 6kts on our starboard bow and I was considering sailing, now we have 4kts on our port bow and the bumpiness has jumped significantly. It would be nice to get the seas straightened out a bit and even just 7-8kts of reliable wind so we could sail. But in this area we know we can count on the conditions changing frequently, so we'll wait and see what we get next.

The ocean has a lot more phosphorescence tonight. Our bow wave and our wake are dazzling. And again tonight we've been visited by white birds. There was just one last night, but there are three tonight. They dart back and forth, mostly along the starboard side of the boat in a sort of ghostly illumination from the starboard running light. I think they're grabbing small fish turned up by our bow wake as they occasionally swoop down onto the water for a few moments. They're white shapes really stand out in what is otherwise a very dark night.

Some cloud cover has returned, masking the few stars I could see earlier. And the seas have gotten lumpy again after a teasing period of smoothing out. But the radar is entirely blank (no rain squalls - no ships - no fishing boats) and there is no lightning. We should turn to the west early tomorrow morning. Time for the 8pm log entry and another attempt to reach the Pacific Puddle Jump net controller on the radio.

Las Perlas - not so cool

For the last three days the water temperature has been rising, all the way from 69F to 80F! Now the turquoise water has returned, the air temperature has also risen, and the first half of today was uncomfortably humid at about 76%. I can only guess that the Humboldt current that travels from the Southern Ocean to the equator up the west coast of South America must meander in and out of the Gulf of Panama and during our first four days here the current was "in".

Fay also had strep throat for the last five days so we've been moving a little slowly. She's now feeling much better and we're planning to depart for the Galapagos tomorrow morning. The forecasted winds, when there is any wind in the forecast, are all over the place. Our "plan for the worst, hope for the best" is that we're prepared to motor the entire 900 miles, but we're hoping we'll be able to do some sailing. I even optimistically positioned the spinnaker at the top of the pile in the bow locker and led the sheets.

We'll post regular position updates on the web site.

Quote of the day: There's no time like the present to dip into the future.

Las Perlas - Cool

Today we departed the marina at dawn, about 6:30am to be precise. Light air forced us to motor all day to this anchorage off Isla Canas in the Las Perlas islands (see "Where's New Morning).

It's cool here, the water is just 70F, compared to the 84F in Panama City. It's a very refreshing break from the intense heat of the marina and the city. We're guessing it's the Humboldt current curling up from the south. Whatever it is, the water looks more like Monterey than the Caribbean; it's thick with something (krill? plankton?). And the rich water probably explains the dozen whales we saw this morning and large pod of dolphins we saw this afternoon. And don't forget the hundreds of seabirds who all seem to be feasting. But it's not quite as inviting to dive in for a swim, especially with the numerous jellyfish we saw as we were anchoring. It could be a full 3mm wet suit to get us into the water tomorrow.

And anchoring is sort of like Maine with a 20' tide to calculate into the equation. We anchored in 35' of water, knowing we'd lose 18' during the night! We set enough scope for high tide and at low tide we'll have a long leash.

New Morning had no problems today, so our months of work seems to have put a number of things right that have plagued us for the last two and a half years. We're feeling much more confident.

We're going to rest here for a few days, re-pack a couple of lockers and shift our focus to life under sail rather than life at anchor.

Departure Tuesday?

Yesterday we topped up the fuel tanks, gave New Morning a wash down, packed away more stuff, washed some clothes, etc., etc. After we take care of a few last minute items tomorrow, including final provisioning for produce, we plan to depart on Tuesday.

After three weeks on the dock we are looking forward to getting back on the water. We're heading to the Las Perlas Islands, about 50 miles from Panama City. We'll spend a few days there making sure everything is working as expected, then depart for the Galapagos. If the weather and ITCZ cooperate, we plan to route via Isla del Coco to the north, otherwise it's a little more southerly at first, then turning west.

More San Blas pictures

I added Fay's pictures from our second trip to the San Blas Islands, with a heavy emphasis on the time we spent outside the village of Gerti.

Canal transit pictures

I've uploaded the pictures from our transit of the Panama Canal for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Canal transit video

This sequence of pictures from the canal web cam were captured by our friend Lou Dietz who cruised from California to New Zealand a few years back with his wife and two children.

If you watch in the top right corner, you'll see a white ship appear and enter the first lock. Behind the white ship is a tug, and behind the tug is New Morning, rafted to a Beneteau 54. New Morning is on the right in the pictures. About half way through the sequence you can see us enter the second lock behind the tug and ship, and then in the last few seconds you can see us follow them into the third lock.

If you have trouble viewing it, try this link to YouTube, be sure to select 720HD.

Tsunami safe

We got several calls and emails from people concerned about our safety. The Tsunami was supposed to hit Panama about 9pm last night, but the propagation models suggested only 6" of surge so we went out to dinner. There were no problems here.

