Written By: Susan & Wayne

Last year at this time we were aboard “Daydream” in the lovely Los Roques island group off the north coast of South America. Since then we’ve had a busy, long-distance travel year both on the boat and on land.

We had our hearts set on sailing to the Panama Canal, through it and up the west coast of Central America before summer. This would have us returning to one of our favourite cruising grounds in the Sea of Cortez in Mexico before the hurricane season began again. It may not seem like it to some of you but this is a fairly long journey in a sailboat. It would be easy to spend years covering this route but fortunately we had already covered the west coast from the Panama Canal to Mexico twice on our last adventure. Thus we were determined to spend as much time as possible seeing the area between Venezuela and the Panama Canal and then move very quickly from there up to Mexico.

We really enjoyed the remaining two island groups that were the next stops after Los Roques. Los Aves (The Birds), as these areas are called, are mostly coral reefs with a couple of tiny dots of low-lying land. The enormous reefs provide incredible protection from the relentless waves generated by the ever-present trade winds. It was a fabulous lesson in boat handling to weave in among these coral heads lurking just below the surface. Wayne had a permanently blistered nose and lips from standing at the bow for hours at a time peering into the crystal clear water and directing me which way to turn, to stop (quickly!) and in some cases to jam it in reverse to avoid a collision. It was an interesting experience to learn to ‘drive blind’. Since I had my eyes glued to the compass and depth sounder, I simply listened to Wayne’s directions hardly ever looking at where we were going. It was certainly a fantastic exercise in trust and working together.

The islands and reefs are basically uninhabited although there were a few military/coast guard personnel on one island and literally thousands of birds. We never did see the coast guard guys and spent most of our time in complete isolation, snorkelling, exploring and generally enjoying ourselves. For company, we did pick up a couple of hanger-ons who we called Bill and Bob. They were two enormous (between 3 and 4 foot long) barracudas that liked to hang out behind our boat waiting for table scraps to come their way. They freaked me out a bit but you soon got used to them lurking about.

These reefs have had many, many ships and boats wrecked upon them over the years. Some of which are still visible above the surf. There is a rumour that a treasure fleet was lost here hundreds of years ago so we searched a little. We found no gold bars but we did drag up an old brick that didn’t belong there.

We would have stayed longer in these idyllic places but I had developed a terrible chest cough at Christmas and just couldn’t get rid of it. We read all the medical books that we had and tried all the options including antibiotics and home-made cough syrup when we ran out of store-bought. Just so you know you can make a pretty effective cough syrup out of lemon, gin, and honey. As the coughing continued unabated, it was time to seek professional help in the civilized world of the ABCs.

To see photos from the Aves click here.

So one quick down-wind passage later we found ourselves back in civilization when we arrived in Bonaire. Even the slow pace of life on this island was quite a jolt to the senses after spending so long in isolation. Certainly waking up to find a cruise ship cuddled up to us wouldn’t have happened in the islands that we had just left behind. Bonaire is a lovely island with some of the clearest water and most abundant tropical fish that we’ve ever seen. You aren’t allowed to anchor in Bonaire so we pulled up right in front of the main town of Kralendijk and picked up a buoy. We spent only a few days there. Just time to see a doctor about my cough and to do a little restaurant eating! Bonaire is part of the Netherlands Antilles just like Sint Maarten but it is much more “Dutch”. We suffered a bit of sticker shock, as it had been a while since we’d spent any money at all and the prices were a lot higher than in Venezuela.

All too soon we headed west to the island of Curacao where we would spend almost a month stocking up and doing some upgrades on the boat including ordering some items from the U.S. Curacao is a very modern, bustling island that is also part of the Netherlands Antilles and has a very strong Dutch influence. I’m not sure how long we would have had to stay to pick up some of the language.

We spent our time anchored in the very well protected, amazing anchorage of Spanish Waters. It’s a good thing it was well protected as we experienced 20-25 knots of wind and rain squalls almost every day. A twenty-minute bus ride would get us to the main city and harbour of Willemstad. The architecture and colour of the buildings is just amazing. In between stocking up and working on the boat we squeezed in a little time for socializing and catching a few movies at the theatre in town.

