This morning, we wanted to leave comfortably at 0800. All preparations were running. However, suddenly the anchor alarm went off. A quick look and I first considered that the alarm went off because I did not get the anchor position well enough. As the wind was pretty strong I made the instant decision to get the anchor up and leave for deeper water. Safety decision without analyzing what really is the cause for the alarm.

Once we were out in deep (40 – 50 m) water I went on course to the WPT SW of Qiurquirdup at the more eastern side of the Cayos Hollandes. And then we got rain again. All 3 Panama Canal locks opened their gates the same time. It was not too far away from a white-out. Radar showed the rain front is about 4 – 6 NM “thick”. So I let MaRe run with only 2.5 KN, to have time to react if needed.

After all was on track, we changed into dry clothes. I put on my “Dirty Hansen” (my not cleanable Helly Hansen) foul weather gear. The others prepared breakfast. I had mine behind the steering wheel, the others at the table with the PRT side of the cockpit enclosure down. Waves, a short swell built up quickly with almost a meter height. But MaRe made her way along the plotter route in early direction.

After about an hour all became better again.

When we arrived, we saw 2 catamarans running full speed in the same direction. They assumed we too are heading for the swimming pool anchorage. However i wanted to go to the anchorage at the WSW area of Banedup. But it turned out that there was no space for safe anchoring of 2 boats. The French boat’s anchor was where I wanted to drop MaRe’s anchor. So I decided to try to find a spot on the west side of the open “bay”. The area between the islands Banedup in the E, Ogoppiradup in the W, and Calubir in the N.

It took maybe another hour until I found a safe place to drop the hook at 10 m and had 60 m rode (anchor chain) out. Pulling back with 1500 RPM showed the anchor holds.

Then all slowed down on the boat. I wrote my log book, and the other 3 digged into their books again.

However after an hour or so, a squall came dumping water and brought winds of 5 Bft. Anchor hold perfectly fine. A short interruption of the tranquility at anchor with the sound of the waves at the other reef as back ground music.

We wanted to see a few islands around us.

However in the early morning hours, only Ste and I were up, a boat with 2 men came. They offered us molas.

A mola is a piece of fabric about a size 40 – 60 cm with very colorful patterns. Some are hand stitched, some are cut out and hands sewed. Motives are most often animals of the sea and the rainforest. The blouses of the guna women have such a mola in front and on the back.

Since I saw the first mola in Shelter Bay Marina, I wanted to have some for the cushion covers in MaRe’s salon. The incredible skillful salesman smelled my desire. Venancio, so his name, showed Ste and me maybe 100 molas he carried in pretty big plastic container in his boat. When putting them back a pre-selection was made.

With this pre-selection under his arm, he asked for permission to come on board. Within a minute to two, he placed the molas in MaRe’s cockpit that it was easy to look at them. Then final selection was made and the price was negotiated. The latter one was a tough. To make it short, i bought 4 molas and Ste bought 3.

Venancio is a natural sales talent!!!

During the day several other boats came to offer the same. Sorry for them but too late. The last boat came around 1600 – 1700 and needs to be mentioned. Two guna women and a child of maybe around 5 years came with a dugout and offered also molas. The wind was already around 4 Bft, wind waves of about 25 cm. It impresses me always when I see how confident they manoeuver with their dugouts. Waves of up to 25 cm and a freeboard of maybe 20 cm. They are really experts of dugouts.

At about noon, we took the tender and drove over to Niadup with the final destination of dog island.

Niadup, a pretty touristic islands with bar, souvenir shops, and cottages, which can be rented. There is also quite a bit day business. Tourist boats with outboard engines bring people over to the island for a few hours of swimming in the warm and clear waters as well as laying around at the beach to get grilled or drinking patterns something in the bar, buying souvenirs.

We had a drink. All drinks are canned. Unfortunately nothing else despite the fact that they could get fresh fruits easily. Convenience is the biggest thread for this globe because it creates so much garbage.

However, i need to say that on none of the islands we were on so far, the was garbage lying around. Guna yala, the land of the guna, is different from Panama and the other areas of the Caribbean I could visit until now.

We finally went over to dog island, which is just 100 m away. Dog island, we could see from Niadup, is even more touristic then Niadup. We strolled over the islands and swam around the shipwreck at the beach. The wreck was once a steel built vessel of maybe 50 to 100 t. Pretty many corals grew there already. What surprised me most was to find two pretty big and filigree fan corals. It seems that a depth of 2 – 3 m is just too deep for the very many tourists swimming around the wreck every day thus they can survive.

