This definately was the most difficult and crazy trip we’ve made so far. Ok, ok. We knew, that there will be not much wind along the coast towards Costa Rica. But we also didn’t expect that exactly here and now the fuel in our tank would turn into grease and clog all our filters. We’ve arrived… but how ?

After spending another night adrift just outside of the bay of Golfito, the wind picked up in the morning. We sailed towards our destination slowly but steadily. While entering the golf, the wind shifted to southwest and we got the Blister up to increase speed. The tide was still with us and kept pushing with 1.5 knots from behind – but soon it would turn around and we would sail backward.

Both wind and current stayed with us right up to the entrance of Golfito – and exactly here the tide turned and the wind died. We were pushed outwards, back into the golf again. What to do ? Well, get the dinghy and outboard into the water and try to pull the Rancho Relaxo into the bay. But this was way harder than imagined. With the small dinghy and a four (!) hoursepower engine, we only made 0.4 knots. Two fishermen in a bigger dinghy were close by and we asked them for help. Two minutes later we were underway, doing two knots and feeling safe again.

Dorian and Heiner turned out to be not only helpful but absolutely amazing guys ! After pulling our 12 ton vessel for half an hour, they refused to take any money and only wanted fuel for the outboard. And after staying and chatting for a while, they even gave a big bag of camarones and a few fish for us !! Now that’s a lovely welcome, isn’t it ?

Early in the morning, Bas was already awake and got his things together while the laziest crew of the world was still asleep. At seven then, the alarm clock went off and we had a final breakfast, bevor we set out with the dinghy to get our friend ashore. We’ve met so many nice people during the last weeks but we also had to wave goodbye to all of them.

We hope that our paths will cross sometime in the future – with Bas, who will be in Europe now and with our friends that are now underway towards French Polynesia. The latter suffer the same problem we will have tomorrow: no wind. But at least we have the advantage that we’ll sail along the coast and we also will probably make a stop somewhere. Maybe the Isla Cohiba. Let’s see…. Maybe the forecast is wrong and we can sail. But otherwise we definately have not enough diesel to cover the 360 miles that lay ahead of us.

The rest of today we spent searchinf for new oars for our dinghy, shopping for fresh vegetables and fruits as well as a birthday present for Bruno, who will turn six in a few weeks. Probably we’ll re-schedule the celebration to party together with his grandmother, who will come and visit us in Golfito.

Well, there’s not much more to say. Next time I write, we’ll hopefully be underway towards Costa Rica.

After an amazing farewell party with the Kira (again), we decided to move away from the anchorage and go to someplace where you can swim without getting skin irritation. Our initial plan was to go to the Las Perlas but with the wind against us, we cut it short and ended up in Taboga. A lovely little island just eight miles out from Panama City.

The little village is really beautiful and quiet and everywhere it smells of flowers. Right now we’re at Ted’s Aqua Sol Villa and enjoy the fastest internet connection we’ve had in months. Tomorrow we’ll go at the beach again (after four weeks without) and on the 27th we have to be back in Panama City to bring our friend Bas to the airport.

Tomorrow we’ll finally have a day at the beach again – after four weeks that’s gonna be a real treat – especially for the children.

The last 43 miles we sailed were quite meaningful. Being in the southwest caribbean a turn around would have still been possible. Now that we’re through the canal, we’ve put the Atlantic ocean behind us and decided to go on and carry on. Turning back is not even an option. No, we’ve decided to go on and the next stops will bring us to Costa Rica, the Galapagos Islands and then towards French Polynesia which starts with the Marquesas – right in the middle of the biggest of all oceans. This is possibly one of the longest passages that lays ahead of us. During the last days some friends of us already left – directly towards the Marquesas. After you pass Galapagos there is no other island to stop. They have to cover 3800 miles, which means five to seven weeks on sea for the most of us. The SY Thor is underway already and the SY Murungaru didn’t even stop after going through the canal !

Sailing south towards the Galapagos islands means light to no wind. Going east brings no wind or headwind and this is where the next passage will lead us to. So we’re waiting for a little change in weather which is quite unlikely as we’re already in rain season. Towards Golfito in Costa Rica we’ve got to sail 350 miles. With a nice wind we would cover this in three days but right now you can only make use of the current and the land and sea breeze . This also would mean many stop overs and short trips in between. A way of sailing we’ve stopped to do since we left europe. After the first longer passages we discovered that it’s better to do longer trips but also stay put in one place for a few weeks instead of days or mere hours. Where ‘one place’ doesn’t have to mean one anchorage; for example, we consider Kuna Yala as ‘one place’.

Right now we’re anchored right in front of Panama City – I cannot stop looking at the skyscrapers with all their lights. Quite impressive to see and even more so after having spent many months without ever anchoring in front of a real city. But this skyline comes with a cost: the quality of the water here is really bad. Some go swimming – either because they have to or because one is clumsy – but usually that’s not a good idea. Skin irritations and little wounds that get infected are sometimes the price to be paid. There are a few places to eat and a shop down near the ‘dinghy dock’. I’ll definately have to take pictures of this amazing piece of craftsmanship: The dinghy dock is connected to the island by ‘ferry’ (a little red dinghy that you use to reach the stairs in the wall. Hehehe. The Island on the other side is connected to the mainland by a long road but there are no buses. As taxi is the only way to reach the city, we haven’t seen much of it until now, but maybe tomo rrow we’ll set out to get some of the things we’re in need of.

