Panama Stopover
As noted, I arrived into Panama, feeling like absolute shit...literally. While everyone got to order drinks and appetizers at the bar, I was stuck doubled over in two chairs trying not to die and waiting patiently for our check in time at the hotel we booked. Around 3 in the afternoon, we were finally allowed to go to our hotel to check in. A group of us took three cabs over to our destination. When our cab initially drove up, he had a passenger sitting in the front, but Amancio explained we needed to fit four people, oh no problem said the cab driver, four in the back. So Amancio, myself, Posh and Ana all squeezed into the back of the cab. After our fun little ride, we finally made it to the hotel, got checked in and then had a quick rest and finally a nice long shower after four weeks in the hot sun. Felt amazing. I then laid in bed the rest of the day, but managed to get up and join the others for dinner at...wait for it...TGIFs, which was located in our hotel. I still wasn't feeling great so ordered a Shirley Temple and potato skins, with plans of getting a big fat dessert afterwards. However, once I had one of the not so great potato skins, I wasn't feeling so hot and went up to my room to sleep the rest of the night.
The next morning, I was feeling slightly better. We happened to have a view of the entry of the canal outside our window so were able to see GB, Mission, and Garmin making their way over. We had some breakfast at the hotel, then lazed around the rest of the afternoon. We had high hopes of actually doing something but had to get laundry done and I was still getting sick randomly throughout the day. Some of the others watched the fútbol match downstairs at TGIFs, but I wasn't able to hang out for too long before needing to excuse myself again. So I worked on my blog in my room and then around 8 pm, I mustered the energy to go out with the others for some food and drinks in the Old Town area.
I am so glad I forced myself to go out because it was so nice. I wish our stopover here was much longer as the little town would be really fun to hang out in. We had dinner at Tantalon, ordering way too many tapas plates, all very delicious though. I ended up sticking with my ginger ale drink and laying off the alcohol just in case though, just having a little bit of wine. We checked out the rooftop bar upstairs after and then Amancio, Ana, and I did a little walking tour around the city. We got ourselves some Panama hats and then eventually some frozen yogurt. If you thought the states had options of toppings, think again. This place had anything you could think of to put on your yogurt, amazing! And perfect cap to the night, even though I had to use the restroom shortly afterwards yet again...
Dinner
We got back around eleven, but I still had stuff I needed to wrap up, so ended up staying up all night by the elevators where the internet worked better to get my shit done. Around 3:30 AM, I finally made it back to my room; however, we had to be downstairs by 4:45 AM to check out and be at the docks by 5:30. As such, I never went to bed, but just had a nice big cappuccino while we were waiting for the cabs.
Everyone made it to the boats on time, so no one was left behind (we were told that would happen if we were late) and we even had two "new" crew members joining us for the Panama crossing, which were Jesse who rejoined us and Andy from GB who did my level one training with me. We were quickly off and then met up with the pilot boat who transferred us our pilot for the crossing.
Waiting for our turn to go in
It was finally our turn to go through the locks. In order for us to go through the locks, we had to tie up to one another, so it was PSP in the middle, us on their port side and DaNang on their starboard side. Max, skipper on PSP, steered all three boats from the middle and Wendo and Huw had to make sure their boats were pointed straight. Once we motored up to the locks, two men on either side of the locks threw over a line with a weight at the bottom that everyone on the boats had to steer clear of and then these were tied to our bow and steer lines on either side of the boats. These lines kept the group of boats centered as we went through the canals and the men on the locks also walked the boats through from lock to lock once the water filled up. For the big ships, they have trains with lines that go along either side of the canal which move them through. So we motored through the first lock, the massive walls closing in behind us and then we quickly floated up as the water filled in around us. I felt like I was in the Haunted House ride at Disneyland when you enter the elevator and the walls move up around you. No one else seemed to agree with me, but was quite cool.
Going through the locks
Once the water filled all the way, the gates in front opened and we were walked to the next section, which was now the same water level as us. There were three sections in the first lock. I managed to film most of the crossing adding amazing commentary as we went through. We then hit a small lake area where we motored to the second lock and went through there. After the second lock, we were in the big lake that is in the middle of the canal. During this section, the boats split up and we anchored for several hours, transferring our pilot off and waiting for the next one to come later that evening.
