We finally made it out of Panama City and are headed towards Costa Rica. We had to make a stop in the Pearl Islands to meet up with Frank & Gisela from Shared Dreams to trade outboard props. Theirs had spun right after New Year’s and we took it to Panama City to get fixed and loaned them our spare. With a new prop in hand we arrived yesterday at Isla Espiritu Santo in the eastern side of the Perlas and enjoyed a lovely night with good friends.
Now we’re motoring south of the islands to cross the Bay of Panama into western Panama. The forecast is for winds to 20 knots for the next two days and we’re hoping as soon as we clear this large island we’ll have a nice beam reach for about 30 hours. Sadly we have to do an overnighter to get around Punta Mala (Bad Point), but luckily we should have wind and current in our favor. So other than being sleep deprived it should be a relatively easy passage. I say relatively because you should never trust that rounding something named Bad Point is going to be easy. But I think we’re doing it in the right direction and have my fingers crossed.
Our sail out of Panama City was a nice downwind run in fairly brisk wind. We need to have wind for this passage so we can save fuel for Western Panama. The weather charts show very little wind in that area so we’ll likely spend much time motoring back up to Costa Rica. Then when we get to the Gulf of Papagayo where we’ll meet T2, it’ll be howling wind on our nose for the last 20 miles into the anchorage.
We’re looking forward to some diving in Western Panama. There are some gorgeous islands and bays to explore and the water is reported to have 80′ visibility in recent weeks.
