The idea of Rob and I sailing together was born in the early days of our cyber courtship, dreams being shared over the airwaves via instant messaging.  Having been introduced to an experienced sailor and with me never having sailed before, I of course was curious about the whole thing.  So we got talking, Rob sharing his knowledge and me learning about what sailing entailed.  And after a particularly challenging day at work, the thought of packing up and sailing the world, dropping anchor in exotic locations, the only restriction on our movement being the availability of wind, and getting more stamps in my passport sounded really glamorous!  Then we met, and sailing went on to the back burner while we backpacked across South East Asia.  It was while we were relaxing on the deck of our cabin in Cherating, Malaysia when the thought returned, and I turned to Rob and said, “Don’t you have any friends with a boat that we could go sailing with?”  The response from Rob was “Let me see what I can do.”

He then promptly got into contact with a couple he had met while stuck in Cape Verde for those long seven months, a British expat and his American partner, who for the purposes of this blog will be referred to as Captain and First Mate!  I had heard a lot about them from Rob, as they had become good friends while in Cape Verde before Rob left to deliver his boat to Brazil, but they had maintained contact via email after they had parted ways.  When Rob decided to ask about their upcoming plans, Captain and First Mate were at the time in the Caribbean on their 43 foot catamaran, and were looking to sail across the Pacific during the course of 2015.  Of course we were more than welcome to join them for the crossing, they said.  And so the planning for our next travel adventure began, and in hindsight, it was definitely a trip of a lifetime!

While in Somerset West, we got our paperwork in order.  Rob applied for a new passport as he had filled his up in South East Asia.  And the joys of holding a South African passport meant that we both had to apply for visas to enter French Polynesia.  It was not often that the French Embassy in Cape Town dealt with visa requests for people planning to enter Polynesia via sailing yacht!  The unfortunate aspect of our itinerary was that the cheapest flights that we could find to Panama involved a transit stop in Miami, which resulted in the additional expense and inconvenience of applying for an American transit visa.  The staff member who interviewed us at the US Embassy must have liked the look of us as we were thrilled to find out that we both received 10 year tourist visas for the States… another big trip for the future perhaps!

The morning of 11 January 2015 dawned and Rob and I were ready to head off.  The first leg of our journey took us from Johannesburg to Doha, Qatar, which was quite tiring.  Although only eight hours flying time, both of us struggled to sleep and it was a bit too turbulent for my liking.  One would think with all the flying I’ve done over the last few years I would be used to a few bumps here and there!  Although, again in hindsight, after eight months on a yacht sailing on some bumpy seas, a few bumps in the air aren’t that bad anymore!  We flew over Saudi Arabia, which from the air was a carpet of white after a recent snowfall!  I was so tired waiting for our next flight in Doha that I almost fell asleep while sitting in the terminal and came close to falling off my chair.  The security was quite intense before being allowed to enter the departure lounge.  Rob had to switch on the laptop to show that it actually worked, and we both had to fully unpack our hand luggage so each item could be scanned separately by the x-ray machine.  The Doha-Miami leg was quite a long slog for us, 16 hours in total, so time was passed with lots of movies and a cat nap here and there.  For snacks Rob charmed Mars Bar chocolates out of the stewardess!  I’m surprised there was no resulting sugar high after all the chocolates we munched!  Midway over the Atlantic I was actually expecting the captain to announce we were going to divert to New York after they had called for a doctor on board.  Who knows what that was about, but we landed in Miami anyway.  What a mad house it was.  Even though we were in transit we still had to go through passport control, where the queues stretched for miles, pick up our bags and re-check them to Panama City.  So now we both have stamps in our passports admitting us into the States even though we were leaving in two hours.  Our flight was delayed because even the crew got caught in customs!  The three hour flight to Panama City passed very quickly for us since we both crashed with exhaustion, and only woke up again when we started descending.  We passed through immigration without a hitch.  The only amusement was the immigration official really scrutinized my passport stamps then asked if we had been to Sierra Leone or the like as she was concerned about Ebola!  We got to sleep that night after midnight so it was a very long travel experience for us, about 35 hours in total.

