Panama

Panama.

It's been a tough leg

So that was that, we had been 5th or 6th one day then we drove into a wind hole , had 24 hours of sitting around doing 1.5 knots got up the next morning we were in 10th. We could see one boat in the distance and spent the next 2 days chasing it. As mentioned before if the breeze is up the boat goes fast if there is light airs we are dead in the water. After day 12 or so our paths crossed with Derry which was quite funny 2000 miles and they came at us from the starboard side full spinica up and had to give way to us

passing close to Derry

There were a number of gates at which the race could be cancelled at and we knew the race was going to be shortened but unfortunately when we had the mail confirming it we had no time to catch anyone up we were all very disappointed because we had been doing so well but also we wanted to do well for Flav he had tried so hard and it would have shown the world it was not the crew but the skipper that gives us the bad results. So who is it?

Our "Italian" noticeboard by Baz

Have to see on the next leg to New York. Race over and the long motor to Panama in the stifling heat 1200 miles about 10 days. We sailed a bit if the wind picked up and was in the right direction mostly to save fuel. Keith was hoping we were going to have to refuel in Costa Rica . We did actually meet Derry and give them some of our fuel as they were running low. Shifts were split so we either did a 2 hour watch at night or one 4 hour one if we had 2 shifts that night , this gave us more rest but it was so hot it was hard to sleep, some people took to sleeping on deck on the sail bags. The wildlife was great, lots of turtles , we saw at least 3 more with birds standing on their backs.

Bird catching a ride on a turtle

We saw a marlin jump 3 times in front of the boat and something you would not believe , manta rays jumping, at first we thought dolphins must be tossing them in the air but there were none around and it was on 3 separate occasions . There were so many dolphins at one point they must have covered a square mile , around the boat yet still jumping and splashing around almost on the horizon. Day shifts were taken up with boat jobs, we had a fire practice with the fire hose out, we did two mornings when we practiced the Le Mans start , main sail up then all run to our positions and hoist the 2 fore sails as quick as possible . I was on the coffee grinder and in that heat doing it 3 times in a row took some effort, we managed by fine tuning on the second day to get it down to 1 minute 10 seconds. Have to see how we do at the next race start. The rest of the time was relaxing or trying to find shade, the talk on board between the RTW crew is very much of race finnish and going home. There is a real feeling that once we pass through the Panama canal and say goodbye to this side of the world we are entering home waters . A 2 week race to New York then the party leg as we call it . The last leg only has about 24 days sailing in it. 3 days to Halifax the 2 weeks ish across to Derry a quick flick round Scotland to Holland then home.
The last day motoring into Panama was great we saw so many pelicans dolphins again, 2 sharks , but the best bit was we had the line out and caught a reasonable tuna which I gutted and Flav was busy filleting to make sushi when the line went again and we had a 4ft, 12 lb mahi mahi on, it stopped out line and I had a real effort to wind it in made more exciting by the fact dolphins were all splashing around and Baz was shouting shark shark all the time. The fish was filleted and we had enough for lunch and tea much to Pauls disgust as we were going to have egg mayo sandwiches and he had to cook the fish. It tasted so good only an hour or two out of the sea so as fresh as it could be.

Mahi Mahi and Me

Tuna

We arrived at the marina in Panama at 6.30 pm and went to the hotel for a good shower!

Panama Hotel