To see photos from Curacao click here.

Wayne

The trip from Curacao to the San Blas Islands is reputed to be fast and rough especially in the winter months. However, with the wind from behind it couldn’t possibly be all bad, could it? We finally got away from Curacao on February 9th and had the fastest passage that we have ever done. “Daydream” was in her element and flying. For the first several days we had winds up to 30 knots from behind, rough seas and a current pushing us along. Other than the roll, this was really fantastic sailing. The boat was near hull speed all of the time and the sky was bright blue. It’s true we were being tossed around a little and some of us may have tossed our cookies a few times but that’s they way it goes. (Susan: easy for him to say). On the first day we did 180 nautical miles. The second day we hit 196.5 miles, which now stands as our 24-hour record. Then the current turned against us and on the third day we only managed 163 miles. The last full day we only did 157 miles and then reached Isla Pinos in the San Blas Islands a few hours later. We had come much farther than a straight line between these two ports because the weather just off the Columbian coast produces some of the highest seas in the entire Atlantic. As a result we were well off of Columbia until just the last few miles before we arrived at Isla Pinos. Even so, in the middle of one night a helicopter appeared out of nowhere, had a good look at us and then apparently decided that we were not involved in anything too nefarious and disappeared back towards the mainland.

The San Blas islands are officially part of Panama, however the indigenous people, the Kuna Indians, have managed to hang onto some degree of sovereignty and much of their unusual culture including their own language. The Kunas call their island chain of 365 islands and their strip of land on mainland Panama, the Kuna Yala. Only about 50 of these spectacular islands are inhabited.

Isla Pinos is unusual in the island chain because it stands a couple hundred feet high as compared to most of the islands, which are exactly the height of the tallest palm tree, plus about 3 feet of sand. Isla Pinos is near the eastern end of Panama, very close to the Columbian border and is in the least developed area of the Kuna Yala. The people here live in houses that you can see through. The walls are made of upright sticks and the roofs are thatch. There is very little electricity although some villages had a TV with DVD and a generator or solar panels to run it. There are no cars and very few outboard motors.

Most of the men are either farmers or fisherman. If they are fishermen, they use a hollowed out (by hand) log canoe to get to and from the ‘office’. If they are farmers, they farm mostly coconuts but also some mangoes, bananas, platanos and a few veggies. The coconuts are the main crop and the main source of export earnings. Every town has a little concrete dock that the coconut traders dock at to buy coconuts. They show up in extremely colourful and dilapidated old wooden shrimp boats and buy coconuts for 10 cents each and sell flour, sugar and luxuries like potato chips to the locals. Because most of these boats are operated by Columbians and these are the only outsiders that many of these folks normally see, they often asked us if we were Columbians.

One of our favourite sights in the Kuna Yala was the pigsties. For some reason that we never quite figured out, they build little one-pig sties about 3 feet off the ground, right on the ocean front. Anywhere else in the world this would be million dollar real estate!

Susan

The other important industry in Kuna Yala is the making of molas. The women mostly undertake this work. ‘Mola’ means blouse and is the traditional dress for Kuna women. They sew the mola panels by hand using a unique multi-layer method that involves cutting through the top layers to display the colours of the layers beneath. The good ones are painstaking works that can take months to make and it is almost impossible to see the tiny stitches. Two matching panels are sewn for each blouse and then connected together by a neckline and sleeves. Molas are often characterized by rather unique colour combinations due to the Kuna’s love of red, burgundy and orange!

Wayne

The eastern half of Kuna Yala has never had any industry to speak of and as a result has never been carefully charted. The Spanish made the last ‘official’ chart around 1810. We have a guidebook on board written by a guy in a sailboat that provides much better information than the official chart, but even so, one of us was on watch on the bow of the boat the entire time that we were moving through this area. There were many times where we had only a few inches of water under the boat and many uncharted reefs. Of course we did go aground once, but got off again just a few minutes later.

