Snail's pace

Position: 2.9 N, 83.3 W
Still no wind. All OK.

Still no wind

Position: 4.79, -84.41.
Still no wind. 470miles to Galapagos Islands. Very hot sun. The wind is not letting us stay to the north of the equator, so we are heading south a bit below the equator in the hope of finding some wind there, then heading west. It may look like we are heading towards Galapagos Islands, but we do not intend to go there. Lots of dolphin photos for Bonnie today :)

Slow progress

Tried everything to make forward progress today. There's just no wind. We'll try a bigger spinnaker in the morning.

Mackerel

(26th January). Caught a mackerel for dinner. We're doing about 10 knots and probably will do a little faster once we turn to the West.

Off again

Hi again,
We are going to leave Panama in the morning. Our next journey is the longest ocean crossing in the world - 3800 miles from here to the Marquises in French Polynesia. We are hoping that it will take about 3 or 4 weeks, but it is all dependent on the wind. We have to cross the equator somewhere along the way, and hope to avoid too much of the doldrums - we do not have the fuel to run the engine the whole way. Most people head from here to the Galapagos Islands, and then on to Marquises, but we are planning on staying to the north of the equator and head south later on - local knowledge tells us that this could save as much as a week.

I believe there is little access to internet at Nuku Hiva (Marquises), so the next time we will get a chance to add to this site ourselves will most likely be in Bora Bora. Thanks again to Martin for updating it on our behalf.

Yes Bonnie, will do my best to get more dolphin photos for you! But would not go in swimming with them - it looks calm in the photo, but we were moving quite fast at the time - could take a long time to be able to get back to pick you up....

Photo at the top is from Antigua (English Harbour). The yacht on the right is obviously a traditional square rigger from Southampton, while the one on the left is called "Maltese Falcoln" - I think that it is the biggest sailing vessel in the world. Old meets new. The sails on the 'falcon' roll up or furl into the mast, and once out, the masts can rotate to allow to set the sails for the wind direction - some people have far too much money...

Will right again from a tropical island somewhere. We have to start to forget any Spanish words and start to remember our French now! Also, finally managed to buy a guitar yesterday and have a book and CD to start to see if I can learn to play a bit. Either that or I will drive Pete mad and it will go overboard I guess!

Stay well and happy, and we will be back in contact soon.

Panmania

Hey,
Just thought that I would take the opportunity to put up a couple of pictures from along the way - don't know exactly when we will next have internet. Tomorrow I will try and put up some internal pictures about the yacht.

Basically though, once we leave from a port, the yacht keeps going 24/7. There is nowhere to stop and anchor and we are not following a coastline. We are both up and about during the day, even if this is just snoozing on deck. All the time though, one of us has the responsibility to make sure the boat is safe. A big ship (oil tanker) will run into you about 20 minutes after you first see it on the horizon, so it is important to look out.

At night things just keep going, but as we both like sleep, we split the night into 2 shifts to stop arguments! One of us stays up till 3am, while the other gets up then and holds the watch till morning. That is...unless there is a big sea or any other reason to have both of us awake. Then we both just have to deal with it, and catch up on sleep later.

Cooking is just like at home, and maybe sometimes even healthier. We don't tend to have 3 meals a day, but just snack and cook a decent meal at some time that suits. So dinner may be at lunch or even at breakfast time. There is a 4 burner cooker that is gimballed - it swings independant of the yacht so that pots don't slide off. It works very well on this yacht actually.

Anyway, more of that later. A couple of pictures are attached from the trip so far...1. The chartplotter is a really handy navigation assistant and can zoom out to this sort of scale or right in to show the location of the boat on an electronic map. 2. Dolphins swim on the bow of the yacht most days. 3. Sunset on the first night out from Antigua.

Will write again tomorrow before we head off into the Pacific.

Panamania

Finally we are back into the land of the living! We have gone through the hellish town of Colon and the Canal and are having a few days in Panama. Thanks for putting up the web cam stuff Martin - looks cool! The lock system is amazingly fast - went up about 45 metres into Lake Gatun through 3 locks in about an hour and a half, and then down the other side into the Pacific this morning.

The process itself is reasonably simple with an advisor and line handlers to help out. On the other hand, we think that the whole of the Spanish world would collapse if there was not some sort of panic! Lots of yelling and high pace even when things are reasonably calm.

