Friday 3rd February 2012  Isla Chapera, Islas Las Perlas   8 36.06N 79 01.2W  

Today’s Blog by David

We’d never done it before. If was lying there, tempting us: “Come on, you know you want to!” “ Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle” (it is called the PACIFIC Ocean, after all). There we were, a conflict of mixed emotions.  “Will we enjoy it?” “Some say it is really good” “Others say it is the beginning of the end” “Will it still be there for us tomorrow?”

We gritted our teeth ……………..and weighed anchor sailing out into the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

It really was a tremendous sail.  The wind was from the north, so the  sea,  being protected by the American continent was flat - there being no distance for the wind to whip up any waves.   We dusted down the Frog Sail – Serendipity -  hadn’t really seen daylight for some weeks:

and had an excellent sail at 6-8kts in a flat sea.

Now. the World’s Greatest Living Navigator had a cunning plan to short cut the route by sailing through an unmarked gap in the archipelago  Islas Las Perlas - just south of Isla Mogo Mogo. Much preparation ensued with courses, clearing bearings, chart plotter routes  and the like - chastened by the knowledge from the pilot that the rocks around here are really hard ones (rather than the ‘soft’ coral we ‘found’ in San Blas). As  we approached Las Perlas a pod of about 20 Pantropical Spotted Dolphins swam with us for about half an hour………..…. just as the navigation was getting interesting….

We were also chastened in the knowledge that the charts around here were last surveyed in about 1880 and notoriously have displacement – possibly by 200 metres -  as compared to today’s +/-5m GPS position fixes. SO, perhaps  WGLN  should have thought twice (three of four times wouldn’t have harmed) before committing to his plan. However, the plan was to take a route with a least depth below our keel of 5 metres.

As you would expect with any well set plan, everything proceeded according to plan … until the point when things were no longer going according to plan – funny that – and the depth sounder was showing 2-3.0 metres clearance.  No problem,  we rounded up stood off, rechecked our navigation and concluded we were about 100 yards south of where we needed to be. We turned back east for another go only to be beaten back again by the depth sounder. 

Discretion being the better part of valour, WGLN decided on a diversion around the top of Isla Chapra and then a different anchorage on its south east side.  Our revised route showed a least depth of about 8 metres but this time the depth sounder never showed less than 20 metres (HMWT!)  during the whole journey to:

An idyllic anchorage – all to ourselves; the first anchorage in a very long time where there was no noise and ….. no wind!

We celebrated with a bottle of bubbly (the Concha y Toro sparkling wine (£5 from Reys Supermarket, Colon)  did at least deserve that description) and excellent meal and a very good night’s sleep.