Pitufa.at

The Las Perlas Archipelago lies about 40 nm southeast of Panama City. These emerald green islands are fringed with golden beaches, but rocks and tidal currents make navigation a bit tricky. On the Pacific coast of Panama the tidal range is about 5 metres–we have to get used to that after spending a while in the Caribbean with hardly any tides… Most of the islands… Continue reading »

We had an initially slow then slightly rough sail from Taboga to Contadora yesterday (strong trade winds and a current between 1 and 2 knots against us), but we caught two Bonitos and had a BBQ on Spruce in the evening. We won’t stay long here in Contadora–the anchorage is full with powerboats (20-30) and jetskis race by ruthlessly. At times Pitufa pitches violently–not because… Continue reading »

After 2 months in the San Blas Islands we sailed with a decent wind to mainland Panama. After spending so much time away from civilisation (the last car we saw was in Cartagena…) we’ll have to adjust and then start organising: we have to arrange a transit through the canal, get spare parts, repair things, etc. in order to prepare for the Pacific!

Today, for the first time since we’ve arrived in Panama, we sailed again, i.e., that kind of sailing with sails hoisted and wind to fill them The trip was not very long though, but including the difficulties we had in the morning with our chain fouled at the bottom and the two anchering manoeuvres at Isla Porvenir (the first spot was too tight) it was… Continue reading »

The rain stopped, the sun is out again, and we moved to another anchorage a few miles further to the West. We didn’t like the actual anchorage here since is was filled already with 17 (!) other yachts so we simply dropped anchor south of the bigger island of the Chichime Cays. We don’t like to imagine what it’s like in high season in these… Continue reading »

The weather turned beautiful again yesterday. It’s not just back to normal, which used to mean nice, sunny mornings but then rainy and squally afternoons, no, it’s really beautiful now. It seems Hurricane Sandy sucked away all the humid air and disposed of it further north. After almost a week in Nargana we are now at the outer San Blas Islands again. We wanted to… Continue reading »

After a wonderful week of relaxing and snorkeling at Coco Banderos, we moved to the nearby town of Nargana to buy some fresh veggies, some other groceries and gasoline. And of course, after a really long time, to connect to the internet again (hopefully tomorrow at the school. If the connection is good enough, we’ll upload a new picture gallery.) Nargana is a bigger Kuna… Continue reading »

Yesterday we finally managed to move to another anchorage. The rainy weather the last few days wasn’t encouraging reef navigation. We are glad we used the sunny spell as we are now anchored in the prettiest place we have been so far here in Kuna Yala. We are the only boat here, swaying gently in a deep blue canal surrounded by 3 little islets and… Continue reading »