Anyway, now it is time to focus on the next leg. From Panama to the Marquises is the longest ocean passage in the world - 3800 miles. We need to make sure that both the boat and us are fit and healthy for the trip. I have slightly damaged ribs from the rough weather last week - either badly bruised or perhaps a small break, and Peter.... well he wants to marry a Spanish girl and spend the rest of his days not being able to communicate with words.... not really!

Pictures above taken off the coast of Columbia - 40 knot winds, and evidence of a fast yacht! The log records the maximum speed - don't really want to go that fast again during this trip, but would make a challenging racer! Maybe should think about Hamilton race week...

Hope everyone is well.

Images from Miraflores Locks

Click images to enlarge

Pete and Geoff's boat is the yacht on the far left.

For a time-lapse animation, click the image below to begin.

Click To Play

Images from Gatun Locks

Here's Pete and Geoff in Gatun Locks. Unfortunately it was dark, so that makes them harder to see. Click the image below to play.

Click To Play

Miraflores Lock

Timing update: should be around 10.30am Panama time, Wednesday.

Heading into Panama Canal

From Geoff:

I am on the yacht club computer, can`t get wireless here. We are due to depart from Colon at about 5pm today, but that could be up till about 6.00 in reality. We go up into the lake tonight, anchor overnight there and continue down the other side on Wednesday - should be out about 2 or 3pm. Then going to stay in Panama for a night or two to get set for the long part of the trip.

So no pictures just yet sorry. Will try and organise on the other side. I think it all will be easier there. We went to Panama yesterday for a look about. Big, crazy city, but at least it is safer than here! Will get in touch either along the way or on the other side. Hope everyone there is well.


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Additional info from Martin:

I just found a great live webcam for the Panama Canal here:
http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html
This is operated by the authorities that run the Canal.

Using this webcam, I hope to capture photos of Geoff and Pete passing through, and if I am lucky and get any good shots, I will post them here on the blog. But thought I would share the link anyway since it is interesting to see the ships going through the locks.

Geoff and Pete's timing for the locks is mentioned above. Panama time is the same as USA East Coast time. Add 16 hours to get Sydney time or 15 hours for Brisbane time.

They will be in Gatun Locks today (5 to 6pm Tuesday Panama time), and Miraflores Locks tomorrow (2-3 pm Wednesday Panama time). If I hear any more timing updates I will put them here.

still waiting...

We're still in Colón, waiting to get through the Canal. Lots of bureaucracy involved. We are currently scheduled to go through Gatun Locks on Tuesday 22nd. Then we stay overnight on the lakes, and on Wednesday, we can go through the other two locks, the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks. That completes the Panama Canal crossing.

We'll then stop in at the city of Panama, to stock up on some essentials, and we hope to set sail in the Pacific on Thursday.

Colón, Panama

We arrived safely yesterday afternoon in Colón, Panama (the entrance to the Panama Canal). We're waiting here to get through Gatun Locks. It is possible we may get through tomorrow morning. It was really great to get a good night's sleep.

The plan is to keep on the move for now until we are through the Canal, Once we get close to the city of Panama, we will take a short re-supply break before we head out to the Pacific.

Nearly there

Position: 9.768, -79.085

Nearly there now, we think we'll get in to Colón at around 5.00pm today. We'll meet our agent there who will help us get through the Canal. Not sure how long that will take. Could be a day or two, or as much as ten days - just depends on paperwork, how many boats are in line to go through, and how the stars are aligned. We'll find out more when we meet our agent. Winds eased since yesterday, so it's good sailing again now.

It's getting windy

Position: 10.89, -76.64

The winds have become pretty strong - up to 40 knots now. Higher winds means we are making great speed. Broke our own speed record, we clocked the boat at up to 16.5 knots at least - that's a racing speed - but it is not exactly comfortable sailing in the rough seas that we are experiencing right now.

Forecast is for more of the same, so it's probably going to be another sleepless night tonight as we close in on Colón Harbour. It will be nice to get a break there tomorrow.

Off the coast of Colombia

Position: 12.39, -73.98

Still making good time - another 200 miles or so in the past 24 hours. Hit a top speed of 14 knots today, sailing down a big wave.

