Eclipse in the Pacific

Eclipse
Mon 19 Dec 2005 20:50
As Christmas and the end of the year approach, I thought it was time to
write an update about what we have been doing for the last few months.

We had left Eclipse in a Panamanian marina in March and gone home to work
for a few months. Then in early July we flew to Alaska and joined a 38ft
monohull!?, and for 2 months cruised south though the Pacific NW to
Reedport, Oregon.

In mid October we flew back to Eclipse and after a couple of weeks sorting
out the boat we sailed once more to the beautiful San Blas islands.
However it was now the rainy season. Although that meant much lighter
winds than we had experienced in the spring, instead of prevailing NE
trades, the winds came from every direction, but most often from the SW.

This meant that many of our favourite anchorages were now inhospitable lee
shores. Furthermore, there were frequent heavy rains and occasionally
scary thunderstorms. Indeed during one of these 6 of the 12 boats in our
anchorage were hit by lightning and suffered major electronics damage.

Fortunately we were not hit, maybe because lightning doesn’t strike twice,
maybe because we had the shortest mast, or maybe because we were the only
boat with a proper lightning protection system.

As a result we didn’t sail much. Instead we spent 3 weeks in the “Swimming
Pool”, the longest we had stayed at anchor in one place in three years of
cruising. We had now finally decided to go through the Panama Canal into
the Pacific. So in late November we headed back west. We spent a very
bumpy, wet week in Portobelo, which was still living up to its reputation
as the wettest place in N America, before sailing on to Colon and the
Caribbean end of the Panama Canal.

We decided to stay in Panama Canal Yacht Club marina, mainly because we
thought it would be just for a few days. This was the first time we had
been tied to the shore for a year, and it sure was civilized to be able to
just walk ashore. Unfortunately, Colon was as scary as ever, even though
we took taxis everywhere.

The marina is quite strange. There are the people, like us, who are in the
"Path between the Seas" going from ocean to ocean. Then there are the
run down derelicts who will never leave. Their boats don't look too good
either. The yacht club and marina also tend to fall into the latter
category. There are lots of buildings, a slipway, restaurant and bar, but
all have seen better days.

After a couple of cancelled attempts (due to a shortage of pilots) we were
at last given the go ahead and left the PCYC marina at 4pm on December
9th. Apart from Winni, one of my builders who lives in Panama, we had an
Austrian couple as line handlers. That is because every yacht going
through the canal needs four line-handlers, plus a pilot/advisor and
helmsman. Our pilot came on board at 5pm and we motored to Gatun locks.
Eclipse has never been so heavy, 1/4 ton of extra people, full
water and fuel tanks plus 8 large car tyres as fenders and 4 x 150 ft warps.

We passed through the first 3 locks as darkness fell, behind a large cargo
ship. We were only a few feet from its stern so when it motored forward
the
propeller wash made us struggle to hold Eclipse in place.

Then onto a mooring in Lake Gatun where we spent a restless night tied to a
large barge.

At 6.30 am our pilot rejoined us and we had a 5 hour motor to the Pacific
side locks. The Panama Canal have web cams on their web site. So, if by
chance you were looking at the site between 11 and 12 local time, you
would have watched our progress through the Miraflores locks. As we went
through the locks we had the web cam operator zoom onto Eclipse, so I hope
somebody saw us. Had you done so you would have seen that we were the only
vessel in the lock. No ship or other yacht. It sure made it all very easy.

Finally, on Dec 10th, at 1300 local time, (1800 GMT, 1000 Pacific time) we
dropped off the pilot and Eclipse motored under the Bridge of Americas and
into the Pacific Ocean.

A mile past the bridge is the Balboa yacht club dock. The Austrians left
and we topped up our fuel tanks. Although we had only used 4 gallons to
get through the canal we knew that the winds are much lighter on the
Pacific coast and so we’d need all the fuel we could carry. The canal
transit is stressful, so we anchored off Flamingo island to recover and
next day headed off towards Costa Rica.

The predicted winds leaving the Panama Canal in December are strong N
winds for 90% of the time. Our sail started off well enough, a light north
wind for 4 hours as we ran downwind to the first headland 90miles away.
Unfortunately, the wind disappeared and we motored for a few hours until a
strong S wind arrived which lasted until we reached the headland and
turned to the west.

Then we got a west wind. The next afternoon we hove to for 3 hours in a
thunderstorm, allelec trics off, engine disconnected, lightning earth
cable over the side etc. Torrential rain of course. At dusk we felt it
safe enough to carry on.
At the next headland we turned to sail north for the first time in 3 years.
So the wind went north. We gave up and went into Bahia Honda, which was a
very nice, safe anchorage.

Here we found a small fishing village, 20 miles from the nearest road,
which reminded us of Tobobe in NW Panama, which we had visited almost a
year ago. The kids were all over the boat, as always, Jetti handing out
sweets, balloons, etc as if Christmas was coming. A nice afternoon, spoilt
by another massive thunderstorm that night. We bought more fuel and next
morning motored off into a calm sea and west towards Costa Rica. By midday
a light west wind had got up and we motorsailed to the next waypoint. Here
we turned NW, so the wind went NW. I guess by now you know the rest. We
turned N, so did the wind.

But at 9am Thursday we anchored in Golfito, Costa Rica. Once again we had
had a windward sail. We looked at our log and realised that we haven't had
an offshore downwind passage since Cuba, 2 years ago!

Jetti stayed on board while Winni and I went to the port captain, who told
us to go to a photocopy shop to get 4 copies of all our papers, then it
was back to the port captain, then customs (oops wrong order), agriculture
building (oops wrong building), so back to next door to the port captain
and the correct agriculture building. We paid 30US for a meaningless piece
of paper. We walked to immigration, then walked back to customs. Finally
got a taxi back to the boat. 3 hours in the heat, but at least we were
cleared in and we only got ripped off by one of our 5 different taxi
drivers (we suspect he's the port captains brother)

On Saturday we beached the boat to antifoul it for the first time in 2
years. Winni left to go back to Panama by bus on Sunday. He was very
useful as a third watchman but even so I only had 6 hours sleep in 3 days.

In Central America you never know what a town will be like, its usually
worse than you expect. But Golfito is a pleasant surprise. We are now on a
mooring, 5USD a night with free cable TV (but with no programs worth
watching), internet (too slow and it crashes frequently) etc. There are,
however, lots of air-conditioned bars and restaurants. I write this on the
boat. I wonder where Jetti is?

It seems strange that this is midwinter, yet only 400 miles south of here
is the equator and south of that its mid summer. We are tired of the heat
and humidity and want to get north as soon as we can. And in particular we
hate the lightning storms. Its not something I thought about before
leaving the UK. But lightning strikes so many boats that its the most
scary part of tropical sailing. So we plan to be in N Costa Rica for
Christmas and be ready to sail to Nicaragua and El Salvador early in 2006.

So just time to say

Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2006