Panama to Bermuda

Highlights (and lowlights)

A beautiful cruise out of Seattle along the sounds with stunning scenery, the snow capped mountains and forest of the Olympic park. Passed a group of small yachts racing towards Vancouver as part of Saturday racing, what a glorious place to live and sail 😄 will definitely be back!

24 hours of training with the new crew, followed by waking up on the race start morning surrounded by a slightly fishy smell. Fortunately it wasn’t the fridge, but a whole pod of humpback whales giving an amazing sunrise display of breaching and tail slapping as they pass on their way north to their summer feeding grounds of the Arctic.

Amazing Le Mans start, 1st to have the code 1 up and charging away near the front of the pack! Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, we were miming and ahhing about changing sail, decision made to switch after lunch…

Not waiting for us to eat lunch, the code 1 decided to split from head to toe (technically the foot), amazingly captured by the folk on Unicef!

The WTC rowing team was assembled in record time and the tennis court sized sail, now trawling for fish in the sea at the side of the boat was hauled back on board and code 2 hoisted.

Serious damage had occurred, David and Susie inspected the sail and pictures were sent to Hyde sails for advice, it was unclear if the sail could be repaired on the boat or not. This was a serious blow at the start of the lightest of light wind legs- we would be seriously hampered without this huge lightweight floaty sail!

After a couple of days a plan was made and the team assembled, almost 24/7 to attempt to fix her. A valiant effort and after days she was ready to fly again (with a reduced wind rating) an absolute heroic effort from the sail makers and the rest of the team to keep them motivated, fed and watered whilst cooped up below decks all hours of the day and night!

Meanwhile the weather remained pretty cool and very windy, within 24 hours we had the code 3 flying in 30 knots – bit of an eye opener for the new crew and some unexpected thrilling sailing for the rest of us!

Not having the code 1 slowed us down for a few days, but really the weather gods looked on us kindly and we didn’t loose too much ground!

After a lot of moaning about the lack of wildlife and the cold, all of a sudden the heating was turned up and the sun came out to play as we came level with Mexico.

The heat was searing and below deck became a furnace, appetites reduced and the shady areas of the deck became part of the rotation whilst on watch.

The first major event of the race was the scoring gate, this we were narrowly “ahem” pipped to the post by Bermuda after some very close racing, still bagging another 2 points which can’t be taken away!

The next part of the race was a bit complicated, in that there was 5 finish gates and the finish line. Essentially we needed to try come first over every line as no one, even the race office, know which gate would eventually be chosen as the finish line when the wind runs out.

Some great tactics got us over the first line in 1st, we were closely pipped to the second line by Punta. The third line was really just bad sailing, we were in a close battle with Punta for 1st and 2nd until a few almighty squalls hit. The first couple we rode out valiantly but unfortunately decided to drop our kite for the 3rd- to be fair it was an almighty black ominous looking cumulonimbus with lightning, and we didn’t want to break another sail, so down came the code 2. Unfortunately the cloud turned out to be all bark and no real bite, so Punta managed to storm ahead and take second and in the mean time Bermuda took 3rd whilst Halong Bay got lucky missing the squalls and took 1st.

Never mind, we’ll just keep going for the next gate and hopefully they’ll call it at 4… sadly despite coming 2nd over the line, the other boats ran out of wind further back up the course and so we ultimately took 4th place. Not a bad result, we sailed well, had a great team but doesn’t reflect our 1/2nd positioning for most of the race, but that’s the weather gods for you!

Takeaway memories from the race…

The awful dead meat smell in the corridor- a hunt to find the source if the foul smell initially led the sniffer to Ben’s boots, the bed sheets, bunk areas, all shoes and boots had to be sniffed in the process. Turned out a can of kidney beans was rotting in the bilge below so after the real source was removed and disinfected Ben and Dave were owed an apology for their stinky boots😂

How long is Mexico? Turns out it is huge! Much much longer than the USA coast! We seemed to be sailing past Mexico FOREVER!

Then Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica were all done in a flash!

Crazy squalls, almost every night, with the most spectacular lightning and rain storms

Once we got closer to the coast the wildlife was spectacular. Seeing the humpbacks breaching just behind the boat was such a highlight!

Seals who just lay on their backs floating with a flipper in the air were very common close to Seattle and San Francisco

Turtles, so many turtles! When the sea was calmer as we sailed past the last of Mexico and the other Central American countries there were soooo many turtles. Midday they seem to come and float near the surface, so much that we had to try and steer around them!

Boobies! Yes so many of these huge seabirds in the sky soaring around, especially around sunset. Off the Mexican coast we had Jeffery come to join us on the push pit for an overnight stay. He landed, ignored our attempts to chase him off and spent a lovely evening looking out to sea, pooping on the deck! Several others took to the bowsprit but none were as friendly as Jeffery.

And last of all- the dolphins, so many dolphins, big ones, plain ones, spotty ones and the cool little spinner dolphins who always seem so excited to come play with the boats now wave and give a great show!