You probably noticed the zig-zags in our route so far. The wind is blowing in the exact same direction that we want to go, however running directly downwind is not ideal. If we gybe, or zig zag our way downwind, we are actually able to go faster than if we went directly downwind. Even though it makes for more distance, we can make up the time (and then some) with our added speed through the water by gybing. So this explains why we did not take the originally planned direct line to Panama. Still think we'll probably make Colón, Panama sometime on Thursday.

We have a lure out the back for catching fish. Had one today but it got away as we were pulling it in. Last night we had a lure taken. If a fish is to catch us now, it will have to be an Olympic champion to catch us at the speed we're going today.

Colombian border

Position: 12.49 N, 70.936 W

Made another 210 miles in the last 24 hours. Currently working our way around a peninsula at the Colombian border. Once we round that, we'll turn southwest and follow the coast of Colombia all the way to Panama.

Bonaire

From Geoff:

Position: 12.39 N, 68.11 W

We've sailed over 200 miles in the past 24 hours, very happy with that progress. We are sailing day and night. During the day we are both awake and at night we take shifts.

Land is now in sight - we're off the island of Bonaire, which is part of the Netherlands Antilles. From here we head basically due west, past Aruba, and on to the border of Venezuela and Colombia, then turn southwest again as we head down to Panama.

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[Note: you can also check out Geoff and Pete's position and progress on the detailed map page if you have not already found that.]

Update from Caribbean

From Geoff:

We're running pretty much according to the plan so far. Great sailing with the spinnaker up most of the morning. Today we have been sailing at about 8 knots, with the wind blowing around 15 knots. We're heading slightly further to the south than planned, just due to the wind conditions, we're currently heading roughly toward Aruba.

Pete and I were having bets on who would be the first one injured on the boat. Well we already have a winner, it was Pete who draw first blood when he stubbed his toe on the deck. He's OK though.

Pete also wins the prize for the first fish caught - well, he didn't really catch it, it was a flying fish that jumped onto the deck.
We still think it will take us around a week to get to Panama. I'll check-in again in a couple of days.

UPDATE: Winds improving a little today, and we even got the boat sailing up to 11 knots. It's a nice fast boat.

Time to set sail

Well, the time has come. We have all the bits and pieces onboard and will head off from Antigua in about 3 hours - that's about 2am Brisbane time. Just some last minute food shopping and grab some fuel and water and we are off.

It has been busy here changing the boat from a Caribbean cruising yacht to one that is ready to go across the Pacific. Even had to go up to the top of the mast yesterday to check things out. It is a long way up there - glad there was not much wind!

From here it will be a straight line to Panama where we expect to be in about a week. Everything tells us that this yacht will be very fast, but the wind has died completely. We feel a little sorry for the owners, who had all the wind and rain. It is hard to imagine - we are sweltering in the hot sun and there is not a breath of wind this morning. Hope there is more once we leave.

I have still not got all the sat stuff working properly, and will continue to work on it. But if you don't hear anything from us for a while, don't be concerned. Regular calls to people are going out. But keep checking this site- never know when my tech side will kick in and solve the problems!

Hope you are all going well. Pete passes on his best wishes to all. See you on the other side of this sea soon.

We're here

Hi all, We made it! Long flight, about 36 hours. We had a day in LA to fill in and rather than sit at the airport, went and had a look at Venice Beach. Every possible walk of life and nationality....interesting place, but nice to be out of there, and back in the warm tropics and slower lifestyle.

This is the yacht sitting in her berth in Jolly Harbour, Antigua. We have had a couple of really busy days, but are very happy that all is in order and that she is going to sail really well. With 3 cabins, all with ensuites, it is a fantastic luxury. There are some minor repairs being done at the moment, so our plan is to depart from here early on Thursday morning if we can. From here it will be straight through to Panama, and the Canal.

Best way to contact us if you need to is to put a comment on this site, and a very nice person will get a short message to us. We do have email, but it is all through the sat phone once we leave here and so very expensive to download.

All is good and we are all well. The owners are onboard as well (until Monday) and the yacht is accommodating the 7 of us really well. It is going to seem very empty after Monday.

Antigua is a beautiful place. We have not had much time to explore yet, but intend to have a bit of a look about tomorrow. Being Sunday, there will be little open, so we thought getting about the place would be good. Will send another post in a couple of days. Hope you are all well there, and that you are not working too hard! :)