Panama Canal to Galapagos thru the Doldrums

 Panama ... continued

Sailing Kids everywhere

The marina at Shelter bay was really nice, totally secure, spotless, good restaurant, bar and swimming pool. The atmosphere was very congenial as everyone was up to the same thing... waiting to go through the canal... There were about 25 kids there ranging from a 1 month old to 14 yrs. They really got Conrad going in the pool and within a couple of days he was jumping with them, off the wall into the pool... with his wings on. He could race around the pool with them on, but sank, stone like with them off, as he discovered to his surprise  when he jumped in without them. Not bad for 19 months!, another week and he would have been swimming...

We were kinda sad to leave, and for the first time I can understand how some sailors can become stuck in a marina ..  some for years... safe, secure, friendly, cold beer, versus the lonely expanse of the great Oceans. And some had been there for months!!

Conrads first solo run,  Shelter bay marina pool 

We followed this little 600footer thru the canal for the first day, through the 3 rising locks.. the Gatun Locks.

Top Fair, our leader ship thru Gatun Locks.

Tony has an IQ test question for you;
 "Which is further West, the Pacific or the Atlantic entrance  to
the Panama Canal??

By the time we arrived at the second lock is was dark,  but very well lit.
The canal operates 24/7/365

Ships are pulled and guided thru by 4 of these little locomotives. two on each side.
They keep the ships in the middle and act as the break too.

It looks darker than it was.  Having spent years on the shannon, the locks were a lot of fuss
about nothing. We had 4 "lock-men" in each lock handling our lines as well as 4 crew onboard. 

Look at the lock gate behind Farrfly.

Now look again. Each lock changes the height by 27 feet.

So what did the flags say? On starboard side; Panama  courtesy flag, Royal Irish Yacht club small ensign, RIYC burgee/pennant, Austrian flag, RStGeorge burgee,  then B..C..P..   Port side; RIYC pennant again, then I...R...E...L...A..N..D..  At least we are still proud to be Irish. (But then again we escaped!)

Cruise ship silver cloud followed us down through all the locks on the 2ad 'falling' day.
I was surprised to learn the total 'lift' is under 80 feet.

Last gate opens and Farrfly floats upon the Pacific for the very first time.

World famous 'Bridge of the Americas' outside Panama City, where the sky line resembles
New York.

We hitched a 'ride' from the Westport until some other ship about 5 miles behind us complained to the port Captain
that 'there is a sailboat in the shipping lane'   

I think this is lough Derg..  but in the middle of Panama.

Home schooling.. fishing lessons.

More home school.. navigation.

Life on board in the doldrums, hectic pace. 

Night watch. You are never to young to start.
'Mum are you sure we should see both the green AND the red lights?'

Thumbs up. Watch over.
Nothing like a hot cup of  strong coffee at dawn.

Now 'ere we have a surprise. After 4 days of nothing and nobody the VHF pipes up;
"farrfly farrfly farrfly, good morning"
Now this is the problem with the new AIS broadcasting unit, everyone knows your name and what kinda boat you are, (recall the dickhead in the shipping lane out of Panama City).  As it happened they said 'nu-morning', being the rather confusing name for their beautiful Chuck Paine 54 footer. Well in true FARR fashion we came up from behind and wizzed off in front. Strange thing tho'; we drew along side to exchange greetings, flat calm doldrum stuff, the couple aboard; Ross and Fay, were  wearing full offshore harness in their hard covered cockpit. Shows the perils and reality of sailing only two on board. What if one fell in, it would be extremely difficult for the other - alone - to keep an eye on the person in the water, take down the sails, turn around, and go back.  Other double handers should take note, even in the doldrums, a rule is a rule.

For the non sailors out there, with a moonless sky, this is  all you can see
at night! You need an inner calm to truck through the dark, 1000 miles
from nowhere, basically blind.

Where would a blog or any album be without the sunset shot.

Party time, we had a little celebration when Nick called to say that after 3 years negotiating,
our London shoe shop was finally re-rented to our favourite tenant.

Right you guessed it, But why are we taking pictures of ourselves in the middle of the night?
Because we are crossing the Equator.

Being Irish I broke out, not Champagne for the Equator crossing, but naturally..Guinness..
Pity is was 2am as I had planned to dress up Conrad as Prince Neptune..
Now don't let this shot fool you, this was one of only two watches that mumtobe turned up for.
Even then I had t get her outadebed.

Land ahoy.. evolutionary birds from Galapagos.. which we still cannot see.

This pair of whales welcomed us to Galapagos.
We arrived upon the coast at dawn, turned off the motor and spent the day drifting South along the coast.
Stunning moon like landscape, and loads of sea life including Mr Turtle below.

