Before sunset we reduced the main to reef 2. However ETA was still something like 0300 – 0400, thus much too early. We took the main fully down and used only the genoa. Still too early. We put a reef in the genoa and got an ETA of 0630. That was fine for the time being.

At 2100, when we changed watch, we put another reef in the genoa and have currently an ETA of 1000, which is a good time. This for a TWS of around 10 kn.

Now we’ll see how the ETA status or changes and decrease the genoa more of increase the size again should the wind go down.

Radar check every 20 min shows no vessel in the range of 16 NM around us.

In the far distance the horizon is white. The lights of Colon and the eastern end of the Panama canal create this light pollution. I wonder how it will be when I’m in the Shelter Bay Marina.

The sky is unfortunately covered with clouds so we can’t enjoy a night with all the stars and the moon illuminating the sea surface. But we can’t have all. In

Around 1400 the wind turned more N and increased. With the gennaker we ran in peaks even above 7 kn STW.

When the wind increased to 14 kn TWS we downed the gennaker. Successful OBM-style maneuver.

After storing all gennaker stuff away. ALW started into the wind and I pulled the main out to reef 1. With this reef I can sail the MaRe up to 27 kn TWS. Currently we have 13 – 16 kn TWS.

We are running now with 6 – 7 kn STW. The wake at the sterns makes wonderful sound.

Most likely we can sail this configuration until just before sunset. Then we get the main down to reef 2 to increase the safety margin for the night. Additionally we need to get our speed down. With the current speed we would reach our WPT at the entrance of the Rio Chagres already before midnight. 10 h too early. But better we are fast now with this wind then need to use the engines when the wind just dies as to forecasted.

Last night the wind changed direction from about NNW to W and went up to 3 – 4 Bft. This it blew fully into the bay. As the anchor was pulled into sand at 4 m water depth and I have given to the normal 20 m of chain 10 m more, all was fine.

During the breakfast, we looked at the island. Ideally we would have stayed at this island at least for 1 day more. Interesting rock formations being tiny, tree covered islands just in front of the island appeared very attractive to explorer the water between them with the dinghy. But also the trees formed an interesting forest. To the W lots of coconut palms and to the E “jungle trees”. I call them like this out of the lack of knowledge, which trees they are.

We decided to leave immediately after breakfast, which meant we got the hook up and motored into deeper water within about 30 min. Pulling out the genoa triggered the wind to go down. Still we sailed with the genoa for about half an hour. But wind did not come back. This decision to use the gennaker.

It was the right one. TWS was basically always below 10 kn. Wind changed around +-20 deg. A northerly swell made MaRe swinging from PRT to STB, Because the wind is not very strong the gennaker is not stably open, which causes a loss of speed.

We are sailing with the gennaker, which is better than using the engines, but a bit more and stable wind would be nice.

On board all is very relaxed. ALW right now fixes something to eat. She is a good cook and as desk hand she learns all pretty quickly. I wish her she gets her own sailboat fast.

At 1704 we dropped the hook in the bay at the south side of the island. The anchorage is a very large area with water depth between 5 and 3.5 m. We dropped the hook at 4 m and have a lot of space around us should the wind change directions. Anchor ground is pure sand. The best for anchoring.

Log book shows we made exactly 50 NM today. Unfortunate the good sailing wind vane only when we were already close to the island. Let’s see what we will have tomorrow.

MaRe moves gently in the tiny swell which comes around the corner. Wind is strongly blocked by the high trees of the island.

Only one boat more it’s in the bay. There is tranquility around us.

Would be interesting to walk around at island. Maybe we could get some coconuts…

Time to shower, relax, and have dinner.

This morning, at about 0700 I started preparations for departure.

ALW, my deckhand to Shelter Bay Marina, got the introduction to lifting the anchor, getting the anchor buoy in and tie up things in the right place.

