Monday 26 December – Boxing Day at sea

Woke up to a glorious sunny day, Rowan tempted me out of bed with my first cup of tea to listen to the birds.

We will be starting our overnight passage to Bocas Del Toro up the north coast. We got prepared to sail, so we made sure all windows were closed this time and stashed everything away! We were on the move by 8am. Obviously the monohull Tatiana had the same idea and we followed them out the river mouth.

Downpour of rain coming down the river before our departure

Leaving the Chagres river

The seas were pretty rough with 3m swells. After a few minor hiccups we had Sporty and the main sail up and we were doing some nice speed in winds of around 15 knots. We briefly had a couple of dolphins escort us out.

We headed out to sea to keep a good wind angle and when the winds dropped later in the day we turned for land. We passed loads of logs and debris in the sea, so much rubbish too. So sad, we bet all the big tankers dump everything overboard. We had a couple of good downpours, which was great to wash away the salty river water. The wind completely died in the end and we had to put the engines on. We went through a few squalls with some heavy rain.

For a brief moment we got 4G but only long enough to download the paper and send a few messages. The blog will have to wait another day!