After 8 days and 2 hours of sailing — seasickness, beautiful stars, chaotic 10’+ swells, fish and bird sightings, sleep times never exceeding 3 hours, good meals, incessant rocking from side to side, down time for book reading, overly strong winds, ideal winds, a smelly bathroom, a friendship with a bird with a sad ending, good conversation, and one big powerful wave that knocked us off our seats and across the boat — we arrived safely in Panama yesterday, at Shelter Bay Marina.
It was very cool to experience the open ocean. There were a lot of firsts for me, from sailing on a boat this size (47′, twice as long as my own boat), to sailing overnight, doing night watches, using radar and AIS, using head sails on a roller furler, seeing flying fish and albatross, sailing out of sight of land, and visiting Granada, Panama, and the Caribbean in general. I also had no idea I could get seasick as it’s never happened to me before and I’m totally fine in cars, planes, roller coasters, etc. But the first 24 hours were pretty rough before I adapted to it.
To be honest, it was more brutal than I expected, especially the constant earthquake-like motion that you have no option to turn off or escape from. It’s really making me rethink my desire to sail for multiple months all the way to New Zealand… Or at least, I’ve realized that I’d need to do it on a bigger, more stable boat, with more crew to share the night watch hours. Nonetheless I think the trip was a good success and will become a fond memory.
It’s gonna be a while before I can do a proper write-up and share the photos and videos I took. I’m thinking about making some music with samples I took and also creating a video story about it. But I’m gonna stick around in Panama for at least a few more days after Caleb flies home tomorrow, and then I have some things to take care of in Port Townsend again, so a full on blog post will probably take 3+ weeks from now.
But I wanted to report that we made it safely so that no one is worried 🙂
Merry Christmas, happy holidays, happy new year, hope everyone is well.
