Friday 6 January – En route to the San Blas, overnight in Portobello

We set off early for the San Blas, and planned an overnight stop in Portobello as it is an easy anchorage to get into in the dark. Rowan’s weather app PredictWind predicted a 16 hour passage which turned out spot on. We left as soon as Rowan woke up, which was around 6am, just enough light to see our way out. it was clear skies and we were half tempted to stay and explore the island until we saw more dark clouds looming. We soon had the main sail and Sporty up, we were pootling along until we came in range of a huge squall. The winds were not behaving according to the predictions, suddenly the wind was coming from the other direction and finally did a complete 360 degrees much to Rowan’s frustration. The plan was to sail straight out to sea and try and hit the Trade winds for a good wind angle towards Portobello. We landed up motoring as the wind died, but as soon as we hit the Trades and turned towards San Blas the wind perked up and in the right directions, thankfully.

Sunrise behind rain clouds

Egret stowaway

Strangely this egret stayed with us for quite a while

Rainbows and rain storms

Our bloody washing machine still does not like the bumpy passages

PolePole came into her own loving the high teen winds, we were roaring through the sea at between 9 and 10 knots comfortably. We were a lot further out to sea than our trip up to Bocas del Toro, as we are able to cut straight across the bay at the entrance to the Panama Canal. We were a little worried about all the logs in the sea we passed on the way up, but hoped that being that little further out was safer. We arrived in the dark at the area where all the lit up cargo ships are anchored waiting to go through the canal. Thank goodness it is full moon, which helped enormously. It looked like a big city with loads of lights, there were so many boats, well over 50. There are a lot of exclusion zones and one way zones, just to add to the trickiness of the area, plus an explosives dumping zone, which seemed a bit alarming. I was a little concerned sailing through it all at such speed, but Rowan nailed it. We kept just clear of the majority of boats, only one or two we had to worry about. A huge cruise ship passed behind us all lit up, making us feel very small in the dark! Phoebs and I managed to cook a mushroom risotto in the midst of all this which was quite impressive as it was really bouncy in this area, like on the way up.

Sunset in a gap below the clouds

Full moon lighting up our passage

Our route through!

I know it is blurry, but it gives you the idea of all the lit up cargo ships

We finally got into the bay at Portobello around 10pm as predicted. Rowan had chosen a recommended anchorage from the guide book, we landed up next to a huge lit up Dutch square rigger, we felt like it was a good sign as there were very few other sailing boats. We were pretty tired by the time we were securely settled. It was straight to bed.