It was today the 4th passage of the Bocas Channel so I plotted the WPT along the previous, safe tracks.k

Wind was only around 2 – 3 kn TWS. Thus sailing has no chance today.

MaRe makes her double track in a flat sea, which is in the meantime dotted with raindrops. Only a swell of 1/2 – 1 m rolls in from a quarterly direction at PRT.

Also today there where fishermen in their dugouts far outside from the coast. One was even further away from land then MaRe, heading straight to the Isla Escudo de Veraguas, our anchorage for the night.

As this writing is slow because of the conversation we have, weather changed. Rain stopped and the sun is peeking through the first small holes in the clouds, making a friendly sky ahead of us.

An hour ago we saw a small group of dolphins and just now there was a group of fishes at our STB side. No dolphins I can sayz but I could not recognize the fishes.

Next we had to carefully go through s group of fishermen in their dugouts. Most important it was to see if they have a net between their boats. No nets, just friendly waving hands and we passed at reasonable distance between their boats.

But this was not the last obstacle. There was a long “string” of garbage floating in the water. More than a kilometer long and 1 – 3 m wide. It consisted of natural things like seagrass, branches, even trunks of trees. However, there was also a lot of plastics included. Coca-Cola etc. just sell their junk in plastic bottles/containers and don’t care about the environmental impact. Make money and run. Plastic and other garbage is simply put in dumps and burned. I recently saw it during a walk through the jungle. How long can life on this globe can deal with that?

Since yesterday, late afternoon we are back to our old anchorage at Bocas Town.

The return was not exciting. The wind speed would have been good for sailing with the gennaker but we got it on the nose. Thus all day long we had to use the engines.

Tob flies back to Germany today, and I have to do a few things here.

Narrations will be less the next days.

“Exploring” sounds a little bit too much. We walked through the little village close by our anchorage and bit more along the shore with dense jungle until the waterline.

It was not so easy to reach a pier, which was not directly attached to a house. We approached two, gave up on the first one because the water was too shallow for rowing our tender, motor tilted. At the second one we made it. The pier, where we had to dock, consisted only of the beams connecting the pillars with long and bent nail sticking out of the wood. Seems that somebody needed the boards of the unused pier.

First thing we saw was fenced property with a few houses inside. We wondered why there was a fence, in a community where doors if they exist, don’t know what a lock is.

Next we heard music and soon discovered it came from the church, the Templo Betesda. Service 3 x a week on Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. Sounds like strong believers are in the village. The church was full with people still entering when the service was already in full swing. We got the impression that service means mainly singing even rhythmic songs. Outside sat a mother breast feeding her baby. Next door a man was working with a chainsaw. All pretty relaxed.

We walked through the village talking about education and if it is possible to teach children to take care of their environment and appreciate the natural surrounding they live in.

With the products sold in the local shop, plastic comes into the village but the manufacturers only want to sell to make money but don’t do anything to protect nature, the surroundings of their customers. Sell and run. No responsibility.

People approached us very friendly. Sometimes a little conversation was possible with my 3-word-Spanish and the offline dictionary in my phone.

Talking about “phone”. There is even a solar powered telephone booth in the village with a 1 m satellite dish. The phone looked like being in excellent shape. However, a new building with a roof of corrugated sheet iron will block the signal to the satellite. Looks like a lack of understanding signals and antennas.

There were never unfriendly people but at a few houses we saw that people left the windows or doors when we passed by. To shy to stay.

This village also has water coming in pipes to houses. However we doubt that all houses are connected. In some houses we saw connection to a sewer system. Much is possible if there is support for it.

At one house, a smiling young lady came out with a bundle of bananas and a tame parrot. Obviously she wanted to sell banana. At the end we paid 2 USD for the banana. One was yellow already and tasted pretty good. Here are bananas without pesticides, fungicides, herbicides different to what we get as standard good looking bananas in Europe or Japan, grown in huge plantations by the international fruit companies who don’t care about their workers and customers at all. (I had a chance to look into the situation of a Dole plantation in Costa Rica some years ago.)