While we waited, a massive squall hit. When we first anchored, we decided to be lazy and just tie up to PSP and use their anchor. Unfortunately, once the squall hit, the wind was too strong, so we had to untie and then anchor ourselves and PSP had to re-anchor, which I am sure they were so happy with us with about! Along with the squall came massive quantities of rain, so I was sufficiently soaked through to the bone after the hour of pounding rain. But once the rain cleared, we had the Latin music out and Alex was teaching me her dance moves up on deck and Tino was running away from me as he wasn't quite ready to handle my awesome dance moves just yet.
Fooling around while Huw is trying to anchor
Hiding from the rain
Can't stop dancing, dancing...
Once we settled down, I was on the hunt for crocodiles. Crocodiles line the Panama canal up and down the locks and in the water, so I was determined to see some on my passage. At first, I just looked out over the water, but there are so many plants growing out in different areas that it is hard to decipher if what I was seeing were plants or something else. So I went and grabbed the binoculars. Within five minutes, I spotted what appeared to be the head of a crocodile and every so often I'd see the ridge of its back float up to the surface. But it had not moved for quite awhile so I still wasn't sure and just kept a watchful eye. All of a sudden it started moving down the river and I knew I had actually spotted one! I screamed out loud that I found one and Tino who was standing next to me, grabbed the binoculars to confirm. After a few minutes, he said, well you actually found one. Holla...my first real sighting of wildlife! A few more people came to check out my discovery including Huw, Amancio, Alex, and Emily. Then I continued to stare it down. As I watched it travel down the lake, I found four more congregating around it in the same section, so I found five in total! Unfortunately, you could only see them through the binoculars, so I wasn't able to get a picture of any of them. I've come to the conclusion that I am much better at spotting crocodiles than sharks...
After we waited around for several hours, the second pilot boat finally came for us, dropping off our new pilot for the second half of the crossing. We separately motored through the rest of the lake which took a couple of hours before we made it to the last lock. Going through the locks at night was quite cool with all the lights glimmering off the water. I got some good shots and then we were finally through and into the Caribbean Sea, immediately motoring out to meet up with the other boats who already started to motor out to the race start line. It was around 11 PM when we finally finished the crossing.
Since we were the last group to cross, we had to immediately go out to the race start and not spend any time on land on the other side of the canal. The next morning, we were up early for the morning shift from 0600 to 1200. We had met up with the rest of the fleet during the night and now GB was gunning for us so they could get their watch leader, Andy who was still on our boat, back. It looked like Peter was on a mission the way he was coming for us, so we went down and woke Huw so he wouldn't be half asleep when Peter radioed over.
Shortly after, we received the call to get the transfer set up. Mind you, we were currently in the middle of the ocean, no where to dock up next to for a nice, safe transfer. When we had practiced these maneuvers at training, it usually consisted of the transferee jumping in the water with a line attached and swimming to the other boat, where he received another line to pull him in. So the entire time, we were giving Andy a hard time that he would have to swim over to his boat. Luckily for him, Peter knows his shit and we were able to make a boat to boat transfer without anyone going in the water. Each boat had their fenders out and then Huw drove a steady course as Peter came up along side us and then Andy closed his eyes, said his prayers and jumped over to his boat! Well it wasn't that dramatic. He literally stood on the outside of the guardrail, holding onto the runner and then stepped over to his boat and we handed him his other bag and he handed back the life jacket he was borrowing from us. Quite an undramatic transfer, but fun nonetheless and all on film!
The race start was scheduled for 3 PM that day. However, there was no wind, so Rich, new skipper on Ichorcoal, put in a request to delay the race start and keep motoring until we could find some wind. We got permission to delay the start until the next morning at around 0500 and continued to motor through the next night. The night motor was uneventful except when we hit another squall. The wind came again, forcing us to put a reef in and then the rain came. Again, I was soaked through from head to toe after I had just managed to finally get my shorts dry from the previous beating. The other watch made it through without any squalls hitting.
Karri is our instructional MOB swimmer
Leg 7 - Race 2: Panama to New York City
The next morning I was mother, so I proceeded to sleep through the race start so I would be able to make it through the day. I hear we had a good start and were about mid fleet at the end of it per usual. This was quite possibly the worst mother experience of my life in terms of heat. It was so insanely hot and stifling. I must have sweat out a gallon or more of water throughout the day. It also happened to be Sean's birthday that day, so Ana whipped up one of her famous chocolate cakes to celebrate with. After we had finished up dinner and were getting the cake ready to sing happy birthday, a wave crashed overhead and through the galley hatch and all over the cake. We managed to pour the excess water off but when we attempted to dab the water off with a paper towel, it managed to take most of the frosting off that had already melted all over the cake from the heat. Ana then had the genius idea of adding a caramel sauce on top, so our spoiled cake turned into a masterpiece of salted caramel chocolate cake...so yummy!
