Panama to The Bay Islands

We left Shelter bay marina as planned and sailed the short distance to the Rio Chagres. This is a lovely river surrounded by rain forest. The noise of the birds and monkeys was amazing. Each afternoon we rowed up the side of the river looking at the monkeys and birds. We also saw a crocodile. We stayed there 3 days with Chris and Dave from CD.

The Sunday morning we all left for Providencia, a 260 mile trip north. When we got to the entrance the sea was pretty rough and CD decided to turn around and stay in the river waiting for better weather. We decided the boat was OK so would carry on.

To start with the weather was good but later the winds increased to 25 knots and we were bashing into waves that were coming over the bimini and into the cockpit. We also could not make our course as the wind was too northerly and we had a west pushing adverse current to make things worse. The wind decreased on the second day and we spent all day sailing east back to our rhumb line (the course we wanted to make) and only made about 15 miles towards our goal. The third day also had a bad wind direction so the following morning we decided we were going to motor as neither of us wanted another night at sea.

We were both feeling under the weather and were not coping with the sail as well as we might. After starting the engine the wind started to increase and within a few hours we were bashing into 30 knots of wind with rough seas. The engine was working hard just to make any way and it took us the whole day to get the length of the Providencia Island which is only about 8 miles. Against our better judgement we decided to continue into the harbour even though it was now dark and the entrance is surrounded by reefs. Once we turned into the channel, which was buoyed and lit, the wind was behind us and from struggling to make headway we were suddenly being pushed too fast and so went through part of the channel with the engine in reverse! We anchored at about 8.30pm with our nerves in shreds and grateful that both us and the boat were in one piece. We had travelled 410 miles over 3 ½ days when we thought it would take us about 2 ½ days!

The following day was my birthday (Karen) but neither of us felt like celebrating and we were still both feeling unwell so we saved the celebrations for the following day. We had a nice meal and sat and watched the whole series of Cranford. The wind was still strong so we had lots of power from the wind generator to run the PC and the TV. We spent the first week recovering and working on the boat. We managed to paint all the toe rail which was looking very worn. We did walk around the small off lying island called Catalina and had a beach BBQ with some kiwis from a boat we met so it wasn't all work

Providencia is a lovely small island and very laid back. The people were very friendly and it was very safe. It's the sort of place you could just stay for weeks and do nothing. After a week CD joined us, they had also had a bad trip and had motored most of the way! The 4 of us rented scooters and biked around the Island twice! It was great fun and we stopped and snorkeled on the way too. The snorkeling near the anchorage was also amazing and we saw lots of fish we hadn't seen before and some big barracuda. The weekend before we left the locals put on a show for the cruisers with dancing and music which was a lovely touch.

We were in Providencia 2 ½ weeks before we finally had a good weather window to leave, so we reluctantly set off for the Bay Islands of Honduras. The course was between a lot of reefs so we had to stay on track. As the weather wouldn't allow us to do this we ended up motoring a lot. This was also fuelled by our bad experience getting to Providencia. CD left at the same time but are slightly slower than us and they had completely different weather! They missed all the squalls we had and the wind direction was better so they sailed all the way. The first night was very dark and the sea was uncomfortable. I spent most of my watch being ill and had to wake Mike early to take over. I collapsed into bed and stayed there for the next 8 hours. Mike was exhausted and drenched as we had been through one squall after another. Once we rounded the corner of Honduras the wind dropped and the sea was more pleasant. We put out the fishing lines and finally managed to catch a Mahi-mahi! It is such an incredibly beautiful fish that it seems almost wrong to catch one. However, they are very good eating!!We made such good time and ended up heaving to for 7 hours so that we entered Guanaja in the light. This gave us both a good opportunity to catch up on sleep and enter the anchorage fully refreshed. By this time CD had caught us up so we anchored at the same time.

Guanaja is a small Island and is the furthest east of the 3 bay islands. Most of the residents live on a small settlement which is an atoll off the main island. There are also a number of individual houses on atolls. The anchorage is a few miles in the dinghy from the settlement so we got very wet when there were any waves. A boat delivers supplies for the island once a week and that is when the whole town do their weekly shopping.

The anchorage is lovely with a resident dolphin and a very good bar, the Manatee, where we played darts and pool as well as sinking a few cold beers! We did a bit of snorkeling but the sea is colder and although the coral is pretty there are very few fish. We have also did a couple of dives at a site on the north of the Island. The coral was not that good and we saw practically no fish but it was a taxing dive for us as we had to swim between narrow channels of coral and we also went through a tunnel.

Last Sunday we sailed to Roatan, the biggest of the Bay islands. Its a lot more commercial than Guanaja with lots of fully inclusive dive resorts. It is not really set up for cruisers and there is not much snorkeling. The dive resorts also make it difficult to dive by yourself. Given this we are now leaving for Belize tomorrow. We have a fairly short sail of 90 miles to the first reef where we will stop for a bit and then we are hoping to go to Belize City to organise a trip to Tikal and a few other Mayan ruins.

Posted from Belize. A bit late but update on that trip will follow.