Our first morning in Panama City was spent relaxing around the hotel pool where after we took a stroll around the neighbourhood to have a look around.  Of course we popped into a local supermarket as we are always curious to do a price comparison.  Our route back to the hotel took us along the seafront promenade; a noisy affair with second-hand American school busses converted into bright, graffiti-covered public transport busses with souped up engines motoring down the adjacent road at breakneck speeds.  Known as “Red Devils” we were told that locals take their lives into their hands when boarding one of them, with the driver paying scant attention to general traffic rules, sometimes even mounting the pavement to get ahead of a traffic queue in peak hour! We made plans to meet Captain and First Mate the next day and chilled for the rest of the day.  We had planned for a short afternoon nap to rejuvenate us which turned into a couple of hours.  Still being sluggish, it was an early night for us but it was a mistake going to bed early after the afternoon nap as bang on midnight (07h00 SA time) we were wide awake – jet lag at its best, and my first experience of it.  A few hours later we were up and heading by double-decker bus to Colon (on the Caribbean side of Panama) to meet up with the yacht.

Two days were spent on the yacht at anchor off the container terminal in Colon, which gave us time to settle in and make our cabin home for the next eight months.  I didn’t realize that a catamaran had so much space and we were lucky enough to have the port side hull of the yacht to ourselves, with us living in the forward cabin with en-suite bathroom.  The aft port side cabin was used for storage, with Captain and First Mate using the starboard side hull for their living quarters.  While anchored in an area ironically called “The Flats” the water was a bit choppy with all the pilot boats zooming past either dropping off or collecting pilots from the cargo ships coming through the canal, so the boat rocked and rolled a lot, something which helped me get my sea legs quicker.  I was happy to report to the family that for those two days I didn’t feed the fish but just felt queasy which a few tissue salts and a stint on the bed or on the deck in the wind seemed to help.  Although writing an email home to let everyone know we were on board really tested my capabilities of maintaining my equilibrium!   Those first couple of days really gave me a chance to adjust to boat life before actually heading out to sea and doing proper sailing.  And I realized I had a lot to learn.  Although power supply wasn’t really a problem, and we had a water maker on board, I still had to learn to conserve water, and change cooking methods to conserve gas.  Using a gas oven takes a certain level of skill!  And I had to adjust to quick and cold showers as we only got hot water when an engine was switched on (perhaps ever second or third day to charge the batteries).  I also got my first callous on my hand… not from pulling up sails or tying knots or anything remotely to do with sailing, but from pumping the toilet! No flushing there, it was pump, pump, and pump!

The morning of 15 January was spent waiting for the Port Official to come aboard to measure the boat and complete the paperwork for the canal crossing. Once that was done Captain decided it was a good time to set sail for a little town east of Colon called Portobelo. As soon as we got underway one engine overheated and there was a fuel blockage with the other one so there wasn’t enough oomph to get us past the breakwater, out of the way of the tankers and get the sails up. Prudent Captain decided we should turn around and sort that out before considering moving location so back to the anchorage we went. My first “sail” lasted about thirty minutes and I was completely clueless with all the sailing terminology etc. I was completely overwhelmed with the rush to get sails up, then waiting for additional instructions, then rushing again to get the sails down.  Major wake-up call!

The next morning we set off to Portobelo sailing into the wind so it was a choppy and rough ride for me. I felt okay but had to spend the whole six hours outside on deck with the wind in my face, and following the age-old advice of looking at the horizon.  But I was happy to say the fish didn’t get fed on that excursion either!  Rob put a line out behind the boat and he ended up catching a big kingfish which ended up feeding us three good meals.  The day was very long for me and I was working muscles I never knew I had. One might not believe me but boating is exhausting stuff! The constant movement is unexpectedly tiring, and I think was more the tiredness rather than seasickness which made me feel gross. But a few dry biscuits and a nap seemed to help. I even managed to scoff a couple of Oreo biscuits, no chance to savour them as I had no free hands to hold them.  With no sea legs meant I stumbled around deck like a drunkard so both hands had white knuckled grips on whatever they could hold on to!

