UNDERWAY -- Balboa Yacht Club in Panama to Golfito Costa Rica

I wish I could be sending this by email using the Iridium phone, but it looks like that is not going to be possible.

We got underway from Balboa Yacht Club anchorage yesterday at 12:00. The tide was falling and so we had a three knot boost in speed as we sailed down the shipping channel into the Pacific Ocean. The wind was from the north and we were heading west so we couldn't ask for better conditions.

The wind speed was about 15 knots that meant moderate waves of three to four feet and plenty of power. The trick is to use the power wisely. Starting out we were really over canvassed and overpowered which made for a pretty wild ride. It was, however exhilarating and we enjoyed making really good time.

At dinner-time we shortened sail to make the world a little less wild. Mark was at the wheel and feeling a little seasick. He gibed a couple of times while getting accustomed to steering. One of the jibes launched a coffeepot full of grounds across the cabin so it took a while to clean up the mess.

Throughout the night Phil and I took two hour watches which was just about right. We made very good time and reached our first waypoint about 5 am today, Friday.

The GPS worked very well and so it was possible to navigate closer to shore than I would normally feel comfortable doing.

It's now 12:00 and we've been following the shore about 3-4 miles off on a beam reach. The mountains to the north cause the winds which are offshore to vary considerably but after some experimentation we found that with a double reef in the main and about half of the jib deployed we can maintain a comfortable 5.5 knots without too much wild activity.

Just finished lunch--tuna sandwiches and the Panamanian version of Cheetos. Tasted pretty good. At about 3:30 this afternoon we'll be past our next waypoint and on the homestretch to Golfito, Costa Rica. Unfortunately I think we'll be too late to enter the anchorage tonight so we will probably hang out offshore a few miles until dawn.

I've been trying to make friends with the boat. By reefing, unreefing and varying the sail plan to balance the steering characteristics, I'm getting a pretty good idea of what she'll do and what she will not do. She's fast for a monohull, but is happiest at about 3/4 of her maximum hull speed of 8 knots. The instruments are not well calibrated. The compass is OK and the GPS is working great so the lack of other instruments is no biggie.

I've always wondered what hull speed really means and asked Phil about it. He's a mechanical engineer and a Naval Academy graduate so has encyclopedic knowledge of such esoterica. He explained that the length and speed of the wake a boat produces when traveling through the water is determined by its water line length and speed. "Hull speed" is the speed where the wave produced is equal to the water line length and so to go faster the boat must literally climb up over its own wake. It can be done but at an extreme expenditure of energy.

Just tried my first Iridium call and it worked fine although I missed Jana on our three numbers. I can only conclude that she's either sleeping over with some dude she picked up last night or is out making money for us.

The phone rang this afternoon. When it rang I was trying to get out a fishing line (we had just missed two hits)--perhaps I should have called them "visits" since "hits" don't put fish on the table. By the time I got to the phone it had stopped ringing. I assumed it was Jana and called her. It was.

Jana sounded pretty overwhelmed by business problems. I can't blame her as the bloody business has kept both of us hopping for six years and now she must field it all. The email hookup we had planned on didn't work out but I think with the Iridium phone it can help a lot. It may cost a bit more to use, but it is right there on the boat and can be used almost any time. I think I'll suggest a regular time for me to call to help handle the worst of the problems.

This afternoon the wind changed on us several times. First it was on our starboard quarter, then it died and we motored for about an hour and then it came up on our port bow. The seas calmed and we had several hours of idyllic sailing with about 10 knots of wind and a following current. About an hour ago that wind died suddenly and now we are motoring at 7 knots that includes the 1.5 knot following current. Our next waypoint is about 50 miles ahead and we should get there about 12:00 tonight. It is an island that has a navigational light on its southern tip and so, with the GPS's help will be an easy waypoint for us. It now looks like we'll have a shot at getting to Golfito by evening tomorrow, April 6. If not we'll probably have to stay out hove to.

After two hits on the fish line we had high hopes that we'd be eating fresh fish for dinner, but now that we're far from land and in very deep water I'm not so sure. We passed an obvious feeding frenzy with birds marking the spot and would have cruised right through it but when we noticed it, it was really too far astern to make that practical.