There is also a small swamp in the village and it seems people try to get it dry.

Back in the tender we decided to follow the shore line in a distance as close as possible. The mangroves in the front line pretty soon were replaced by jungle until the water. The number of different plants and trees are overwhelming. The green is intensive and lush. Nature in full growth. Vibrant. Wonderful.

After more than 3 hours we returned to MaRe full of new impressions. Satisfied!

Tomorrow will be another day. Tob’ s last day and we need to go back to Bocas Town.

Laguna Bluefield of the Valente peninsula, got the name from Dutch sailors “blauveldt”.

That’s were we went yesterday. Prior to departure I cleaned keels and rudders. Tob joined in the water to see work needed to done.

After a quick freshwater shower he started making breakfast and I prepared MaRe.

Breakfast. Anchor up. Departure. Tob got MaRe on the right course and steered; he really is good in that.

A bit of exercise in the cockpit to keep our legs strong.

When we were about an NM away from the destination, we got wind. The first sailing wine since long. The remaining distance was too short for getting the gennaker up. But we pulled out the genoa and gain a bit more than half a knot on speed.

We dropped the anchor about 150 m E of Bahia Azul where there is a small settlement. The anchorage about 200 from the lush green of the jungle is nice. Quiet. Only the sound of birds. Less than once in an hour we hear a motorboat. But we hear the sound of local people talking to each other from one kajukus to another.

Shortly after we were at anchor, the first dugout boats, kajukus, came by. Young people being curious and trying to sell fruits. We bought some bananas for surely to much money.

Several more kajukus came trying to sell us something. Alfonso from the settlement at Bahia Azul offered us even a kajuku. For whatever reason he had 2 to sell.

A lady came with her daughter from the other side of the lagoon; about 2 km away to offer us coconuts oil. I still have a full bottle… For me the interesting thing was to watch the girl and her skills to use the paddle in various ways to keep the boat in the position her mother told her. Learning from childhood by growing up with daily usage of a kajukus enables such skills.

Another guy offered us his catch of spiny lobsters. About 5 – 10 for 15 USD. Too many for us and Tob hesitated. On top of that we had already food for tonight. When I thanked the guy for the offer the price went down to 10 USD. At the end he asked for a book in English or Spanish. I have no books to give away on board, but gave him an English sailing magazine. He was happy, which made me happy as well.

A few boats more came just to talk with us. In such a situations I would like to speak good Spanish to learn more about them.

Tob started to catch a fish. But fishes didn’t like the lures Tob tried. No fish tonight. Only roasted potatoes, with corned beef, scrambled eggs as “Schiebeeier” and an excellent tomato & yellow bell peppers. Tob really makes excellent salads!

“Schiebeeier” is word my cousin Nik created while we sailed from Cuba to Panama. It refers to the way our grandmother made scrambled eggs. I learned it from grandmother and Nik learned it from her father because grandmother passed away many years before Nik was born. We both agreed that “Schiebeeier” are most delicious way to make scrambled eggs.

Then a squall approached us from the other side of the bay. We decided to close the cockpit. Good decision because a lot of rain came down on us. It was so much that Tob started to take rain shower. I followed. At the mats at the bow there was so much rainwater that we could take a perfect rainwater shower. Clean for the night. The first one at Bahia Azul, a place without mobile phone network thus no internet.

Arrival day

After we had dropped the hook and the MaRe was secured, we took the tender, snorkeling stuff and drove in direction of the reef W of Zapatilla 1. Partially the water was pretty shallow but still deep enough for the outboard motor.

In a sandy spot we dropped the anchor of the tender. Then we’ll started snorkeling along and edge of the rock formation. If was too be seen that there is often a lot of sand in water; all was covered with a bit of sand. Still fishes were to be seen. Here and there a small coral.

