We are leaving Costa Rica bound for Panama City. The first leg is an overnight passage to Las Islas Secas in Panama. Miette's diesel engine chugs along because there are no steady winds forecast and this part of the world is subject to sudden squalls. It's not the place to bob around, inviting trouble.
It's almost a new moon, so it's dark, and there's no way to see where the sea and sky meet. The weather gods have smiled on us tonight, the sky mostly clear and the seas calm.
In the witching hours, low clouds flicker with distant lightning, the dim sliver of moon reflected a million times across the tame wavelets.
We round Punta Balsa, the tip of a long, skinny north/south peninsula dividing two countries, turn east, and are now in Panama's waters. Looking north, the skies glow over the city of David, some 35 miles distant.
To the south, which is just open sea, there are a dozen blooms of light out in the inky darkness, spaced miles apart. These are ships heading to or from the Panama Canal.
Our route out of Costa Rica had the seas to starboard, but after this turn, they're behind us, gently rolling us forward. There must be a strong current behind us, too, because Miette's GPS speed is showing close to 8 knots.
We raise the islands not long after dawn, and our excitement grows as their features become more definite. The water is clear sapphire blue and we can see the cast of Miette's shadow stretching into the depths.
Las Islas Secas means “the dry islands” but they are verdant green.
Miette rounds a corner into the anchorage. Shawn and I grin at each other. This place is a little slice of paradise. It's still the morning so we've got a whole day ahead of us.
Shawn stands on the bow looking down into the water as we come into the anchorage, watching for coral heads, and helps me find a sandy place to drop the anchor. We don't want our chain damaging coral as the boat swings around her anchor. We're in 20 feet of water and Shawn can clearly see the anchor land on the sand and the chain stretch out as Miette backs away and the anchor dig itself into the bottom.
Within 15 minutes of arriving, we're like kids at a playground, rushing to put on our masks and jump in the water.
We swim a couple hundred feet and are soon surrounded by healthy coral and many colorful fish going about their business.
I spear a big triggerfish. It's the first fish I've ever shot, and I'm full of mixed emotions. Yes, I'm going to eat this fish, but it's still fighting, hopelessly hooked on the harpoon tip. It had swam right up to me and turned its side, presenting the perfect target.
I'm wishing it's death was more sudden, but these fish have tough skulls and skin like leather so I'd just aimed for center mass. When we catch fish from the boat, the first thing we do is ice-pick their brains so they don't suffer, but we're a long swim from the boat. Lucky for us, there are no sharks as swimming with an injured fish would be a bad idea.
Keep in mind, I was vegan for twenty years and almost all of our meals are still vegetarian. Shooting a fish may not be a big deal for many, but of course, I'm going to over-think this, even as we're eating delicious fish tacos at lunch 20 minutes later.
Resting in the shade, swinging in our hammocks for the afternoon. We're both tired from the overnight passage, though it was smooth, and just soak in the beauty.
My eyes keep darting back to a dark section of the horizon. There is a big mass of clouds about 10 miles away and I can't see anything through the dark wall of rain under it.
Which way are you going? I wonder.
It's still calm here, beautiful, and I even fly the drone for a while, then leisurely look through the photos it took.
I look back at the clouds. They don't seem to be going to the left or right, but are bigger. It's a squall, and coming right at us.
I point this out to Shawn and we start stowing items and batten the hatches. It comes on fast, minutes later. The winds shriek, the seas batter us as rain power-washes the deck.
After a tense, uncomfortable hour, it's over nearly as fast as it started. The winds disappear, though it takes the sea another hour to settle down.
Just like that, we're back in paradise. Such extremes!
Clear skies surround us the following morning. While the seas are still calm, we transfer diesel from a jerry can to the main tank. With a bit of math, I'm feeling good about our fuel state. What we have has to get us to Panama City, since the winds aren't favorable to sailing.
After breakfast, we go to shore. At high tide, the island becomes two islands, but at low tide, there's a sand bank connecting the two. The beach has many logs of driftwood, and thousands of hermit crabs who fall from whatever perches they have as they see us and tuck into their shells. It's the stop-drop-and-roll routine and it makes me chuckle every time.
Shawn gathers a handful of interesting shells for her collection and we go snorkeling around a nearby reef. I’m only shooting video this time, leaving the speargun on the boat.
A couple hours later, exhausted, we climb back aboard Miette, yesterday's squall all but forgotten.
Our next stop in Panama is Bahía Honda, and we drop anchor in this calm, completely protected bay.
Locals have motored up to us even before the anchor splashed into the water. A young man, Edwin, his wife Rosalin, and their son introduce themselves.
We'd been told about them from our friends on Jackdaw, who passed through a few weeks ahead of us. I'd prepared a bag with fish hooks, lead sinkers, Costa Rican cookies, and a few other sundries. In exchange, they invite us over for dinner.
The following morning, Rosalin's father, Domingo, came out to sell us an armload of fresh fruit. He is 83, and because he has few, if any, teeth, he's difficult to understand, but we chat for nearly a half hour.
