Panama Canal and setting off towards the Galapagos

Las Perlas islands

Log entry reads: 0900 depart Rio Cacique on Las Perlas islands, Bearing to waypoint 230 deg; Distance to waypoint 818. Crew, C&N.  We have done overnighters before with just the two of us and we have done overnighters with crew who were laid low by seasickness, but we have never done 5/6 days two up.  However wind is 3 knots, at least it is from 015, and forecast is that we might get up to 15 knots for a couple of days, so it may be a lot of motoring.

Las Perlas are a collection of islands, only 30NM out from Panama.  A few fishing villages and one island with holiday homes, but otherwise deserted and beautiful.  We spent two nights off Isla Pachega, where there were thousands of pelicans and frigate birds, and we were woken up by wave-slapping noises all around the boat.
 What was it? Could it be wind-on-tide?  In the morning we found that is was rays jumping. And jumping high! Then two more nights on Isla Canas and a discovery dinghy trip up the mangrove-lined Rio Cacique. We have had to learn about tides again as they reach 4m here.



Panama City and the disappointing La Playita marina was three days of non-stop shopping, cooking, vacuum-packing and freezing. Engine and generator checks, rig checks.  Old Panama fun, with architecturally interesting Spanish heritage.  Nicky has made plans and provisioned for 60 meals for 5/6 people, and the freezer  which is exchanging heat with 28 deg water has slowly, slowly gone from just negative to now a healthy minus 16 in the cooler ocean waters. Every space under the cabin floors is filled with tins, cans, bottles, etc.  Chicken, pork, beef, lasagne, ratatouille, babotie, peppers de-seeded, all vacuum-packed, labelled with expiry dates, so that the Galapagos authorities will not be unhappy. No seeds of any kind allowed, so our netting hung from the saloon ceiling and filled with fruit, lemons and limes, will have to be eaten or juiced before we get there.


Taking a yacht through the Panama Canal was a
once-in-a-lifetime experience. First, the canal is highly evocative of the struggle to build it by the French, who attempted a sea-level canal, and then the Americans who finished the canal in 1913. 35,000 lives lost, many from Caribbean islands. 

Total height above sea level is only 26m, which compares to the 49m of the Caledonian Canal, but the recently opened new locks on the canal can now take post-panamax vessels which carry 3x the number of containers of the original.  We waited for our transit advisors to come on board anchored off Colon,

then we went up the three locks into the Gatun lake; most Oysters nested in groups of three boats, though we were alongside a French catamaran, where a keen but unskilled grandfather failed to understand that ropes have two ends, that if you are rising 8m in a lock, the ropes will need to be tightened and that chatting at that point to your grandchildren is not that smart if you are controlling the windward side of the nest!  Our transit advisor, Ricardo, was charming, calm and helpful.

Overnight moored up six abreast in the Gatun lock, we set off early am and then waited ahead of the Culebra cut for the vast MSC Elodie to come through.  Then down through Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks, under the Bridge of the Americas and into the Pacific!

So I guess this is what we came for – big passages in a boat in her element.  We loved the Caribbean, and particularly the new geographies of ABC, Colombia and the Panama Canal.  We loved having 15 friends on board.  And now we are looking forward to seeing how this two-person team fares on a long passage.  We feel tuned up and hope Calliope is too!  And then we look forward VERY MUCH to seeing Pippa and Alex in the Galapagos, with Roger and Dinah then joining us for the long passage to the Marquesas.

Thoughts on the first leg of our journey

Tomorrow we are due to go through the Panama Canal, so this seems a good time to reflect on the journey so far.  We have come 1525 nautical miles since Antigua, with 15 friends and one stowaway, without arguments and with immense pleasure in their company and our surroundings.  If I (Nicky) had to pick a favourite place, it might be Klein Curacao after the tourist boats had departed and we had the island pretty much to ourselves (we had to share it with a very excitable dog).