But northern Japan looks devastated. At roughly 100x the amount of power that was in the 1989 Loma Prieta quake in California I can't imagine how much damage and movement occurred. One article I read said the island of Honshu moved 8' east. We wish them the best of luck in coping with the disaster.

Two steps forward, one step back - and Carnival

We've been in the marina now for a full week and we would definitely like to leave. We have no internet access from the boat, it's about a 10 minute walk to either Bennigans or the Flamenco Marketplace where we can get WiFi. We are pretty much as far from land as you can get in this marina (check the satellite picture from the Where's New Morning page). And the marina has tons of surge at times which makes the docks heave up and down, jerks the boat all over (we've got lots of chafe gear out), and even makes it hard to just walk down the dock. We've made lots of progress on lots of projects, but it doesn't look like we're going to be departing this week.

Carnival started last Friday and goes through Wednesday. It doesn't quite shut down the country, but it emptied the marina of about half the boats and there is definitely less traffic. Even the ATM is out of cash. In Panama apparently most people go to the countryside where various smaller towns specialize in Carnival parties so the traffic leaving the city last Thursday and Friday was pretty crazy from all reports. But now the streets are strangely unclogged, but of course most stores are also closed!

We've been working on remedial maintenance projects (autopilot, voltage regulator), scheduled and routine maintenance (fuel filters, engine bolt checks, covering up sharp points on the foredeck to protect the spinnaker, etc.), and just general departure stuff like checking to see if the running lights are working (they are!). I'm stocking up on more oil for the engine and various consumables and spares (can't have too many spares!). We spent most of a day going through the boat to make room for four months of food. Fay has spent days figuring out what to purchase and returned from her first trip to the market today (not crowded) with at least 200lbs of food and beverages which we're now trying to stow. She tells me she has at least two more trips to make.

Last week we finally received some hydraulic fittings that we needed for the autopilot and Andy, our mechanic, came by today to put it all together. Everything went very well until we started bleeding the system of air. The procedure calls for turning the wheel against the force of the autopilot to force it to pump more and it was doing a good job of bleeding the air out of the system when BANG! the steering broke. Actually the chain on the starboard wheel broke. Needless to say it should not break, but if it's going to break, then breaking in the slip is much preferred to breaking during rough weather. So it looks like the autopilot is working, but now we can't steer by hand. Back to the cycle of figuring out what parts we need, where we can purchase (Panama?) and how soon we can take delivery.

We're sort of like vampires now, we come out when the sun goes down and things cool off. We're up way before sunrise and finish our projects on deck within 30 minutes of feeling the morning's first rays. It's just too hot on deck during the day to do much. Fortunately the air conditioning in the forward cabin is working well so we can always duck in there to cool off, or write a little email. And now the sun has dipped down, it's cooling off, the breeze is gentle, and it's time for a margarita!

Welcome to the Pacific

Here you can see the lock doors opening to allow us to pass into the final lock of our transit, it all went very smoothly. Our advisor, Jose, was excellent and our line handlers did a great job. We were rafted with a Beneteau 54 and we were the "command" boat which meant we drove the raft while the other boat just left their engine in neutral and wheel centered.

Through the Gatun locks we had a medium sized ship (450'), a tug, and then our two-yacht raft in the chamber. There is a fair amount of turbulence as the chamber fills, then more as the ship, then the tug, moved forward, but our handlers were smart and we stayed in great position, never coming near the walls.

We spent a nice night on Gatun Lake, hoping that fresh water would kill off the marine growth on our bottom. Fay fixed a great dinner and we had a lively conversation on world politics with our pro line handler, Rudy. Rudy knows his history and politics pretty well, and he has six children, a dozen grandchildren, 6 great grandchildren, and his father is 94 and still alive! A fascinating family!

We were awakened about 5:30am by the howler monkeys and then the construction crews working on the new locks. Our second advisor joined us about 7:00am for Fay's quiche and then we slowly motored to the Pedro Miguel lock. The advisor allowed us to take the "Banana Cut" which is a little more scenic, shortens the trip a bit (irrelevant because we did most of the trip at 4kts) and kept us out of the main channel and big ships for awhile.

For the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks we had two rafts of yachts, a tourist boat (which allegedly was formally owned by Al Capone) and a medium sized work boat (150'). Plenty of room in the 1,000' lock. All went smoothly and we popped out into the Pacific Ocean about 2:30pm.

We're now in the Flamenco Marina in Panama City, compiling our final list of items to be completed before we head to the Galapagos. The marina has lots of surge, 13' tides, no internet access from the boat, and jack hammers powered by a portable generator tearing up the concrete about 100' from where I sit outside at a cafe. We have many incentives to get moving!