Week 71: Panama City to Las Perlas (40nm)

A huge week on Serenity as Daniel and Camille fly out to join us as our Pacific crew, and we start to learn how to share our home with new friends. We make some great progress fitting new chart plotters and watermaker pumps, before sailing down to the remote Las Perlas islands in search of fish and more scenic anchorages.

Captain’s log

5th Jan: After getting some last minute tidying done, we were ready to welcome our new long-term crew, the only problem was that the wind had decided to pick up and there was now a distinct amount of chop between Serenity First and the shore. We headed to the jetty, where they were in the process of unloading a terrifying amount of baggage from the back of an Uber – this was definitely going to need two trips. The good news was all their bags were waterproof and they had dressed in clothes that could get wet, so Daniel and I took all the bags in the first run (aka Team Fast and Very Wet) and then after unloading them onto Serenity I went back for Laura and Camille (aka Team Slow and Still Fairly Wet). Once they were aboard we took the rest of the day to let them settle into their new cabin, which was able to absorb all the luggage (probably because a load of it was the spares they were bringing for us), whilst Laura and I played around with our new toys before enjoying our first meal aboard together.

6th Jan: Double the people means double the boat job productivity – this was a day that boded well for the future of Serenity First. Whilst Laura and I got stuck into replacing the watermaker feed pump (that we had each played a key role in breaking by ignoring the instructions), Daniel worked on mounting the new chart plotter and Camille worked on setting up the material for the assembly of the new dodger. By the end of the day, the watermaker was effectively upgraded with more accessible filters to go along with new feed pump, the plotter was fitted and we had managed to get the AIS data streaming into the cockpit (something the old plotter had always refused to do), and all the dodger fabric was ready for sewing. We set our sights on leaving for Las Perlas on the 8th Jan, but this would only be possible if we could finish the dodger and complete a provisioning run the next day…

7th Jan:…which unfortunately wasn’t possible in the end. The day started off positively with a fun walk down the causeway to a cafe for some high speed internet and caffeine, but unfortunately dealing with the provisioning meant that Laura didn’t end up having enough time to finish the dodger. The silver lining was that by waiting an extra day, my fishing app indicated that we would be 20% more likely to catch a fish, which we all agreed was a solid outcome. The only other notable event was an odd secondary beer tax that a port official attempted to charge us when we were loading the lagers into the dinghy – payment seems to be on an honesty policy though and even if the forms he completed do end up in the hands of some genuine authorities, they will be looking for Alistair Marshall so I figure we are safe.

8th Jan: The wind changed direction and the boat motion became highly perturbed, which made Laura’s life sewing the dodger incredibly challenging. At times there were two extra helpers involved trying to manage all the fabric as she tried to finish the stitching around the windows, but unfortunately the seas were too disruptive to allow her to finish the project. We decided we needed to move down to Las Perlas to make lives more pleasant and get a chance to explore some more remote anchorages (and find time to finish the dodger along the way), so plans were made for an early start that maximised they opportunities to try out our new fishing lures.

9th Jan: With 40n to Las Perlas, we decided to get an early start and had Serenity sailing well on a slightly punchy beam reach with 20 knots of wind and both the fishing lines out. It turned out to be a highly successful day, with only one slightly terrifying scare towards the end (see Story of the Week below). The anchorage was much calmer than Panama City and after all the days excitement everyone was yawning over dinner, and so we all retired to bed after a low energy game of Century.

10th Jan: We started to make the transition to life on the hook and enjoyed some shore expeditions to release another Gecko stowaway (Herman II) and practice flying Daniel and Camille’s new drone. Laura continued to work feverishly on her dodger and ended the day with a self supporting structure that looked unbelievably profession, but still required some final alterations before she was totally happy with it. We then continued the introduction to cruiser life as we showed Daniel and Camille how to work the watermaker (which helpfully demonstrated every way in which it could malfunction in a single session) and then had a chilled evening listening to the rays jump around us (but thankfully not into the dinghy).

11th Jan: The anchorage has been so calm and tranquil that we decided to stay one more night, but had forgotten that the next day was a Saturday and so our spot was invaded by tourists on motorboats with boom boxes. Never mind, we used the up tempo music as a productive soundtrack to a morning of chores (timing scrubbing the hull with the slack tide to avoid being washed away) and then relaxed with books and podcasts in the heat of the day. I made a dinghy expedition with our cellphones to get a weather update, and then promptly lost another bucket to the current on my return to Serenity, earning me a temporary ban from bucket work that appeared to have a significant silver lining with regards to chore participation. We decided to move on the next day in search of a new anchorage and perhaps some more fish on route.