San Blas

Panama has been a mixed bag.  Although the San Blas islands were stunning, once you went ashore it was distressing how much plastic had been washed up and how little effort was being made to clear it away – some financial incentive is needed, I suspect. Cartagena is another strong contender for favourite place. I wish I could communicate better in Spanish, not just to be able to order meals or ask the way, but to hold proper conversations with locals. 

At Villa Tavida, the wonderful, isolated lodge inland from Penonome where we spent two days last weekend, lovely Maria Beatrix told us about the petroglyphs and gave us an insight into local life, while Julio took us on a great hike up to the ridge, where we could see the watershed – one side, the rivers run to the Atlantic, while the other side they end up in the Pacific Ocean.  We swam in the pool under the waterfall, visible and audible at all times from the hotel, and had a hot mud massage, which left our skin fantastically soft.  Driving to Tavida was a challenge.  We had been warned, but it was still extraordinary to witness drivers doing U turns on a dual

Villa Tavida

carriageway! 

We are looking forward to seeing Panama City on the Pacific side; Colon, the nearest city to Shelter Bay marina where we’ve spent the past ten days, is horrible.  We have spent more time in Colon than we’d have chosen to, and definitely more time in a Panamanian provincial hospital, because Charlie, who was our skipper on Calliope in summer 2016 and brought her across the Atlantic, before he moved onto Miss Tiggy, another Oyster 575, has been critically ill there, with blood clots in his leg and lung.  Don’t take out medical travel insurance with Bishops Skinner – they have been awful!  We hope that following his operation yesterday, he will make a speedy recovery. 

Shelter Bay marina is very friendly – there’s yoga in the mornings, aqua aerobics in the afternoons and social activities galore.  Oyster organised a great party at Fort Lorenzo, just up the road, where Spanish conquistadores stored gold and silver before it was shipped to Europe.  There wasn’t room for the silver inside the fort, so apparently it lay in heaps outside.  Charles mended a davit cable and, mindful of an incident in Greece, was very careful not to drop the weight into the water.  However, a spanner went overboard and Charles dived in the dark marina water to find it.

From small tasks do bigger tasks grow

We will go through the Canal over the course of two days – the timing is out of our hands, as each boat is assigned a Transit Advisor.  We will probably be rafted up as a ‘nest’ of three yachts, but even so, we will be tiny compared to the huge container and cruise ships which take up a whole lock on their own.  Look out for us on the Panama Canal webcam: www.pancanal.com/eng/multimedia/index.html  - though when we tried recently, one of the cameras was out of action. On Thursday we’ll go up 26 metres in three locks, and that night we’ll moor in Gatun Lake.  We can’t drop our anchor, as we’re told it might get caught in the branches of the trees which were submerged when the Chagres River was dammed to create the lake.  Neither can we swim – there are apparently lots of crocodiles.  Then on Friday, we’ll motor the length of the lake, before going down the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks and under the Bridge of the Americas, out into the Pacific!  We have some new acquaintances on board to help with the transit, Sue, Spiro and Neil, but from there on, Charles and I are on our own to the Galapagos, about 1,000 miles, which I’m really looking forward to, though I’m a bit apprehensive about the night watches.  In Panama City we will do major provisioning as there’s not much shopping between there and Tahiti, two months’ sailing away.  Those who know my love of lists won’t be surprised that I’ve been having fun, working out food and other requirements for 60 days.

Above Villa Tavida

I think of home a lot.  There are lots of items aboard which remind me of people – the Cretan lemon squeezer from my parents, the bread bag from Richard and Ishbel, the chess set Maarten and Hein brought, Lucky the Pakeman teddy with his lifejacket, even (thank you Caroline) the dustbin bags which fit our odd-shaped bin so perfectly.  When I wake up in the middle of the night and our natural air conditioning (aka the wind) is blowing too strongly for me to get back to sleep, I miss Switzerland, my parents, log fires and skiing.  It’s hard to realise the routines at home go on without us; I wish I could pop back for Book Club and Orangetheory Gym, and to see Pakeman children and staff.  Most of all, I miss our children and hope they won’t mind when I smother them in hugs when they join us – Alex and Pippa in Galapagos in 24 days (yes, I’m counting!) and Michael in July in Tahiti.  It’s good to hear that daffodils and blossom are out in England.  Keep the news coming!

