Next destination - Galapagos islands
gale-at-sea
Humphrey Gale
Wed 6 Mar 2013 07:23
What a relief to be on the move again......
Winds are light, from the North, and behind us. The cruising chute has been up all day giving us good progress. It is now 2.00 am, I am on watch, almost 24 hours at sea, very light winds, flat seas no moon, it is like ghosting along in fog, without the stress of fog because visibility is good, just nothing to see!
I have had stressful timeI at anchor at Panama city without the convenience of marina; only one dinghy and to get to and from the dock; constantly changing times for departure; concern about whether it was convenient, to use the dinghy, ask for a lift into the land; Andrew, our skipper was stressed because of the electrical problems; me under ( self imposed) pressure to get Jean or Nicola or Jonathan on skype to talk ( 5 hours time difference, plus coordinating times available). Original plan was to leave on wednesday - plenty of time to do things - then it got brought forward to Monday 17.00 hours because we were missing the good winds -which cut short my trip into Panama city on monday to get back in time to finish my jobs and my Skype time. It took me several hours to get money - none of the banks change travellers cheques! Then, Andrew and Susanne were running late and were delayed getting to supermarket and when they got back they were tired and stressed, so the departure time was delayed till tuesday morning. I could have spent plenty of time talking to loved ones, after all ..... Grrrrhhh!!
.......so what a relief to be back at sea
The atmosphere on board is relaxed. My exerience with cruising chutes appears to be being apreciated, I am taking the responsibility for doing the sail trimming
Peter, grab bag photo of 'blue and red sail up' as feature photo. Thanks