Susan

We spent over a month working our way slowly NW through the island chain. We enjoyed our time immensely. It was the most unique area that we’ve ever visited. The people were very friendly and the culture very interesting. The area was highly photogenic. Between the colourful people themselves, their fascinating villages, the uninhabited coral island paradises and the underwater gardens of diverse coral; it was truly a slice of heaven. We could go on for hours discussing the San Blas but it’s time to move on. Please take a moment to see some of the incredible photos from this area on our website.

To see photos of the Kuna people click here.

To see photos of the San Blas Islands click here.

All too soon it was time to leave paradise. We had begun to hear rumours of long wait-times to transit the Panama Canal. At this point it was mid-March and many other cruisers in the Western Caribbean were also preparing to transit the Canal in preparation for heading across the South Pacific. It was time for us to get in line.

We had one quick stop in the historic port of Portobelo before reaching the Panama Canal from the San Blas Islands. Portobelo was one of the ports along the route of the Spanish treasure fleets. We only had a day to spend here but Wayne took some great photos of the old Spanish forts surrounding the bay.

To see photos from Portobelo click here.  

Our last stop in the Caribbean was the, less than lovely, city of Colon. It is, however, a necessary evil as this is where all boats wanting to transit the Panama Canal from the Caribbean to the Pacific end up. If you are lucky, the wait is short, but we arrived at one of the busiest times of the year for small boats to transit in this direction. We arrived to find out that some of our friends had been here waiting for over four weeks! We immediately set about going through the process of “getting in line”. This involves being measured (the boat, not us) by a Canal official, filling out piles of paperwork and finally parting with $850 US, which was the going rate for an over-50 foot boat. That fee seemed like quite the deal compared to the alternative of sailing around the tip of South America!

Luckily we had a relatively short wait of only 12 days. That wait was filled with checking out the daily rescheduling to see who had been bumped and who had been moved up and talking to all the other people waiting to transit about the latest rescheduling. Other hot topics of conversation were the problems suffered by boats that had gone through the day before and the arranging of line handlers. Line handlers were definitely the topic of the day. Each small boat that transits must have a total of five crew aboard in addition to the advisor that the Canal provides. One person to steer/pilot the boat and 4 people able to handle the long lines used to secure the boat to the lock walls during the transit.

We made some wonderful friends and had some great parties during this wait time. It was truly a multi-cultural meeting place as the boat crews waiting to transit represented countries from all around the world. Sadly we were the only ones intending to head north up the coast after the transit so we didn’t have much time to enjoy these new friendships.

While waiting for our transit, we crewed as line handlers on a yacht called “Sarema” from Finland. That transit was fairly uneventful with one small collision with another boat. It was hard work but we were happy to have the experience again in preparation for our own transit. We were line handlers for our friends in 1996 but a refresher never hurts.

When the afternoon came for our transit on April 1st, we were ready. Our three extra line handlers were our new friends Michael & Janine who were doing a boat delivery to Australia and Kathy from “Ariel”. Our Panama Canal Advisor was scheduled to arrive on the boat at about 5 pm but I think it was closer to 7 pm when he arrived. Of course by that time it is as dark as the inside of a cat. He had us pick up our anchor and begin circling in the dark waiting for the ship that we were to follow into the canal locks. It was already apparent that our advisor didn’t have much experience with this and wasn’t going to be all that helpful. When the time came to head up the channel toward the first lock, he kept urging me to move further to the edge of the channel until I noticed that we were in only nine feet of water! We draw seven and a half! He obviously wasn’t thinking about the draft of a sailboat. As we were waiting, a 700-foot ship was approaching the lock. At about 1000 feet away he suddenly dropped his anchor. Our advisor was able to find out that the ship’s reverse gear had failed! If he were to hit a lock while up in the reservoir, he could at least theoretically break the gate, which would uncontrollably drain the reservoir and destroy the Canal at least for a few months, and maybe for years.  Wayne assumed that they would use a tug to take him back to the anchorage but instead they used a tug to put him in the lock, and the next morning he was anchored near us in Lake Gatun, presumably fixing his transmission. 