He's been taking care of boats for over 30 years and says he's collected over 500 boat cards. Some cruisers, often older ones, hand out these cards with their contact information.
We spend a couple hours at their house the next day enjoying dinner, talking about our experiences across Latin America, and asking questions about them and Panama.
They tell us that it only took two months for Covid-19 to reach their community, killing several people, sickening many others. The island village is where they shop, get internet, and where their son goes to school.
Covid closed all that down for months, so they had only the food they grew, fish they caught, and water they collected. Rosalin said they quickly ran out of rice and other items, and it was fish and bananas, fish and bananas, every day.
The afternoon before we leave, a parade of boats zip through the anchorage, full of cheering people carrying balloons. The lead boat has a Virgin Mary shrine, so it’s some religious celebration.
The following morning, we transfer diesel from 2 jerry cans into Miette's tank. More calculations and I'm feeling concerned, but not yet alarmed at our fuel state. My projected fuel reserve is shrinking rapidly.
We travel another 30 miles and drop anchor off Isla Gobernadora, a small island in the Gulf of Montijo, rather than push on through the night.
I watch a fishing boat pull up next to us, crewed entirely by children. I call out, "when you're done, stop by here." The kid handling the engine nods.
The oldest is about 14, and youngest is 4. They've caught a dozen small red snappers which are flopping around inside the boat. Shawn hands each of them chocolate covered cookies we bought in Costa Rica, and I collect the wrappers.
The oldest tells me they live on Isla Gobernadora and points to a house in the trees. The younger ones just stare at us as they eat their treats, and only smile as they leave, waving. We later hear them ashore, laughing and running around.
We make one more stop the next day behind Punta Naranjo, an uninhabited area that affords only little protection. We anchor, swim to shore to walk around, and swim back. It’s a quiet afternoon of beautiful solitude.
Early the next morning, we add another jerry can of fuel. We have only one remaining, and I go from concerned to slightly worried. The boat's tank is now full, but there is still a long way to go.
By afternoon, Miette is plowing slowly through seas, wind, and rain, all opposing her progress. Though the engine RPMs haven't changed, our speed goes from 5 knots to 1 or 2. The chartplotter, our primary navigation system, is always updating the estimated time of arrival. I watch it go from 7am to 5pm. With the engine running, we have fuel only to about 11am. 5pm is not good.
Shawn raises the mainsail, double-reefed to minimize sail area in this stormy region, and the staysail, which is small and ideal for storms, and good for sailing close to the wind.
I fall off the wind a bit to power the sails and to cut more diagonally through the waves coming at us. It helps, and our speed picks up and our ETA starts looking better, but not yet good.
There is an anchorage at Benao I'm considering, just short of Punta Mala, but the weather clears up and the seas calm as the sun sets, so we push on.
Punta Mala could be translated as Bad Point, or Evil Point, and is where we'll enter the Gulf of Panama. We've heard horror stories from other sailors about this point, where strong tidal currents, winds, and the cape all conspire to create nasty conditions.
We pass the point and instead of hugging the shore, begin crossing into the middle of the Gulf, as recommended.
There are 2 shipping lanes, one inbound and one outbound from the Panama Canal, each a couple miles wide and with a 3-mile traffic separation zone between them.
I plot a course that will keep us right in the center of the separation zone. By radar, AIS, and line of sight, I'm keeping an eye on the parade of ships speeding by either side of us. Although they’re massive, they churn through the sea roughly 4 times as fast as Miette. We are an ant to them, barely anything they'd notice plowing over.
Dawn arrives windy, cold, and damp under a low, foreboding overcast. The skies are in a bad mood, reflected by the seas.
The wind is strong and again, coming directly from where we need to go. The boat speed crawls along at 1 or 3 knots and our fuel gauge is dipping down. We'd added the last from our external jerry cans and the needle is bouncing around between a quarter and half tank. I begin short tacks upwind and our speed increases appreciably. I'm now alarmed at our fuel state and slow progress, so now that the sails are powered up, I turn off the engine.
The plan is to reach Las Perlas, a group of islands just east of the shipping lanes, but a gray smudge of a nearby squall hides them from sight.
The squall is flickering with nearly continuous lightning so I'm steering away from it, mindful of the shipping lanes. Miette's radar shows it to be about 5 miles in diameter but it's coming right at us, faster than we can evade.
High winds and heavy rain are soon punishing Miette as thunder cracks the sky. Shawn goes below deck. We are heeling too far over and the rudder is trying to stall. Before the mainsail is overpowered, I let the boom out, set the preventer, and Miette rights herself, more responsive now.
I am white-knuckled at the helm, maintaining control, though our course is now opposite of where we want to go. The winds howl at 25 knots, 27, 30, now 33.
Massive bolts of lightning strike all around us relentlessly. Sheets of heavy rainwater fly sideways, and my eyeglasses are useless. I take them off but now my eyeballs are painfully pelted.