Our mother watch finally came to an end and it was my turn to sleep in the mother bunk, which on our boat is the mate's bunk, opposite the skipper bunk on the other side of the nav station. As it is quite warm still we had all the hatches open still. There were the occasional waves coming over but nothing worth shutting the hatches for on the low side. But of course, a huge wave crashed as I was there. So while I was sleeping, I took a wave to the stomach waking me up only an hour after I had fallen asleep. I was hoping it was just a rouge wave and turned the opposite direction so my legs were on the wet part, but within seconds another bigger wave came through, dumping buckets of sea water all over me! After shutting the hatch and wringing out my sheet, I was forced to get up and find another place to sleep. We are a full boat right now, so there are not too many options. I scoped out the sail locker but that too was quite wet and then proceeded to kick Jesse off the saloon bench so I could sleep there. Although Ana and I had shut the galley hatch during our shift, someone else must have opened it again, because within an hour I was getting soaked again from water crashing over the galley hatch and onto the bench where I was sleeping...I just can't stay dry on this damn race! My shorts will be eternally wet...insert comment from Leo here...
Dolphins!
It is now the second of June...JUNE...can you believe it is June already! WTH! Where have the months gone. Anyhow, we have just miraculously come up in first place in the scheds! Amazeballs. Again, the fleet is still quite close together so there is much time for us all to get separated and we keep tacking back and forth to make it through Cuba and Haiti, so you would probably end up with a different leader every time you check the scheds. Either way, is a good moral booster and keeps us pushing hard. Hopefully, the next couple of days, we can stay in the front with the lead boats.
...
Well true to Visit Seattle form, we found the wind hole. Last night, all shit went to hell. As we were up in the lead, we hit the wind hole first, meaning all the boats had ample time to catch up to us. What we then did is fail miserably to get out of the wind hole first and managed to let most of the other boats pass us up and take the lead. It was right around watch change at 10 PM when we lost ground against the rest of the boats. As I came up on deck, the other watch was preparing to drop the windseeker and hoist code 1. We did this without much complications minus the infestation of bugs that came out of the code 1 bag as it was hoisted. I took over the helm and we were hitting good speeds, trying to find the optimal angle to get the best speed. At the half hour we switched helms, right as the wind was dying. Amancio did his best to keep the kite afloat but there wasn't enough wind. At that point is when we should have dropped the code and rehoisted the windseeker again but we were determined to get the code to fly. Eventually the code lost all lift and was hanging lifelessly, so we dropped it to the deck. Our second mistake then was not hoisting the windseeker right away again instead we were trying some crazy shit with the main which was not working since there was no wind to push the boat forward. After drifting aimlessly for awhile and nearly into GBR, I went to wake up Huw who had us put the windseeker back up. Immediately, we were back on track and able to steer again. At this point it was watch change again. As I checked the nav before going to bed, we saw that the lead boats were making 5-6 knots against our 1 knot. Last I heard we were gybing to make their same angle. However, it took over 20 minutes to get the gybe set up loosing us precious miles as the other boats sped off.
This morning we are still with the pack but in the back. We are constantly checking trim and trying to stay up with them, but they always seem to be faster and are slowly creeping away. This is the point where we have to make the next tactical decision around which island to go around so it is helpful to stay close enough to the other boats to see which way they go. After seeing Garmin kick our ass as we looked over to starboard seeing them crushing it through the water with a kite, we decided to give it a go even though we would be flying it at a fifty degree angle, which is quite upwind for a downwind kite. We had it hoisted quickly after making our decision and it seemed to be getting us a slightly faster pace. Now I'm off watch again and it looks as though the wind picked up, code 1 was dropped and yankee 1 hoisted and now code 1 is being hoisted again...
...
So it is a few watches later, we are still in stealth mode and we are now back to third place after dropping back to seventh. I may have forgotten to mention that we went into stealth mode right before we hit the windhole so it ended up being pointless as all the boats were right next to us watching our every move. Our watchful supporters never knew the annoyance we went through going down to seventh and only saw us going from first to third. Safe to say, we are ecstatic to be back in the lead, albeit third.
