Panama to French Polynesia – Photos and Video from Pacific Crossing

TO FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Thank you everyone for your lovely ‘CONGRATULATIONS’.
All your words of encouragement, that we were able to receive, really made the trip. We appreciate you all taking the time everyday to send us something to cheer up the days. When you are way out to sea a message from home makes you feel less lonely. When we finally get some internet, we look forward to reading your comments.

PHOTOGRAPHS AND VIDEO FROM THE TRIP

You have been very patient guys.  I have finally gotten a fast enough internet connection to upload video and photos.  SO here they are…starting with some photos.

As you have all been reading we crossed from the Panama Canal to French Polynesia.

Our trip started out very good.  We had fair winds to sail out of Panama City across the Bay out to the Las Perlas islands.

After so much time in the city, I was very happy to have a big beach to myself.  All the coconuts to chase a dog could ever want.

The humans did a few repairs and cleaned the hull for the crossing.

A very bad lightning storm scared ‘the pants off’ the crew of Spirit of Argo, so we rushed to get away from Panamanian waters.

The waters in the Gulf of Panama were very productive.  We saw lots of dolphins and caught a lot of fish.

Unfortunately we had wind on the nose and we left a zig zag of tacking patterns across the Panamanian Basin between the Coco Islands to the North and the Gallegos Islands to the South.

The long trip took a little bit of a toll on the boat.  These birds even managed to damage both the VHF areal and the wind indicator.

When the local wildlife was not damaging the boat, they were great fun to chase off.

I did my best to keep everyone’s spirits up.

And it was also my duty to ‘hog’ the sea berth.

The sea conditions were generally pretty rough, but we did get some nice days were we could enjoy ourselves.  One of the high lights of the trip was crossing the Equator, and Posiden was very happy with our offering of some ‘bubbles’.

After the Equator we found the trade winds finally at about 4* South.  We were finally on the ‘home stretch to French Polynesia.  Land fall the island of Fatu Hiva.

And I finally let the humans have a drink to celebrate.

Nice to make landfall!

This sailing stuff is for the birds.