This interesting shape is known as Kicker Rock and is a short boat ride from the port of  Moreno
on St Cristobal Island our point of arrival. The local dive boat goes out there every day with dive tourists.
The big attraction... Hammerhead sharks.. lovely but no thanks. I noticed they never counted how many divers came back everyday!

So we are finally in Darwin Land. Seems a little unreal.
So its a good time to look back and review our journey so far.
Starting with the little man; it is not possible to even imagine a healthier happier more fun loving baby.
Conrad gives Capt Gus a formal 'salute' every morning, he kisses everyone good night, and spends half his time eating and all his time smiling. He could eat for Ireland and 'poop' for Austria! He learned to roll out of his cot within 3 nights head first, but is content to stay in his cabin playing and then rolls back into bed to go asleep.. have it on video! Even Tony,  Mr no kids Bachelor kisses and plays with him. No matter what the noise or the roll or shudder of the boat Conrad sleeps on. Nothing wakes him or if it does he simply goes straight back to sleep. By day he knows he must stay in the cockpit or below, and wear his life jacket when on the outer deck. He was very quick to learn that he can only go on the outer deck when we are anchored or with mum or dad. He understands everything in both German and English, but he speaks very few words himself. He has added papa, gus, nice, yumyum, tny, down, and baum (the german for tree) to his vocabulary, since San Blas.

The motley crew are all humming along just fine, not many raucous laughs, but no tension either. Its a calm steady crew.. no Ryan Fun Watch.. thank god.. so I sleep very well! I don't miss the "is that green and red I see or just green?"

The boat is as you would expect from a 'cruiserised' FARR, simply superb. She ghosts along, sail or motor, not a bother. She might now look more like a sputnik than a race boat, but boy is she functional.
We are using too much electricity and water so I will have to clamp down on the consumption criminals aboard once we set out for the big crossing.

The doldrums are just as we expected.. boring... only sailed for 6 hours out of 5 days. We caught no fish and saw none either. Seems the Caribbean sea has a lot more life. Not even one flying fish. Crossing the equator was an ant climax as we did it in the dead of night, with the whole crew asleep. It was my watch and so I got Samina up, and as you can see from the pictures we 'shared' a Guinness.. Recall we are a 'dry' boat.

So now we are in the port of Moreno San Cristobal, where you will see later, our first disaster occurs.
The port, docks, promenade, town park, and main street along the shore are shared equally it seems between humans and sealions. The sealions are everywhere, on the pier steps, on the road, even on the park benches which might have been installed by or for them! They are interesting and quaint at first, but you soon become fedup with them, they are aggressive, bark at everyone, and shit and piss all over the town, which stinks like the monkey cage in Dublin Zoo. They are the main tourist attraction so the locals encourage them. They even get up on all the boats anchored in the bay. A family of 3 took up residence on Farrflys transom, and growled & barked at us all the time. If it had not being for the baby tennis netting all over the boat they would have joined us for breakfast. Conrads word for dog is whawha.. so as they look like dogs thats what he called them. He loves dogs didn't like sealions.
The local are exceptionally friendly and are a very warm easy going people... you would need to be to live with sealions.
And what of The Galapagos? One word... overrated. Ok maybe thats two words.
From the sailors view point I can see why nobody comes back, and many sail past without ever stopping. It is ridiculously expensive for a yacht to be here. Including the park fee it cost us $1,100 to check in... basically what you do when you arrive at the customs and immigration in an airport. For example it cost nothing to check-in, in either Panama or Curacao. It costs about $50 in most Caribbean islands.
Having checked in we were told that yachts are not allowed move! They must stay where they arrive.. unless of course you pay up more cash, $300 for a permit to visit 3 other harbours. The rest of the country is 'out of bounds'. Get caught anchored outside the 4 permitted anchorages and you will be heavily fined... (We knew all this before we arrived, which is why we spent day one drifting along the 'forbidden' coast.) Its a pity because Galapagos is full of stunning anchorages.
The only way to see the islands is to abandon your boat and yes you guessed it, get on a boat owned by locals. There is a thriving industry here... small cruise type ships with a max of 16 passengers, where you can tour the islands living aboard. So we did.. that is we three and Katja.. we spent 4 great days and nights on the Treasure of the Galapagos... a 50 meter catamaran motor boat. It really was a nice boat with hotel sized bedrooms, private balcony, and a gourmet chief.. nothing like roughing it at sea what? And it was full of Germans! What are the chances of that, Conrad was fascinated by all these people talking German to him, they were equally fascinated by the fact he understood them.
We visited about 6 islands with our licensed park ranger who told us all about the the animals we saw.
Its easy to see how Darwin came up with his theory here, for we saw monkeys with scales and fish with tails.... such variety... or did we?   ... next episode...