Pitufa.at

We took the dinghy to the neighbouring bay to visit the village there. Beaching turned out to be quite a challenge with the southerly swell tumbling upon the beach producing high breaking waves that would no doubt delight surfers, but are quite terrifying seen from a dinghy. Timing’s everything: wait for a calm period, quickly motor towards the beach, tilt up the outboard, hop into… Continue reading »

2013
16
Mar

Bahia Piñas

Yesterday afternoon we left the Rio Sucio at a rising tide and the plan was to spend the night at Isla Iguana as on the way in. The conditions at the anchorage were so rough, though, so we decided to sail out the Golfo de San Miguel to reach our next destination in a nightsail. The sail started slow and tranquil under a incredibly starlit… Continue reading »

2013
15
Mar

Bright white Pitufa

During the weeks in the bay of Panama in the grime of the city Pitufa got a long green beard along her waterline and dark stains all around. The last three days we used the calm water of the river to scrub the dirt off, polish the yellow stains off and finally put a layer of wax on to protect the paint. It was hard… Continue reading »

2013
14
Mar

Village Caña Blanca

From one of the canoes that go by frequently we got a description for the way to the village: ‘Go always straight ahead, when the river forks go up the right branch, then you’ll see a puerto–you can’t miss it. Walk up the way, it’s a big village. Es muy cerquito (very near).’ Well, it took us three attempts to find the right branch of… Continue reading »

2013
12
Mar

Rio Sucio

We weren’t really comfortable in the Rio Cucunati. When strong winds meet an opposing tidal current in such a broad stream, the result are confused seas that turn the anchorage into a witches cauldron. Therefore we motored into a neighbouring river on a rising current yesterday. According to the chart the Rio Sucio has a reef and a sandbank with only 2 metres depth at… Continue reading »

2013
10
Mar

No rest for the wicked

Our plan was to relax for a few days once we reached the first river, but who can rest, when the leaking dinghy needs a patch, the zipper of the lazy bag (bag on the boom where the mainsail falls into and is stored inside) decides to tear off just when we’ve left the shops of Panama City, the new BBQ needs a mounting, the… Continue reading »

2013
07
Mar

Rio Cucunati

We sailed down to the Golfo de San Miguel the day before yesterday, spent a night at Isla Iguana inside the Golfo and then entered the Rio Cucunati on a rising tide. The Cucunati is a wide, mangrove fringed stream, there are lots of parrots (always flying in pairs, chatting loudly) and egrets around. This morning we’ve taken Pitufa further up, beyond the chart that… Continue reading »

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2013
28
Feb

Extreme sports on Pitufa

Usually we’re not much into sports, but last week we discovered a new exciting adrenaline sport and now we’re really hooked up. Play almost every day, fall into bed exhausted each evening, wake up with sore muscles, just to play another round of “extreme provisioning triathlon”. The rules are quite simple: The game starts early in the morning. The players warm up by taking several… Continue reading »

2013
24
Feb

Shopping frenzy

We’ve spent the past few days in a provisioning frenzy: a tour to a cheap supermarket, another one to a hardwarestore (who has ever spent 5 hours in a hardwarestore??), yet another one to a more sophisticated supermarket–each trip took us a full day, first searching for the right bus, then waiting endlessly for a taxi and in the end shipping all the bags half… Continue reading »

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2013
26
Jan

Isla Espiritu Santo

We’re now anchored in a very calm spot between Isla del Rey and tiny Isla Espiritu Santo. A dolphin accompanied us all the way into the bay, this morning a few hundred cormorants flew by and apparently there’s a trail leading over Espiritu Santo and it’s possible to take the dinghy up a river on Rey. It looks like an interesting place and we’ll start… Continue reading »

2013
24
Jan

Village La Ensenada

Today we took the dinghy to explore the huge bay and the channel between Isla Canas and Isla del Rey and then beached in front of the small nearby village, La Ensenada, which turned out to be much nicer than the last one. We bought a few things from the tiny shop, found people willing to sell some veggies from their gardens and purchased a… Continue reading »

2013
22
Jan

Morro Cambombia

After getting some work done in the calm bay of Rio Cacique we moved a few miles up on the coast of Isla del Rey to an anchorage of the southern side of Isla Cana (just offshore Isla del Rey). This area is beautiful in a slightly threatening way: we moved in very carefully at high tide admiring the green islets around the anchorage, but… Continue reading »

2013
19
Jan

Bahia San Telmo

Our visit to the village Esmeralda this morning was rather disappointing. We got the promised fruit and found the shops, but there were dishevelled roosters in front of every house (cock fights are the favourite pasttime…), starving skeletal dogs and when we followed some tracks out of the village each one terminated in a rubbish dump… In the afternoon we sailed 2 miles up to… Continue reading »

2013
17
Jan

Esmeralda on Isla del Rey

Today we had a gentle sail from our favorite place the Isletas del Platanal south around Isla del Rey into the Bahia San Telmo. We are anchored off the small fishing village Esmeralda. A friendly local in a canoe welcomed us and offered fruits. He claimed the village has 5 supermarkets . We will check tomorrow morning for ourselves.

2013
14
Jan

Encounters

The day before yesterday we sailed Pitufa back south. Again we got the timing wrong and had a strong current against us, the combination with about 15 to 20 knots of wind with us the resulted in steep, short waves that made the ride quite uncomfortable. Nevertheless it was an exciting trip: we saw a small whale (we think a pilot whale), a school of… Continue reading »