Then we discovered a spiney lobster under a rock. As I did not have gloves on my hands, I did not date to grab it. Wanted to come back, hoping it’s still there. Going back to the tender,, we discovered that the other direction was more interesting. Plenty of corals.

Back to MaRe. Preparing and having dinner.

For 1900 we had the people of the SV UI invited for a drink and chat.
It was a nice evening with a exchange of experience and ideas. We will meet again.

Second day

It rained and it was a lot of rain pouring down on us. We closed the cockpit almost fully.

As rain always has an end, we took the tender, and went back to the islands to walk around the island when the train stopped. The first thing we saw was garbage from beach visitors. It’s a shame to see that people can’t take there garbage with them.

As expected we found a trail leading around the island. The eastern part has less coconuts trees then the western part. It was coconuts we tried to find to practice to crack them open with the machete. It’s not so easy! However, learning by doing was a good lesson.

At the end we cracked 3 brown coconuts and brought the nuts inside back to MaRe for opening.

So far we cracked one open and have the white fruit part now in the fridge. Always a good snack during the day. Putting the cracked open coconuts for about 10 min into hot water makes is easy to remove the white fruit part from the brown hard shell. If the white fruit part has still a brown layer on the backside, I use the potato peeler.

At the western side we saw that someone harvests coconuts. It’s also to be seen that coconuts trees and other trees are planted. Many young trees have labels with code numbers attached. It appears as an attempt to secure the islands from wave erosion .

We also found an abandoned house and one house in which 2 men are living. We did not approach them but went back to the boat.

Third day

Back to the reef for snorkeling. However, due to the rain we had the day before, visibility was poor. Too much sand and soil was in the water. Nevertheless, we saw a bunch of beautiful large corals.

Back to MaRe I started cleaning the hulls. This work became necessary again because the activation of coppercoat was not done properly at the ASCAR shipyard in Spain. I completed all but the keels and rudder, which I left for the next morning. I was exhausted from snorkeling at the reef for an hour and then again 1 1/2 h around MaRe’s hulls.

Thereafter we had a great guacamole because we both were pretty hungry. This lead to a skipped dinner later for this day.

Was it boring being 3 days at anchor in front of the little cay? No it was not! We could have gone back to the islands to explore the trails we saw going into or even across the island. Snorkeling at the northern and eastern reef was also another option we had. But we wanted to look at one more place. Thus, we discussed to go into the Laguna Bluefield at the peninsula Valente next day. About 8 NM from our anchor ground. I prepared the routing for next day. Easy. 4 WPT only.

We went to bed without our normal dinner and had a good night sleep.

As we saw plenty of mangrove island and small villages of maybe better called even only settlements. Thus, we wanted to see something more Caribbean. The Zapatillas, located at the edge of the Bocas del Toro (09deg 15.898min N, 082deg 03.271min W) and surrounded by the Caribbean Sea appeared to be right place.

I plotted the route from where we were to Zapatilla 1 using again the Bauhaus guide and the Navionics charts. A bit less then 20 NM.

We started early in the morning, even before breakfast. While motoring between Cayo Nancy at PRT and the northern part of Isla Bastimento at STB, Tob made breakfast. He took it at the cockpit table and I, while sitting at the helm watching the waters around and especially beneath us.

At the NW corner of Isla Bastimento, we turned N and then using a few WPT to turn in steps more and more E until the course got a more and more S component. Most important was the careful watching of the depth meter. For the last NM we had to go around a reef NW of Cayo Zapatilla 1 the cayo, where we want to drop the anchor at its SW side.

To make sure we have enough enough water beneath MaRe’s keels for swaying at her anchor, I made a kind of right circle to see the depths of the water. We had always more than 4 m water around the point where we finally dropped the hook. (Right circle because the depth sensor is built into the PRT hull and a break
of 7.1 m cannot be neglected.)

At anchor before a small islet, a cay covered with trees, a sandy beach, and reefs around we wondered what we will experience.