When we were about to leave, a man approached us wanting 3 USD per person for being on the island with so many other tourist. Ok, it’s their land and they have the right to charge for going at their land, I just found it unfair that they did not ask at the beginning when we landed at the island.

Searching for an anchoring spot took a while because there were quite a few boats in the anchorage area. After my right circle to test the water depth I knew were to drop the hook. 5 m sand but with seagrass patches was the sea bottom. MaRe’s Rocna anchor digged in strongly. At 1500 RPM she did not move backwards.

It’s not my first night in San Blas but it’s a nice evening. We went to an island, the size of land for a family house in Europe and had a dinner. Deep fried fish, mashed and backed platanos, and bit of salad. The host is a Simpatico. I like his smile and the way he talks. The chance that I come back with other friends is not small. Let’s see.

Wind blows currently with 3 Bft, which makes the wind generator producing a bit of power while we sleep. The little wavelets around MaRe make a nice background music, kind of percussions to the very low volume melody of the streaming air.

Let’s also see what we will do tomorrow.

This morning, about 30 min later as planned, we left LBM for San Blas.

ECMWF and GFS predicted no wind at all. I did not bother to download the other PWG and PWE and UKMO weather models. SPIRE is known as not good in coastal waters; I use SPIRE only when I’m eating off-shore.

As predicted, it turned out, no wind at all for sailing or pulling out at least the genoa. Thus, we are motoring to San Blas. About 3/4 of the way is done.

However, we had quite some waves. First the sea was pretty choppy with sea “pyramids” of about 1.5 m. But soon a major swell rolled to MaRe from about 45 deg on PRT. Swell reached 2 m. Later and more east there was only a secondary swell from about 100 deg PRT.

Based on what I saw last time, i planned a different anchorage but still in the vicinity of the last anchorage.

Let’s see how it turns out. The 3 people on board are reading and sleeping, and the skipper writes the narration.

If you want to see the islands, we are visiting, you need to zoom into the area of the San Blas islands.

In the morning at 0800 I finally started inbound clearance procedure.

First customs clearance at the marina. It ended with a surprise. The officer asked me pretty quickly for my cruising permit for Panama and I showed it to the officer. Although the document states that it is valid until May 2023, he said it is not valid anymore because I was once out of Panama with MaRe. A new one cost again 185 USD and I need to go to Colon. Going to Colon and get it there takes at least 3 – 4 days as it isn’t issued immediately. He knows that, and after a few minutes he made me a great offer: 150 USD here immediately or 185 USD at Colon. Sure, everyone takes the 150 USD option here and within minutes. But now it comes. He took the 150 USD and then my original cruising permit and pointed to the validity periode and showed me that it is valid until May 2023. Thus, 150 USD straight into the pocket of the customs officer. “Smart” way of making additional money.

Then, for immigration I needed to go to Portobello. Via the marinero Kevin I ask if Ari can drive me again to Portobello. She not only drives me there, but she also knows what I need and makes the talking. Very good, very efficient, especially when you have “smart” administration staff as the customs officer. All was done quickly. As always with plenty of copies of all documents. I guess, in Panama there are already at least 10 copies of my passport and the boat registration document.

Ste who came along did a bit of shopping and then we drove back to Linton Bay Marina, but speed quickly to but fruits from a dealer along the roadside.

In the mid of the afternoon, Ste & sons took a water taxi to Isla Grande and I did some work at MaRe, including laundry.

And then it started raining. “Raining cats and dogs” does not describe anymore the amount of water, which poored down. All Panama Canal docks opened their gates the same time to let all water out; this describes sufficient well the amount of rain water coming down. Fortunately, I did not need to work outside MaRe’s cockpit. This down poor lasted – like indicated by ECMWF – until about 1830 and then stopped. Thus, I thought the ECMWF model predicts also the rain during the night very well. There was no rain forecasted the night and even not for the next days. Ok. Another round of laundry and all dries during the night.

Conclusion: never trust the forecast! It rained several times heavily during the night and all the laundry got rinsed again…

… in Linton Bay Marina!

267 NM in 50 h. One night with a bunch of squalls, the second one was quite. Unfortunately no sailing wind. But such is sailing. Either no wind or too much.

Will be here for 2 – 3 days.

