{"id":79,"date":"2007-02-16T16:37:33","date_gmt":"2007-02-16T16:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/2007\/02\/16\/first-day-of-passage-to-panama\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T17:03:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T17:03:14","slug":"first-day-of-passage-to-panama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=79","title":{"rendered":"First day of passage to Panama"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">\n.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }\n.flickr-yourcomment { }\n.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }\n.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }\n<\/style>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\">\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/48817769@N00\/392144646\/\" title=\"photo sharing\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/125\/392144646_34074deb88_m.jpg\" class=\"flickr-photo\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>\n\t<span class=\"flickr-caption\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/48817769@N00\/392144646\/\">First day of passage to Panama<\/a>.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"flickr-yourcomment\">\n\tWe left Bonaire yesterday morning at 09:20 am EST.  To my<br \/>\nsurprise, the trip northwest to get around Curacao and Aruba was<br \/>\nstill sufficiently downwind that we did not have to take down<br \/>\nthe balloner, which we had left furled on the head stay on<br \/>\narrival to Bonaire, or remove the downwind poles.  We sailed<br \/>\nnorth of our plotted course in anticipation of an evening wind<br \/>\nshift.  Seas were quite rolly and confused at first, making for<br \/>\nan uncomfortable ride, but then became more regular.  On leaving<br \/>\nBonaire, we found ourselves about 10 miles behind another<br \/>\nsailboat seemingly headed in the same direction.  A Netherlands<br \/>\nAntilles patrol plane made a couple of low passes to check us<br \/>\nout in the waters east of Curacao.  (When we approached Bonaire<br \/>\nlast week, a patrol helicopter dropped down off of our stern to<br \/>\ncheck us out as well). We saw much less tanker traffic than<br \/>\nanticipated as we crossed the shipping lanes into Venezuela&#8217;s<br \/>\noil ports.<\/p>\n<p>We made excellent speed last night and the ride was decidedly<br \/>\nmore comfortable.  This morning we passed that other sail boat<br \/>\nand quickly left him behind.  He called me on the VHF at about 8<br \/>\nam to tell me that we looked good with our &#8220;spinnaker&#8221; out and<br \/>\nthat he was envious of our speed.  His vessel is &#8220;Vera&#8221; out of<br \/>\nGermany and is heading to the exact same place that we are &#8212;<br \/>\nProvenir, in the San Blas Islands of Panama.  We agreed that we<br \/>\nwould try and meet when we arrived.  We have had the balloner<br \/>\nset to starboard and the big 155% genoa set to port on identical<br \/>\npoles that whole way and expect that this sail configuration may<br \/>\ntake us all the way to the San Blas Channel.<\/p>\n<p>It is great to have Claus Portner with us as crew.  He is<br \/>\neasy-going and fun to be with, not to mention a very competent<br \/>\nsailor.  His presence also enhances our rest.  Instead of a &#8220;3<br \/>\nhours on, 3 hours off&#8221; watch schedule, we have a &#8220;3 hours on, 6<br \/>\nhours off&#8221; schedule.  Having 6 hours to sleep or whatever is way<br \/>\nbetter than 3 hours.<\/p>\n<p>It is now 11:10 am EST (16:10 Z) and we are making about 7.5<br \/>\nknots (down from the low 8&#8217;s) at a heading of 276 degrees<br \/>\nmagnetic in about 5-6 foot following seas.  Our position is<br \/>\nNorth 12 degrees 59 minutes, West 71 degrees 22 minutes.  The<br \/>\ncrew is well-fed and feeling fine and the boat is making easy<br \/>\nmiles.  Our professional weather router, Commanders Weather, has<br \/>\nwarned us of 30-40 knot winds Saturday night into Sunday morning<br \/>\nwhen we are off the coast of Colombia, so we may see a few<br \/>\nraucous hours before we make landfall in Panama on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>PS.  Claus (pictured above) sends special birthday greetings to<br \/>\nthis mother and little sister.<\/p>\n<p>M.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First day of passage to Panama. We left Bonaire yesterday morning at 09:20 am EST. To my surprise, the trip northwest to get around Curacao and Aruba was still sufficiently downwind that we did not have to take down the balloner, which we had left furled on the head stay on arrival to Bonaire, or &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=79\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;First day of passage to Panama&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other","category-panama"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}