The fenders are in place and I finished painting in the morning. Everybody had breakfast and while we’re cleaning up, Gui went to the next gas station to get some fuel for the passage. Unfortunately the fuel station here in the marina is closed today and we don’t have enough diesel to get through the canal. Well, well…

Tomorrow I’ll do a SPOT-message right in front of the Miraflores locks, so if somebody watches on the webcam, please do a screenshot for us, yes ?

The best linehandlers of the world – our friends from the Kira have decided to do the passage a third time. Way ahead of time, they arrive three days early to enjoy luxury life in the marina. They commute in between pool and bar and in the early morning hours they swing themselves into the hammock on the foredeck. Hehehe.

The skipper could no longer idle around and grabbed screwdriver and steel brush to open around fifty little rust nests around the ship. Everything was taken care of with anti-rust and paint and three days later the ship looks a lot better. Unfortunately I couldn’t finish with the cover paint as today it was raining nearly constantly. – Well, this will have to wait, then…

Tomorrow at 13:00 we will be in the ‘flats’ to wait for our advisor. We should be in the Gatun lake tomorrow in the evening where we plan to have a barbecue on the mooring buoy. On monday sometime around 13-14h we should be in the Miraflores locks where you can see us on the webcam.

It’s absolutely incredible, what temperatures we can reach here in Panama. It’s actually only 33 degrees on the outside (at 10h in the morning) but the humidity never gets lower than 80% and there is absolutely no wind here in the marina.

So we play a little with the water and empty our cans with water from Kuna Yala. We’ll fill them up again, when we reach the Gatún Lake.

Every day some boats are leaving for the Pacific and new ones arrive. tires and panama-lines are wheeled through the marina daily. And one always meets new and interesting people. Just as yesterday when we ran into Sabine and Heinz from Hamburg. They already sailed around the world once and are now on their second journey. Unfortunately I forgot to ask for the ship’s name, but I’ll do that today.

And now Bruno and me are gonna deflate the dinghy and maybe – if there should be no rain – we’ll do a little rust cleaning later on…

As many other sailors, we also help out on other yachts as line handlers for the Panama Canal. Every vessel needs four line handlers, a skipper and an ‘advisor’, who’s sent by the channel authority and looks that everything runs as it should and keeps the communication with the control center.

Friday we get ready and give our kids to the SY Mares, while Gui and me get aboard the Tamora to go to the ‘flats’ (the anchorage in front of Colón) where the advisor is to come aboard. We’re in a hurry as the time for the passage was moved from 16h to 14h and we still have to get some fuel. Bas, the fourth line handler could not be found in the hurry and was replaced by Marissa from the SY Tevakenui, who only had five minutes to prepare. :-)

We drop the anchor in the flats just in time and hand over Gui to the Kira that arrived yesterday. Thus all line handlers are on their ships and everybody is ready. Only the advisors are absent. It’s getting 14h… 15h…. 16h… we call the channel authority’s scheduler and get a big shock: We’ll not get through today, they re-scheduled us for tomorrow 16:00 ! Usually that wouldn’t be bad, but every ship has three additional crew aboard and we gave our kids to friends which makes things a little more complicated…  But we can’t change it and it has the advantage that we’ll be able to celebrate Tim’s 29th birthday on the Gatún lake, in between the Atlantic and Pazific !

Next day at 16:00h a big pilot boat closes in and drops of a very friendly advisor. Just two minutes later we’re on our way to the Gatún locks, where just in front of the first one, we go alongside with the Kira to form a pack of two ships. A big freighter from the Philipines is going into the lock in front of us and seconds later the monkey fists are thrown towards us. We connect the lines to ours and get into position in the first of three locks on the atlantic side. The lines are pulled up and as soon as they are tied up, the lock closes and water flushes in.

Everything runs smooth and we’re through all three locks just before sunset. We drive a few minutes into the Gatún lake and tie up to a big mooring buoy. The Kira goes alongside and only minutes later we jump into the lake to have our first bath in a sweet water lake since a long time.

We have a excessive birthday party and when the advisor arrives at 06:15h in the morning, nobody has had any sleep. :-) With small eyes covered under sunglasses, we enter the ‘Banana Cut’ (a shortcut) and sail slowly in between little islands covered with rain forest, while we try to catch up with our sleep. At around noon we arrive at the first lock on the pazific side and again everything runs smooth while we go down the three locks together with the Kira.

Big smiles on all faces as the last lock is openend and we slowly enter the Pazific ! Silke gets out some champagne she brought from Germany especially for that occasion. We sail around Balboa and drop the anchor in between SY Kira and SY Thor, in front of the amazing skyline of Panama City. Soon after we start our voyage back with the bus and arrive in Colón just before sunset. We are greeted enthusiasticly by our kids, have a final beer in the marina bar and fall into the bunks very early in the evening. In a few days we will do the passage again, this time with the Rancho Relaxo. Hope that everything runs just as smooth.