Before sticking our noses out into the Pacific, we’re going to spend some time investigating the beautiful Les Perles (Pearl) islands and expect to spend a week or so here. It is Saturday may 12 and we leave Panama City and sail out into the huge Panama Bay, sighting the first of the Peal islands…

  The idea of a canal across Panama dates back as far as 1517 when the isthmus was first discovered.  Thereafter a land route crossed the continental divide here, giving access from the Pacific to the Atlantic and vice versa. The road was poor however and traversing it difficult. Spain transported untold amounts of gold,…

We hauled up our hook and made our way out through the reef from Chichime early in the morning on a course laid for Porto Bello. We had company of two other boas, one a catamaran whose name we didn’t know and the other one a boat named Celebrity who we have seen here in…

  Ok – I’ll admit it. I’d never heard of the San Blas Islands until I saw the Danish TV series ”Kurs mod fjerne kyster”, wherein Mikkel visits a Guna family on one of the islands. When I saw it, I said to Carsten – I want to do that when we get to Panama.…

  We left Shelter Bay at 3 p.m. with a course towards the San Blas Islands. We didn’t think we were going to be able to leave, because earlier that morning we had turned on our chartplotter for other reasons and it worked fine for the first 2-3 minutes, whereupon it gave a “BEEP” and…

  After our lazy but very relaxing 9 ½ day sail from Antigua, we’re in Shelter Bay Marina in Colon, Panama. Thank God we are in Shelter Bay instead of the old Yacht Club in Colon on the other side of the bay. Up til a few years ago the cruising sailors would lie at…

  We decided that while we wanted to get an early start on this 1200nm passage, we didn’t need to get up at the crack of dawn – I mean – we had 8-9 days of sailing ahead of us – a few hours more or less wouldn’t mean anything in the greater scheme of…

Here is our best guess at our plans for the next few years. Sure to be changes along the way…………….   Month/year Destination crew Comments april/2018 Antigua to Panama ca. 1200 nm – 8 days April San Blas islands April Shelter Bay Marina Colon Hire an agent to ge tus through the Canal May Panama…

  Many sailors have said to us, ”When you get to Antigua – you must anchor in English Harbour”. We followed their advice and haven’t been disappointed – it is a “must” to visit this harbor and Nelson’s Dockyard Marina, now a historic maritime monument. English Harbour’s history begins in 1671, when the harbor was…

We hauled up our hook and got in line with the rest of the boats waiting for teh bridge to open at the mouth of Simpson Bay when we heard a trumpet playing a Danish song, ”Nina’s Sang”. It was our friends on the boat Mor Karen. He was standing in the bows playing us…