I’m already up since the early morning hours, enjoyed a magnificent sunrise, and worked on various tasks on the boat.

One of them was to find an anchorage along the way to LBM where I could drop the hook for a night. This because i don’t want arrive in the dark at the marina.

In order to make it in time, I even unfurled the genoa at 2 Bft winds; something I normally don’t do. I gained a little bit of speed. However, it was not possible to compensate the current I had and have against me. The peak current was 2.5 KN and now I still have 1.8 KN. Currently the Axiom plotter shows an ETA at the marina of 1700. That is very good. It’s about 45 min before sunset. Now I hope I can maintain this ETA.

The cloudy sky is replaced for 7/8 by a nice light blue. At the horizon around MaRe there are plenty of cumulus clouds but also some nimbus clouds are hanging under the cumuli. Looking over to the San Blas Islands, it seems there are several local rain showers pouring down. At least I hope it’s rain down and not smoke up. Here in Panama, they also burn rainforest to gain grazing ground for cattles. The ones I saw while passing in a car, where pretty big but almost no cattles. Most of them even empty. The ones with a few cattles provide a soccer fields area for 1 cattle!

The sea is gently. Almost no wind waves, and a smooth swell rolls to MaRe’s sterns from a quarterly directions at STB. Looking at the blue of the swell is just relaxing. I shouldn’t do anything except watching this blue swell rolling towards MaRe.

Looking back to the nights with sleeping units of 20 min, it was sometimes though to get up immediately when the alarm rings. But it is also not that bad. The big danger I saw was in my head. When I start thinking the alarm is music to keep on dreaming of will become dangerous because i don’t get up. In my memory there were such moments. I can’t say if these moments were really there or if was just afraid of them. Therefore, I’m using 2 alarms with different sounds. This difference should destroy dreaming of a nice melody.

The next question is now for now many days can I stay that sleeping pattern?

It’s 2000 hrs. For most of the day i had the same situation as now. A very weak headwind of around 3 – 4 KN. Wind waves of less than 50 cm and almost no swell. But also no sailing wind.

I worked around on the boat on several tasks needed to done and while hoping I get some nice wind from quarterly directions. However it remained wishful thinking.

Tonight’s sky is not covered with deep hanging clouds. There are even some areas of the sky where stars can be seen.

Will there be squalls around tonight?

I’ll now have another 20 min nap.

Had and still have visitors.

Still in the dark of the morning little birds came to MaRe. One was group of 3 swallows and then came two little birds. The swallows where shy and left after they were dry again. The other 2 birds are still around. Not shy at all. I can walk around and they don’t fly away.
When, like right now, I hold my tablet PC in front of me, they hop at the edge of the tablet while I’m writing. I have no clue what kind of birds they are. The only thing I can recognize is that they have a beak to eat insects but not grains. I wonder how long they will stay with me. Could be, they hitch a ride from Colombia to Panama.

Then there was a small group of dolphins coming from behind and played for a few minutes at MaRe ‘s hulls. It always fascinates me when 2 of them make perfectly synchronized movements without high-speed bluetooth connections.

As for the wind, it is as the ECMWF, and SPIRE predicted it. Along my route there is almost no wind. Maybe 50 NM further north, there is some wind. But this only “maybe”. My current ETA at the Linton Bay Marina is tomorrow at 1600 – 1700 hrs.

The stronger wind tonight was just caused by a few squalls hanging around in the same area. Although I had to make a small deviation, i think it shifted my ETA so an early time. But let’s see, many things can still happen.

I just saw that one of the little birds took off. More than 100 NM from the closest land. Or will it come back?

I’m sleeping in 20 min intervals, which works fine for me.

When the alarm woke me up at 0210 there was a 5 Bft wind from S and the genoa was on the wind side. First I changed course that the genoa was back to her set side, furled it, went back on course to destination WPT, and set the genoa again. I changed from TRACK more for steering to WIND VANE mode with AWA of 55 deg PRT. This enabled MaRe to follow the
wind, which was changing between S and SSW. All was just spooky thunderstorms hanging around for a while.

Now, 0603, wind is down to 2 – 3 Bft and it shifts direction. Typical sign that the wind falls asleep. Now, I am running with motors towards my next WPT for the approach to Lindon Bay. What Linton Bay Marina is located. (Please note the different spelling for Lindon/Linton.)

I’ll take another 20 min nap.