Our next task was to have a small Czechoslovakian sailboat called “Argo” raft up to the side of our boat before we entered the first lock as we would be going through the first three up-locks together as if we were one boat. The rafting went surprisingly well in the dark and then we were off. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any time to figure out how 50 foot “Daydream” would manoeuvre with 25 foot “Argo” tied to the side. To add to the difficulties we had 25 knots of wind from behind pushing us forward and a huge current coming out of the Canal towards us. Let me just say, it was a rather stressful few minutes until we figured out how to work the controls of the two boats together to maintain control while trying to inch into the locks behind a power yacht. My hands were welded to the wheel and the gearshift control. During all the excitement our Canal advisor had snuck off to the bow of the boat, as he had no idea how to help. The rest of the transit up the three locks went by in a blur for me with no further problems. By the time we came out of the final up-lock into Lake Gatun it was about 1am and I had a massive migraine headache.

Wayne

We spent what was left of the night anchored in Lake Gatun as there was no room left on the buoys. Early the next morning when our advisor arrived we discovered that the anchor was hooked on a tree. Sounds funny, I know, but it wasn’t. The valley was flooded in 1912 to make the reservoir but it was never logged. Then a few years ago, they dragged a giant chain over the bottom between two tugboats in order to clear it. Obviously they didn’t get all of the trees. The one that we got hooked on was either very big or still rooted because we were able to pull the bow of the boat right down to the water with our windlass. I estimate that we were applying at least 1000 pounds of force trying to free ourselves. We thought we’d have to get a diver out but finally managed to get clear. Then we had to hurry to catch up to our friends in “Argo”, the boat that we were rafted to the night before. We had agreed to tow them the 25 miles through the centre portion of the Canal as they didn’t have the horsepower to maintain enough speed. If they had had to go through under their own power, they would have had to pay a fine of $400 because they could not get to the down-locks in time. We quickly overtook them and threw them a line for towing. With his engine at full power we moved along at about 7 knots and arrived at the other side in plenty of time. When we reached the 1st down-lock, we stopped in order to raft “Argo” to one side of us and another 50-foot sailboat called “Interlude” to the other side of us. We would stay tied together moving as one boat for the final 3 locks. Luckily we had a very competent advisor on this second day of the transit and we spent a few minutes testing how the boats handled together. Basically “Daydream” became the power and the steering for all three boats so Susan had a lot of work to do while the other two helmsmen had a bit of a break. It was a good thing too as between the first and second down-lock “Interlude” lost their steering. He was able to get an emergency tiller rigged while “Daydream” pulled them along. Soon we were exiting the third and final down-lock and being flushed out into the Pacific.

The number of mechanical problems amongst boats at the Canal was astonishing. During our wait in Colon almost every day one or two out of the three to five boats going through broke down. Problems included, lost steering, engine won’t start, gear shift failure, and broken bolts to the prop shaft. I know that some of these boats are not that well maintained, but the number of failures still seems pretty surprising. It’s almost as if the boats are scared to go through. One other interesting, little known fact about the Panama Canal is the direction in which you transit. Most people would think that you would travel from east to west when coming from the Caribbean side to the Pacific side when in fact you transit from NW to SE. The Panama Canal is an amazing engineering marvel and quite the experience in a small boat.

To see photos from the Panama Canal click here.

Susan

Now we were back in old territory for us. We could feel the pressure of the upcoming hurricane season so we didn’t spend very long in Panama City. Just enough time to stock up with fuel and provisions for the upcoming miles ahead. This time our journey up the coast of Central America was done in the dry season and it was such a pleasure. The last time we had been in this part of the world, we had seen more rain and thunder and lightning than we thought possible. We hopped up the coast of Panama re-visiting some of our favourite stops along the way but not staying anywhere for more than a day or two. We then made a direct passage from the north end of Panama to the north end of Costa Rica. At that point, we had had so little wind that we really needed diesel fuel. However, the fuel dock that we knew of had been closed long ago so we continued on again making a direct passage from Costa Rica to the southern end of Mexico at Puerto Madero arriving with at least some diesel fumes left in the tanks.

