06/03/2010, London
Gatun Locks, Panama
We have crossed the Caribbean Sea! Queen's Ransom is no longer in the
West Indies, but in Panama, Central America. She has visited South
America; quite far away from her English Channel and North Sea stomping
ground, not to mention her past two journeys to Norway.
Hans, Sven and I spent eight days at sea divided into three legs: Sint
Maarten to Aruba, then Cartagena and finally to Panama. We had very good
following winds on the first leg. The other two involved a mix of
sailing and motoring to keep up with our tight time schedule. We covered
a distance of 1285.3 nautical miles. Ashore, we spent 24 hours on Aruba
and 48 hours at Cartagena.
The sailing highlights were that we felt more comfortable sailing with
the spinnaker and the exhilirating downwind sailing of the first leg.
Among places visited Cartagena stood out as the winner. Quite unusual
for us to visit a major city as a sailing destination. Aruba, also
called "One Happy Island" (with an interesting twist to emphasise
community), was as commercialised as we had expected; you could have
been in the US. Panama is a curious mix of rainforest and pristine cays
and coves, which we mainly saw at a distance, with the roughness of
South American frontier towns.
It took some time to settle into the sea routine. We ran our daily watch
schedule and other routines, but in a less regimented fashion than
across the Atlantic. The heat was a continous factor of discomfort. We
ate extremely well and enjoyed our aft deck pre-dinner drinks and forays
ashore. We got little sleep regardless of being at sea or onshore.
The stress of getting everything ready for departing and shutting down
the boat again is legendary. I only got less than three hours sleep the
last night. The departures are certainly better prepared than in the
past and can certainly be done quicker, but less stressful? No!
As always, we had our share of equipment failures; in particular
electricity charging and the gennaker. The generator refused to start
before we even left the dock at Sint Maarten. Bad repairs was most
likely the cause of the problem with the screw controlling its speed
being sheared off and at the same time causing a fuel leak. During
service, the fuel filter had been put back in a slightly incorrect
position causing the screw being caught by a fuel hose. The other
problem was a wire that got caught up by a belt stopping the main engine
to charge the batteries. However, an absolut highlight was our self
suffiency to repair these two problems at sea.
The gennaker was ripped for possible no other reason than old age, but
it had just been returned from the local sailmaker at St Lucia. A few
other things on the technical front continue to nag such as the cockpit
VHF failure. The only scary moment was that Sven got burned with some
boiling water while making coffee. It was the first time that the huge
medical chest, "the Sea Medic" was put into use.
Captain Hastings and his crew are now settling into their adopted home
country for the next six and a half months; Panama. Shelter Bay Marina
is a nice place; small scale, well fitted out and at an excellent spot
in the remote rainforest. I am sure Captain Hastings will relish its
closeness to a major shipping lane and other sea folks.