I was coaching Mark at the helm today and he asked me:.... Wait, I should describe Mark first.

Mark is 30 and looks like he's about 20. He's not married or tied up as far as I can tell. He is working now as a flight instructor and has accumulated the hours necessary for airline pilot qualification. That opportunity is kind of closed now due to 9/11. Prior to flight instructor he worked for NASA with a team studying ergonomics in the flight cockpit environment or something like that. He says he doesn't want to get tied down until he finds a woman who will not just expect him to make her happy, but would pull her share. Pretty smart young man.

Anyway, he asked me: "What do you think women think of us doing this--sailing boats from Panama to Costa Rica, etc?"

"They think we're crazy," I replied, "and maybe they're right."

We discussed it further and I expressed my opinion that women probably are attracted to men who have the ability to take the risks and who are self reliant enough to embark on such adventures, but that in the end they would like them to turn into responsible daddies and protect the brood. I wonder if I'm excessively cynical?

APRIL 6, UNDERWAY, 15 MILES SOUTH OF GOLFITO, COSTA RICA.

Last night was one of those experiences that are great in the telling but not that wonderful when they happened. After a day of changeable winds a steady north wind came up at about 15 knots. Our course was due west so the wind was perfect. We soon were sailing under jib and reefed main at about 7 knots. As the evening progressed the wind kicked up to about 25 with seas to match and soon we were bashing pretty violently, but moving along.

My watch began at 8:00 PM when I came to the cockpit Phil was sitting on the leeward side and Mark was sitting on the windward side with a green cast to his face that glowed in the dark.

As I staggered past Mark to slip into my place behind the wheel, Mark turned his face into the wind and began to call O'Rourke with all of his strength. The slip stream caught his offerings and sprayed them up over his head and directly toward me. I had thoughts of the sliming that took place in Ghostbusters as Phil's earlier cuisine of pasta and chili and clam chowder and artichoke hearts festooned much of the cockpit, my ears, my hair and the instruments before me.

Unfortunately, with all of our bashing through the waves we were not taking on much spray of water in the cockpit. This is one time it would have been welcome. As it was I took a three hour watch and "drip dried" so to speak. The ride was really quite wild, but the boat had no real problems. It was doing fine. The only ones having any problems with it were the occupants who moved very slowly, if at all keeping one hand on the boat and the other hand on the boat staggering to the head, their bunk, the refrigerator, or whatever. At the end of my watch the wind had abated somewhat so I went below to the head and unslimed myself as best I could. My next watch was at 6 AM. As I took over the wheel I glanced balefully at the dried slime & fixin's on the starboard side of the cockpit. With Iron Mike, the autopilot steering I got a bucket and brush and unslimed the cockpit before proceeding.

I think it's times like this that really make me appreciate sailing and the sailing life.

I called Jana in the morning about 9 our time and after telling her how I missed her I let her know that I'd be happy to go to Starbuck's for a cup anytime and that I'd even enjoy shopping at Nordstrom's.

Yesterday evening we got a couple of hits on the fish line, but both of them got off before we could land them or see what kind of fish they were. I'm guessing tuna or wahoo since they didn't jump right away. Today we got very excited as we saw in the distance a great deal of jumping and splashing that appeared to be a school of large fish feeding. We motored to the spot and found a vast school of small dolphin. Actually they were so small that they should have been called a pre-school of dolphin. I suppose they may have been feeding, but since there were no birds sharing the activity and since we didn't hook up as we went through the area I think not. There must have been well over a hundred dolphins jumping and generally having a great time.

Now, at 1:30 we're motoring through calm seas about 8 hours from Golfito. The line's in the water and I wouldn't be surprised if we hooked up as we got closer to land.

There's no way we can make it in by sunset tonight so we will probably either find a sheltered place to anchor for the night in the approaches to Golfito, or, using the GPS and chart, feel our way in to the anchorage. Since Golfito used to be a commercial port (Bananas) they still have a well marked channel and a large unobstructed anchoring area. We should be able to feel our way in with no problem.

Hopefully tomorrow we'll be going through the B S of checking in to Costa Rica, but the afternoon is still young and who knows what will happen....

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