Story of week

The fishing success expectation was running high ahead of our sail from Panama City to Las Perlas for a number of reasons. Firstly, I had invested another $120 in new lures that Laura had expressed a range of concerns over, which could be summarised by her slightly wry observation in the fishing shop regarding the relative effectiveness of lures in attracting fish vs. Being attractive to fishermen. Secondly, we were travelling on a day that my fishing app rated at 88%, which seemed to imply that catching a fish should almost be a certainty (although I’m pretty sure that isn’t the right interpretation of this metric). Finally, it was our first sail with our new crew, and after hearing tales of our prior fishing exploits they were keen to try the benefits of a fresh catch.

Thankfully, my prayers to the assorted fishing gods were answered after only an hour of sailing with the reassuring screech of the clicker on the fishing rod (somewhat muted given its recent repair with a piece of coat hanger – I wish I was joking!). It was the new jet head lure that had struck lucky and our catch quickly revealed itself to be a lovely sized bonito tuna that looked to be worth a generous eight servings of meat. Previously when we were a crew of two, that would have been it for the day as we would have felt wasteful catching more fish, but with two extra mouths to feed and five hours of sailing left, it was decided to relaunch the lures.

Four hours passed with just an investigative nibble (also on the jet head) to entertain us. Actually, that is a very one-eyed take on the sail, as we were accompanied for a solid 15 minutes by a wonderfully playful pod of spotted dolphins, and were also blessed with sailing conditions as close to perfect as can ever be hoped (15-20 knots on the beam and limited swell). However, just as Laura headed below decks to prepare lunch, the rail mounted reel emitted its own signature squeal – we realised later that the first fish had bitten when Laura went down to make coffee, and so will continue to experiment as to whether sending her below is an effective fishing tactic.

This bite was on the much larger Australian Runner style lure, so much so that in the shop Laura had made me promise to only deploy it when we had crew aboard to help us deal with the gargantuan denizen of the deep that it would attract. As I slowly brought it in we discussed the landing process needed for bigger fishes with equal measures of excitement and fear. Alas (or perhaps thankfully), it was another similarly sized bonito tuna, and we landed it without any issues at all. This was the first time we have ever caught multiple tuna on a single sail and we decided a sushi celebration that night was definitely in order.

We were able to anchor up on the Chapera / Mogo Mogo channel without too much difficulty, although we left ourselves plenty of spare chain and space to cope with the 4m tide. The 1.5 knot current was a new experience for us (see Parting Thoughts below!), but Brucie set straight away and so we immediately moved onto processing our catch. I was delighted by Camille’s enthusiasm to learn fish butchery, as up until now I’ve been the designed fish gut and chopper. It was a perfect teaching setup as I could work through the first fish as an example and then she was able to practice on the second fish. Her efforts were far more successful than those of my first fish, although at this stage it’s difficult to know how much of that is the teacher or the pupil. Either way, after so many months of poor Caribbean fishing, it was a great introduction to the Pacific and bodes very well for the rest of 2020, especially since I have three more new lures I haven’t even tried yet :).

Video interlude

Our new crew are aspiring videographers and so have significantly increased the equipment and video editing know-how aboard Serenity First. They have started their own Youtube channel called The Why of Travel and you can find the video that aligns with the above blog post below. If you enjoy following Serenity First’s adventures this way (perhaps even more than this drab text and photo blog) then Laura and I would very much encourage you to subscribe and support their channel.

Parting thoughts

Despite earning my yachting qualifications in the UK, almost all of my big boat sailing experience has been in the Mediterranean or Caribbean, and therefore tides and current are things I don’t have much familiarity with. Tides are fairly straightforward, and provided you remember to anchor with respect to the high to low variation and give sufficient care in the shallows, I don’t believe they will be a major issue for us (knock on wood). Currents on the other hand could be a bit trickier.

I mentioned above that when we anchored after our fishing success, there was a 1.5 knot current, and I therefore planned our anchoring location to allow for this current to reverse with the change in tides. However, when we dropped a bucket overboard two hours later and it started to drift away, I jumped in after it without a moments hesitation and got a very rude awakening. Getting to the bucket was not problem but getting back to Serenity was impossible, especially now I was holding a bucket. I quickly gave a set of panicked instructions to Daniel to throw me a line with a fender on the end, but he didn’t know where they were kept. I was lucky that Laura was close at hand and reacted fast enough to get a line to me before I was swept out to sea (although not before I had been forced to abandon the bucket).

I arrived back at Serenity’s stern completely out of breath and shaken by how close we had come to our nightmare man overboard situation. With the dinghy still on the foredeck and no outboard attached, I would have had to swim hard for the shore and hoped I could make it before I was swept out of the channel, and I would give the odds as around 50/50 on my making it. What makes it worse, is that our friends on Seahawk had warned us of this exact same situation for them in Las Perlas (i.e. nearly losing someone trying to get a bucket) and it had completely slipped my mind. We now leave the fender attached to a line in the water so that swimmers (or fallers) have an option if the current gets too strong, and hopefully I will be a bit less cavalier in future.