Panama City to Cocos Island, Costa Rica
After leaving the fuel dock we passed bird shit rock and some locals fishing.....
We had an amazing first day out flying the spinnaker and getting 8-10 kts. At the end of 24 hrs. we had made 161 nm. We noticed a small tear in the spinnaker. When we took it down we engineered some repairs. I am not sure if you can see it in this picture but here we find Joni wearing a small piece of the repair tape that was left over from the repair to the sail in the lower part of this picture under her breathing apparatus. Things do get a bit boring out there on the high seas!! Anything for a laugh!
Second day out the winds died and we had to pull the spinnaker down and put a motor on and that’s been the scenario ever since with only one night and early day of good winds where we were getting 6-7 knts. Winds mostly were very light but we did manage to fill the sails here and there and move along on ‘God’s Breath’.
Of course we’re having amazing sunsets every evening but so far haven’t seen the legendary “Green Flash” on this particular trip......
Now 5 days underway our trip has been rather slow. The winds in this area are variable and light. We have motored more than sailed. We have only been running one motor at about 1000 r.p.m. which gets us about 3+ m.p.h. in order to conserve fuel as there will be no topping up the tanks again for 3 weeks until we move on from Cocos to Galapagos which is another 400+ miles to the S.W. of Cocos.
We have not seen very many boats or ships. This is not much of a travelled route. Late on the 18th we saw a Lagoon catamaran sailed by a Japanese fellow. He made radio contact. We had our spinnaker up at the time and were managing about 3.5 knots. He did not have a spinnaker and was motor sailing. I asked where he was headed and he said to the Marquesas. I teased him that he did not have enough diesel fuel to motor all of the way there. He said that he had about 1000 liters. He motored past us after dark that night and we did not see him again.
Our guest Robin Berthet has been busy on board fixing things. He brought with him from N.Y. 2 new cupboard doors that he installed over a 2 day period. He also did a lot of engine room work. We had an overheating issue on the port Volvo engine that had been an off and on problem since we bought the boat. We finally isolated the problem to an anti-siphon valve which was easily repaired after several cramped and sweaty hrs. in the engine room. Robin’s even been doing most of the cooking, delicious veggies as he’s a vegetarian, as Joni decided to take advantage of her good fortune and do a long awaited fast.
No sooner was that repaired than the lower seal on the sail drive began to leak water into the gearbox starboard so we had to shut that motor down and just use the port motor which was now running fine without overheating. Yesterday, Robin tried to get one of the outside radio speakers to work. After a few hrs, it was determined that the speaker would not work. A new one will have to be ordered from West Marine and delivered along with a few other needed parts by our next guest who plans to join us in Galapagos after Robin flies home. Because we were moving so slow Robin decided to cool off in the water behind the boat while hanging on with his toes.......
Almost every night, there are amazing stars, and lots of shooting stars. It’s a phenomenon sailors are fortunate to observe out at sea where there’s so little ambient light and right now, a new moon. It’s almost startling to see a completely dark night so well lit up by the stars. Even light mirrored off the calm sea reflecting the light of a single star as bright as the moon!! Its actually Venus or the Evening star and our guiding star going west most always ahead of us. It’s a fantastic opportunity to catch up on our stargazing!!
Ken thought he saw a drone hovering high in the sky off in the distance which then came directly above our boat and hovered there for about ½ an hour and then just took off. It had red and green nav. lights but its flight pattern indicated something very different from a normal plane because of its ability to hover in one spot for hrs at a time. Must be how they monitor boat movements these days.
The most amazing thing we’ve seen on our dark nights is the amount of phosphorescence in the waves coming off the bows, in the breaking waves, in the trail behind the boat, in our prop wash as we move through the water and even in the toilets as we flush them at night w/o lights on! If there’s a lot, any little motion in the water will light up the water with glistening, glimmering, shimmering tiny dots of light. One night, we were visited several times by a lone dolphin whose trail of phosphorescence extended out at least 50 feet behind him. We could see him dive deep down below the boat and then come streaming by across the bow. It was a beautiful sight and made me wonder how it must seem to the dolphins, living inside a world of shimmering lights like that!
We enjoyed many visits by dolphins ..............
and seabirds (boobies)..............
I have had fishing lines in the water every day but so far I have not caught anything. We are moving very slowly and the water is rather flat which usually means ‘no fish today’. We have lots of fish in the freezer that we caught on the way down to Panama from Key West anyway
We now have 120 miles left to go (10:00 a.m., Monday the 20th). We are doing about 4 knots motor sailing. At this rate we should be at Cocos before dark tomorrow, Feb 21st.
9:00 a.m. Feb. 21 we saw ‘land ho’.....
The island appears in a misty haze some 36 miles ahead. What a beautiful sight after so many days at sea! We are used to making 150 to 200 miles per day but this trip in the ‘doldrums’ so close to the equator is known to be windlass and therefore slow and it has been. Our first day out of Panama saw 161 miles but since then very slow days.
The hitchhikers seemed relieved at the sight of land also...........
There are 2 Costa Rican dive boat operators that bring divers from the main land to the island. Here is pictured one of them............
Daytime can be quite warm. We all stay under the helm hardtop in the shade and not spending much time in the salon as it gets to the mid-90’s by noon in there. Last night I got a little chill outside but generally evenings and night are quite nice.
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