Today, we crossed the scoring gate and for the first time since the beginning of the race have scored a place getting second! Garmin was still in stealth mode at the time, but has since come out and we know they got first. They are now in the lead only fifteen miles in front of us. Telemed is twenty miles behind us and we are still holding second place. We now have about 900 miles until New York to try and keep the lead...fingers crossed we don't do anything stupid this time!
Woo who!
...
So the race has almost come to an end and we are barely holding on to our third place position surprisingly...yes, Telemed easily overtook us. Yesterday brought us storm Colin, which had us rocking it in the beginning, averaging up to 14 knots. However, with the rough conditions, we managed to wrap code 2, which we brought down swiftly and luckily with no tears. We prepped yankee 3, but were still hitting top speeds with just the full main. I, of course, had to come down and help check the kite for any damage being on the sail repair team, yet again missing out on all the fun action on deck. While I was down wooling the kite after we checked it, the crew up on deck started to put a reef in. The wind was quite strong at this point and it sounded deathly from below. When I looked up out through the sail locker hatch, I could see the mast jumping all over the place and not from side to side, but it was swaying from the bow to the stern, which didn't seem right. We were heeled over in the wrong direction and the runner wasn't on right. I mentioned it to Posh, who was with me, that I thought for sure we were about to be demasted and I couldn't take my eyes away, waiting for it to go. But I tried to reassure myself that I just don't look at the mast from this angle and it probably does that all the time in heavy winds. However, once I came back on deck, I learned that we had crashed gybed and were very close to being demasted! So I actually wasn't overreacting this time!
One by one, more reefs were put in by the other watch and eventually the staysail was replaced with the storm jib, which I think is where we went wrong, but one can never know. Once we came back on deck after our six hour off watch, we were barely making 4 knots. We quickly put the staysail back up and hoisted yankee 2 and then started shaking out more reefs. Unfortunately during that period we lost out thirty miles to the boats in back. So we've been trying to hold our thirty mile lead with only two days to go, which is plenty of time for the closest boat to overtake us.
As I just awoke now, I feel the boat floating around, no wind again. GBR, the closest boat, is now within twenty miles and most likely quickly approaching since we have little wind. Our only hope is that they are also being affected by these same conditions and not gaining too much on us. The wind will optimally fill in for us first and we will have to take full advantage of it and try to pull away before GBR catches up with us so we can clench third place. It will be a nail biting finish for us here on Visit Seattle praying for our first podium finish!
In other news, I think Sean will hold a grudge against me forever as I came up with the genius idea of making breakfast burritos for lunch. Unfortunately for him, Bam Bam decided to go through with my idea yesterday when they were both on mother duty and whilst we were in the middle of storm Colin. They were a huge hit and I think well worth all the trouble they went through, again Sean may not agree with me, but I fully appreciate the efforts they went through!
...
We did it! We came in third place into New York! We are over the moon and I think it is a well deserved podium finish for us. We can't wait to finish the 50+ mile motor into New York and finally celebrate!
The past few days have been a blur. We did sail change after sail change to keep our position. The leading boats were pulling ahead but we already knew our battle with them was over and we were just trying to keep our third place spot. We managed to barely stay ahead of GBR as they started to show up on AIS just hours before we were about to cross the finish line. This meant they were closer, but we were also able to monitor their moves, minute by minute and knew we were going faster and with a better wind angle. I was off watch and bugging Huw in the nav station as we waited for the finish line to approach. As we were five miles out, we all went up on deck to eagerly await our first podium finish! Huw took the helm and took us over the finish line. We all cheered, Amancio had a song waiting to play, and we went around hugging and congratulating everyone for their hard work during this leg. It has been a long race for the Round the Worlders and it makes it that much sweeter that we have actually managed to secure a podium finish finally! Hopefully, this will motivate us for the upcoming races and we continue to be rockstars out on the ocean. Go Visit Seattle! #rockstars
Other notable mentions from this leg...Lucy's amazing fashion sense with the safety pins pants closure; singing every song we knew by heart while trying to stay up on our night watches; and the unforgettable peanut butter shortage!!!
And more random photos...
Funnel cloud!
All hands ready to grind the shit out of the kite!
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