RETURN TO PANAMA - 27 February to 3 March

We said farewell to Golfito on Friday 27 Feb, late in the afternoon. It took all morning for David to complete formalities having chased over town from one office to another, being delayed by ofices being empty. His comment was that they don't encourage us to visit - formalities took ages to complete on the way in. Having fuelled we motored out of Golfito into the Golfo Dulce and were able to sail some of the way. However the winds were light and for the next two days we spent a lot of time motoring down the coast of Costa Rica,with a mixture of light winds.

Saturday 28 Feb I record in my journal "long day, lots of motoring, hot, slept in the afternoon, homesick". This is true - much as I am excited about this adventure, I have now been away for 2 months, and after 7 years in Sydney in a very settled, enjoyable, fullfiling and busy life, I have changed direction and altered my life radically in a short time. David and Sarah are lovely, the yacht is very beautiful, and I am seeing new things most days. The pace of life is much slower than in my city life, and I miss those who I love a great deal. But then David & Sarah feel the same and we will be happy to point NEREID towards Australia next week.

And on the way will be more exciting places to see - so keep watching this space.

The rest of our voyage back to Panama was frustratingly slow. At the bottom south west corner of the bay of Panama (Bahia de Panama) is the Punta Mala (Bad Point literally). Here the wind picked up from the north, and a strong current ran against our course, so we sailed and motored across both wind and current way off the course we wanted which added another day to our reckoning. Eventually we came out of the current and the wind backed a little enabling us to do some long tacks up the bay. We passed to the west of the Islas de las Perlas (see earlier Blog) and came at length to the approach to the Panama Canal by which time it was night. we had a spectacular sunset which you can see.

Sailing NEREID is mostly very easy - much easier than I expected, and am used to. She is fitted with GPS and a fine and useful Plotter which tells us where weare. No drawing on charts. She also has self-steering governedby some fancy electronics - with this we can sail close to the wind and trim the sails by altering course by as little as 1 or 2 degrees. Of course when tacking across the wind we need still to haul on sails. Other than that a lot of our cross-ocan sailing involves a lot of sitting around. we have been very lucky with the weather - fine, sometimes hot, days - some good winds, more motoring than I expected. I am wondering how our long voyages will be. At some stage on our way to Galapagos we will cross the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (the Doldrums) which could be 50 or 300 milees wide and across which we will have to motor. More on this later...

This will be my last Blog until after the Galapagos. Enjoy some pictures of wildlife - Fred (a black gannet who hitched a ride on our pulpit one night as we motored down the coast of Panama and stayed there until we hauled up the Genoa at 3.00 in the morning), and a huge pod of dolphins who joined us the next morning. Some fine jumping ! see the pictures here : http://picasaweb.google.com/Stephen.Couling/WildlifeCostaRicaToPanama#

So to all my dear friends and family who are following this - keep us in your thoughts and prayers as you are in mine. Missing you all in the midst of adventurous wanderings ....