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…

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…

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.…

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…

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,…

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…

“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…

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…

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.…

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…