We settled into an anchorage in Portobelo and stayed there for about ten days. Time was spent exploring the small town (a bit grimy with a lot of stray dogs), fixing up the boat to get her ship shape for the canal transit and otherwise relaxing.  We were treated one evening with dolphins in the anchorage, and the pelicans flying around made crashing into the water to catch fish look like an art form!  Boat “showers” became the norm, so to save water we’d jump into the sea to get wet, climb back onto the back of the boat and soap up, jump back into the seawater to get the soap off and then use a freshwater hose at the back of the boat to get the sea water off. Maybe never completely sticky free but at least most of the grime came off!

We had booked our canal passage for 30 January so we sailed back to Colon on 27 January, which was a little earlier than expected. My second sail was a bit better on the tummy and was mostly downwind and not as rough as before.  Although the swell hit the boat from the side so I still felt a bit uncomfortable. I ended up lying on the foredeck in the shade of the sail and after a short spell felt better. I promptly fell asleep as we anchored back in Colon… the ten straight days of sailing to our next destination were definitely going to be interesting!

On to the Panama Canal and what an amazing experience! Our pilot boarded the yacht at about 17h00 on 30 January then we got instructions from him as to how we were going to go through the first set of locks. We were to be tied to a passenger vessel on our starboard side and have another sailing boat tied up on our port side. We quickly found out that the extra two line handlers Captain hired were pretty useless but luckily Rob was there to sort them out. Initially a big merchant vessel entered the first lock, the passenger boat followed and tied to the side of the lock behind the cargo ship, we then followed and tied up (which was pretty challenging because the wind was really buffeting us around). Once we tied up, the other sailing boat came alongside and tied up. All set, a bell rang, and the gates of the locks closed behind us. Water was pumped into the locks at a rapid rate, raising us to the next level. Forward gates opened, we all casted off to enter the next chamber and the process was repeated (three times in total). By this time it was completely dark but the lock system is very brightly lit so it felt like daytime. I think we rose about 30 meters in total into a freshwater lake then motored to a mooring spot for the night. The next morning another pilot came on board and then we motored through the lake for about six hours then up to the next set of locks. While cruising through the lake, I was hoping to see more wildlife but Rob did see an alligator while I was below.  Two tourist boats went ahead of us; we tied up to the same sailing boat from the night before and entered the lock, with two other sailing boats tying up behind us. This is where we managed to get sighted on the live webcam.  I spent most of the time up on the forward deck with First Mate, both of us waving like mad things at the camera! Once through the locks where we were lowered down to sea level again, we untied and headed to the Balboa Yacht club.  Hoping to have a slightly calmer anchorage I was a bit disappointed as the Yacht Club was located right next to the channel where the massive tankers enter and leave the canal. We treated ourselves to a celebratory drink and dinner at the club as we had just crossed from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific, then it was lights out!

While at Balboa Yacht Club, Rob and I took advantage of the time and went exploring.  After some inactivity we managed to get a couple of runs in along the causeway, and went to go visit the Old Town which is now a World Heritage Site.  After a walk around I was pleasantly surprised at the condition of the Old Town.  We were expecting a bit of a run-down area after having seen a bit of the rest of Panama City while driving around, but the municipality has done a pretty good job of restoring the old buildings.  Having been very well maintained and colourful, with a lot of additional ongoing refurbishment, it was a very attractive area.  We made sure to have a bite to eat outside of this tourist trap and found a dinky restaurant on a corner where we enjoyed some chicken and rice with the locals, one of whom was highly amused watching me sweat from all the chilli!

After a few days at Balboa, we moved anchorages to a bit further down the causeway as this was the place to get fuel before we left.  We spent the last few days in Panama City shopping for provisions for our long haul sail that was fast approaching (ten days to Galapagos then an expected 30 days after that to the Marquesas Islands).  We got a bit annoyed because our shopping was done and we were all ready to set sail for Las Perlas when First Mate suddenly piped up that we need a fumigation certificate before we can enter the Galapagos archipelago.  I mean she had more than a week to get this organized then it was a huge big rush to get this sorted out before we left.  We found out after a while that Captain and First Mate’s planning skills weren’t the greatest, but without much drama everything was resolved and we were ready to get going.  The highlight for Rob at the second anchorage was seeing Sea Cloud II come down the Canal channel.

Three weeks on board the yacht and I was now itchy to start my first real sea crossing.  We checked out of Panama, had our passports stamped and set sail for the Galapagos via the Las Perlas Islands.  Read all about my maiden voyage in the next post!