I'm fully, actively managing my fear because it wants to scream out of control into panic. There's a flash of light and instant clap of thunder, brighter and louder than anything I've experienced. It seems impossible I'll survive this onslaught, sitting next to steel backstays running all the way up the mast, sticking 45 feet into electric sky. An ear-splitting BOOM makes an involuntary whimper leave my lips and I'm sure there are tears in my eyes mixed in with rain. Why? Is that some weird reaction of fear? I'm shivering inside my rain coat, and not just because the temperature dropped.
My fear keeps pulling hard at the reins, and I keep bringing it back under control, with each bolt of lightning trying to yank it out of my hands.
My thoughts race. Inhale to 4, hold for 7, exhale 8, repeat.
I think about my kids and recall moments of their childhoods forever close to my heart, and I imagine what they're doing now, young adults and their struggles. I send them love across thousands of miles.
Why am I so scared? Is this the new normal, in the “lightning capital of the world”? Is my reaction out of proportion? Am I being overly dramati….BOOM. Shit! Shit! Shit! That was close! Too close! Way too close! Keep it together, Shawn is counting on me. I'm the skipper, got to keep my cool.
Faces of family and friends are what flood my mind and fill my heart. Not houses or cars I’ve owned, or the airplane I was so proud of. Not my career, not my trade, not the work I’ve done, not the art, music, or videos I've created. Not the money I’ve made, not the books, movies, or games I've enjoyed. That all filled time, too much time.
In the years we've been sailing, long passages at sea have given me ample time to recapitulate my life into something almost solid I can externalize. I bring the whole of it forth, look across all of those moments now before me. I own up to all of it, and willingly offer up the sum of my experiences, neatly bundled - a gift to the shining void. If it's my time to go, I don't want to go afraid, angry, or sad. I want to go grateful.
Another bolt of lightning strikes nearby, but instead of jumping, the moment passes by my detached awareness. If there were a gauge for my fear, the needle would have stopped twitching, though it’s definitely not near zero.
I'm squinting, not only due to rain that wants to bruise my eyeballs, but because the lightning is so close I'm worried about getting blinded. Already there are blue-white spots in my vision. My ears are ringing from a close crack of thunder, which I also felt in my body, and through my feet and backside, reverberating from the whole boat.
This is a religious, full-bodied experience, but I've got this, and know Miette can handle this. Shawn's face appears in the companionway, she shouts to be heard across the 6 feet between us, asking if I'm ok.
I won't deny this sucks, and this is one of the most terrifying experiences in my life, but somehow, I'm more than ok. I'm feeling a profound happiness and peace that seems deeply incongruous to the situation. I'm ready to pass through this, one way or the other, and realize that although I'm still cold, I've stopped shivering.
If I didn't already have gray and white in my beard, I'd certainly have it now.
I smile, give Shawn a thumbs up, and yell "I'M GOOD!" as another brilliant white bolt rips the sky to starboard, lighting her up like a flash photo for a moment that will remain burned into my memory.
The winds slowly begin to subside and then it is over.
The squall marches on away from us, leaving us in confused, black seas full of sharp white points running randomly into each other, each wave not knowing which way to go. I steer us back on course and we start the diesel back up.
We veer across and out of the way of the shipping lanes, motor-sailing at 5 knots on two, long indirect tacks that will get us to Panama City by morning. The distance is nearly double what a direct route would be, but the wind has the upper hand. Even with the longer distance, with help from the sails, we arrive around 9am.
By my estimate, we have only 3 gallons of diesel in the tank when we anchor and shut down. We'd have been in trouble without that last-minute fuel stop in Puerto Jiménez. Running a diesel engine out of fuel is a bigger headache than you'd think.
Not knowing anything about Panama City, we were both surprised to have seen a long skyline of modern skyscrapers. Real civilization?!
Dozens of cargo ships lie at anchor as we approach, and we recognize several that passed us yesterday.
We find a spot to anchor among dozens of small boats and shut down.
I write an entry in Miette's logbook, noting engine hours, mileage, and dates, close the cover, completing this passage. My mind drifts back to the lightning and thunder, my kids, Shawn's face in the companionway lit by a flash, my hands gripping the helm, the sails pulling us forward, the seas rushing by, my face stinging with rain.
From there, to the here and now, which is quiet, gentle, and still.
I'm tired, yes, but what else? I'm good, I realize again. Really good. We’re alive and that’s good. It’s great. I put my head on my pillow, smiling as I doze off, feeling grateful.
Just read your post here over my last cup of before launching into another day of boat preparation and configuration. We’re into the provisioning and storage on board phase…
Just wanted to say that lightning storm experiences do have a religious effect, and I’m not talking religion as in church going…I’m talking true soul searching and enlightenment. You really had one of those moments… and you are better for it…
Your storm description was so on the nose for capturing all my terrified feelings and thoughts in the couple big ones we've been through as well. Not too many people go through these types of experiences that bring such a wide array of emotions. Sure glad you made it to us safely :)