We had an uneventful crossing of the dreaded Tehuantepec (our third time across) at the beginning of May and then continued up the coast of Mexico stopping at some of our old haunts. We were happy to be back in one of our favourite countries and even happier to see that things hadn’t changed that much in the eight years since we had been here. The people are still wonderful, friendly, happy and helpful, the food is still fantastic and the prices are still quite reasonable! Best of all, we were heading back into the desert zone where the scenery is pretty spectacular and rain is a rarity. One thing we are missing is the incredible clear, blue-green of the Caribbean water and the white, white sand. However, the trade-off here in the Pacific is the incredible quantity and variety of sea life.

We didn’t have too much time to ‘stop and smell the roses’ as we had a reservation to haul-out the boat in San Carlos near the end of June. We did finally slow down a bit once we reached La Paz in Baja California. This is still one of our favourite cities and it is even prettier as they have made wonderful improvements on the waterfront malecon. We enjoyed the many anchorages north of La Paz as we worked our way up to Bahia Concepcion along the way drinking in the spectacular desert/ocean landscapes. Here we stopped for our final bit of cruising this season before heading across the Sea of Cortez to San Carlos. The weather was really heating up and Concepcion lived up to its reputation as ‘the oven’.

To see photos from the Sea of Cortez click here.

We had a fast sail across the Sea of Cortez and spent our final few days preparing the boat for haul-out and storage through the summer. We had to time our haul-out very carefully as there really isn’t quite enough water at the haul-out spot for a boat with our deep draft. This was also the first time that we have ever hauled out using a hydraulic trailer rather than a Travelift. It was a bit unnerving to see our baby come out of the water at an angle but it all went without a hitch. Once they had us out of the water, the boat took a little road trip down the highway to the storage yard a couple miles away.

Once “Daydream” was settled in for the hot summer months, we hopped a bus to Phoenix and flew home to Vancouver Island with plans to enjoy the summer months in our house, visit family in Alberta and Saskatchewan and take on a little real estate project. Everything went according to plan except the project, which began to stretch out, a bit longer than planned. Also Wayne managed to mess up his knee early in the summer and spent much of the summer on crutches or with a cane. Working his magic, he managed to get himself operated on at the end of September with great results.

To see photos from Canada click here.

A few days after the surgery, we decided to drive down to Mexico to launch the boat and then return to Canada to continue with our project. Due to our deep draft and coordination with the high tides, we had limited opportunities to launch the boat. It was a long three and half day drive to San Carlos. We then spent four or five days preparing the boat for launch including new bottom paint. The launch went smoothly and was followed by a week or so of putting the boat together, meeting new people and seeing old friends. When we were ready we sailed across the Sea of Cortez back to the Baja peninsula. We then enjoyed about 10 days of wonderful weather and socializing with old and new friends. All too quickly it was time to get the boat ready to stay alone and head home again. The threat of the final hurricane of the season on the day that we needed to leave wasn’t appreciated but thankfully it didn’t have any serious effect. We took a short, rather hair-raising, flight back across the Sea in a small Cessna. From there we picked up our car and drove back up to Canada.

To see photos from the San Carlos area click here.

So that is where you find us at this point in time. We are still working on our project but hope to wrap that up and return to the boat as soon as possible in the New Year. Since we’ve returned to Canada at the beginning of November, we have been inundated with the worst weather imaginable. We’ve been through record-setting weather of all sorts including torrential rainfall causing massive flooding, over a foot of snow which, stuck around for almost two weeks which is unheard of in this area, and wind storm after wind storm causing widespread power outages with thousands of trees falling over. So you can imagine how the call of the boat and warmer climates is very strong.

We’ve certainly covered a lot of ground this last year and seen some incredible places. Our words can’t possibly do these places the justice that they deserve so please check out some of the photos on our website.

To see our Photo Album click here.