30 Hours in, still going and going. All is well, ran out of wind this morning for a bit and since we are impatient we fired up the engines and kept moving down the path. Christine captured a beautiful sunrise and rainbow, at one point you could almost see your reflection in the water as it was very glassy due to the lack of wind.
Breakfast sammiches and some fresh fruits that we have to finish before arriving the big G, as they are very strict about what you can have on board when they inspect the vessel. Since its pretty uneventful, we are doing some cleaning and few boat projects to pass the time. Got our media library all hooked up, so we can stream movies and music from the entire library without having to load on to iThingies to play. The selection on my iPod was getting old after being the only thing we had to listen to in the yard the past few months, even if it has 40+Gb of music. Figured out how to get the Autopilot to do “wind vane” mode, just needed another commissioning step so we are now free to set the sails and see where the wind direction changes take us.
Christine got some interior projects done, and some much needed cleaning of items that got extremely dirty in the yard. And got one of our rain blockers installed to help with the rain storm that we just sailed under and found some decent wind for about an hour. We maxed out at 9.9kn of boat speed to weather in 20knots of breeze. Its now calmed back down to 10knots of wind and we are doing around 6kn with an apparent wind angle of 32 degrees and rocking out to 1980s ballads. Which is your favorite 80s ballad? White Snake is playing right now.
Keep on Keeping on. 525 miles to go.
At 11/4/2018 @ 6:57 PM Our position: 06°34.64’N, 085°00.64’W Traveling 6.2 heading 200T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/6.57733,-85.01067
At 11/4/2018 @ 6:57 PM Our position: 06°34.64’N, 085°00.64’W Traveling 6.2 heading 200T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/6.57733,-85.01067

20 Hours in and all is good. After a delayed departure from Golfito, customs and port Authority took most of the morning, the after noon rains which started early at noon. We stayed one more night in the tranquil albeit rainy anchorage and set off this morning at about 6am. Motored out of Golfito and Golfo Dulce as there wasn’t much wind or waves around. Just a few whales cruising the bay making cool water spouts as the came to he surface. The forecasted wind directions were off by more than 100 degrees in direction so when we cleared the mouth we were able to head almost due west instead of the planned route of more south which hopefully will work out with further wind direction changes. So far winds have been light, maxed out at 10kt and waves pretty small.
Sun was out all day, so we spent time on the shady side of the sails to stay cool and not get sunburnt on the first day out. Caught one small Spanish Mackerel, let him go. A pod of silly dolphins came by to show off some fantastic leaping antics, had not seen that many aerials from dolphins in the wild before.
We had a Brazilian staple of Feijoada with a Jason’s Deli twist, served over baked potato instead of rice. Turned out quite tasty and perfect dinner to start the night shifts.
Just after dark the winds abated to almost nothing, we tried to adjust our direction to keep the sails full, but ended up giving up and rolling in the head sail (jib) for an hour or so before weather started to sprinkle and bring some 7knot winds back.
One fun ship n ship crossing, a Dole banana boat had to duck another container ship. That duck maneuver encroached on our path, so we turned a bit to give the Big Banana Boat some more room, which eventually turned back on his course after passing behind the other cargo ship. Of course it was all in the dark so just watching lights in front of the boat, thank goodness for AIS and tracking of those vessels it was easy to figure out what was happening.
Keep on Keeping on. 588 miles to go.
At 11/4/2018 @ 7:02 AM Our position: 07°31.08’N, 084°32.72’W Traveling 5.8 heading 249T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/7.51800,-84.54533
At 11/4/2018 @ 7:02 AM Our position: 07°31.08’N, 084°32.72’W Traveling 5.8 heading 249T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/7.51800,-84.54533