Doreen and I are going to pamper ourselves with a Royal Caribbean cruise from Colón, Panamá, for 7 nights and then back to Colón. Here is a small map of the trip…
and here is a small picture of the ship Enchantment of the Seas
I’ll be posting something to the blog daily (I hope) with little pins in our Travel Map to show our progress. There will be lots of pictures (Doreen is anticipating lots and lots and lots). But they will get posted after we return.
We dropped the hook here about 10:00 this morning off Rio Cacique on Isla del Rey in the Las Perlas group of Islands near Panama City.
After passing Punta Guanico on the southern shore of the large Azuero Peninsula we came under the influence of the outbound current from the Bay of Panama; it was slow going for about 12 hours after that. We were way offshore (about 35 miles) as we passed Punta Mala, but still felt the large chop associated with that point. We had a slight tail wind, but the sail only provided minor stabilization. We headed east across the Bay of Panama, hoping to catch the inward flowing current. The shipping lanes that we crossed contained many ships that kept us alert Monday night and Tuesday morning; three had to be “actively” avoided! Tuesday evening we picked up a strong northerly wind, which allowed us to finally cut the engine and sail for the rest of the evening and into the early morning hours; then we used the engine again to get us to this anchorage.
We are underway to the Bay of Panama and have rounded Punta Mariato, out of the waters of western Panama. We left our anchorage at Isla Gobernador this morning and have had seen lots of sea life as we moved out into the Pacific Ocean. Several times dolphins played at Lanikai‘s bow while manta rays leaped out of the water nearby; but most of all were the numerous, and very large, sea turtles that slowly swam past. There were also a few of the yellow-bellied sea snakes swimming by too. We hope to round Punta Mala in the morning and then cross the Bay of Panama to the Perlas Islands for a Wednesday morning anchor-drop at Isla del Rey.
We are slowly moving east, enjoying some of our favorite anchorages along the way. We have a little over a week to enjoy this area before we start looking for a weather window to round Punta Mala and head off to the Perlas Islands and on into Panama City. Yesterday we had a nice motor-sail from Isla Parida to the Islas Secas, with winds less than 10 over the boat and very calm seas.
We had a rough passage to Punta Burica (the dividing line between Panama and Costa Rica) with winds on the bow, and against the current, making short steep waves. But after we rounded the point the passage to Golfito became real pleasant.
See the Map!