Charles: in terms of sailing we have done 1525 on the log since Antigua, but we have had strong current behind us from Grenada to Cartagena, so total miles higher.  We have used 55 engine hours and 45 on the generator, so the winds have been kind and favourable!  Nothing major has gone wrong, and we have done maintenance jobs here in Shelter Bay, oil changes and general checks.  We have started up the freezer and Nicky is filling it with meals for the Pacific.  The coast of Colombia was kind to us for the three night passage we sailed with Nick and Alexia rarely getting over 25 knots.  From Cartagena to San Blas we did have 33 knots and 25-30 for about 7 hours with Ben, Sara and Annemie.  Calliope coped with it all very well, and the autopilot was a great help!

Guest Blog - Ben Stocks writes

Cartagena to Panama City - Feb 26 to Mar 6

Annemie van Berckel, Sara and Ben Stocks crewing

Six weeks into their adventure, Charles and Nicky were well when we met them. Both were nut brown and glowing with health, with Charles's strappy sandals revealing a new relaxed outlook on life.

Cartagena is cool.  Built inside a fort, the old city has small streets lined with balconies and bouganvillea.  At night it is packed with bars, clubs and youth.  By day it is mostly cafes and street vendors.

Sextant mishaps

 Sara quickly scored the tourist trifecta of Panama hat, 100% genuine Raybans, and a colourful woven bag, leaving time for a quick debrief with Nick and Alexia Bell who were leaving Calliope after a wonderful passage from Bonaire,  Their reports were of blue water sailing, yellowfin tuna sashimi, and the AIS switched off for fear of Venezuelan pirates.

Leaving Cartagena after a long and liquid lunch, we had a short shake-down sails to Islas Rosario, anchoring there for the night before the 160NM passage to San Blas.  This turned out to be an uncomfortable 24 hours of 3 metre seas, and winds gusting to 33 knots.  The crew did little actual crewing, but Charles and Nicky were unperturbed,  Indeed Charles found time to practise his navigation with his sextant placing us, somewhat disconcertingly, 3 degrees south of the equator, when the GPS had us 10 degrees north.  Long discomfort was rewarded with dolphins off the bow at dawn and picture book islands by breakfast:

Cocos Banderos islands, San Blas

The San Blas are spectacular.  We island-hopped: Coco Banderos, Holandes Cays, Lemmon Cays, Sugardup and Isla Linton.  All were beautiful: palm trees, white sand, turquoise sea and the distant boom of surf on the reef.  A few are inhabited, most are not.  The Guna Yala people do not allow fishing or the harvesting of coconuts, but will sell lobsters, fish or embroidered molas.  We dined on red snapper, watched eagle rays gliding in the shallows and snorkelled.  Between islands trade winds made for excellent sailing and cool nights on board.  Entirely delightful.

Some things didn't go as planned.  Doc van B was called back into Lemmon Cays to stitch an Aussie Oyster foot.  Ordered into the water to scrub the antifouling, some of the crew (Annemie & Ben) were more diligent than others (Sara).  The ice-maker broke, and we ran out of wine.  Every morning Annemie studied the books, guides and charts to announce a plan which Charles would quietly ignore.  There was much laughter and never a cross word.


The final passage into Shelter Bay at the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal was one of lumpy seas and a 25kn following wind.  Shipping lanes are clearly marked but the size, number and speed of the container vessels at the entrance to the canal breakwater is impressive.  We left the Oyster fleet preparing to be measured and fitted out with new warps before crossing the continent.  Calliope heads to the Pacific with a clean bottom; Charles and Nicky head off for some R&R in the Panama rainforest and this happy crew heads home.

Venancio - the greatest salesman