Plan B
23 June 2015 | Turtle Bay
Mark
Jana's flight was at 7:30, but I was up at 6:00 making coffee. She was up shortly after that as was Bryan. As we were enjoying coffee, Jana saw a plane coming. Sure enough, it circled and came in to a landing approach. It was only 6:30. Now, I have seen the plane 1 hr or even 2 hrs. late, but EARLY?? Something is wrong. On the other hand, there is only one flight in or out of Porvinir for the next week so this MUST be it. We quickly launched dink, loaded everything up and headed for the dock. I was going fairly fast, partly to hurry and partly to keep the bow up and Jana dry when BAM!! We hit a reef HARD. The engine popped up and died. Then the RIB itself was stuck on the reef. Fortunately there was quite a swell running and the next wave washed us off. I got the engine running again and made it to the dock. As we crossed the 'lawn' of the Guna Hotel a man asked if we were for the plane. We said, "Yes" and he quickly ran to the runway and flagged the pilot to wait. Then he handed Jana a manifest for to "fill out everything" - name, passport number, dob, weight, everything. When done, he grabbed it and quickly escorted Jana to the plane. They stowed her luggage, loaded her aboard and were off. No one ever checked anything on the form, or her ticket or bags or anything. But, she made her flight and was on her way to Panama City. (She made it safely.) The 'agent' explained that the plane leaves Panama City @ 6:30. Sometimes it goes to Corizon de Jesus first and sometimes it comes here first. You never know, so the "7:30" ticket was just a joke. When you see the plane, get to the airstrip! We asked and were told that the Maritimo opened @ 7:30 (though later found the sign said 7:00) so had a cup of really bad coffee while waiting. As we were walking across the airstrip to the Maritimo office, we passed the Port Capitan. He asked what we needed and said OK go there now and someone would help us. After a bit of a wait, they did and we now have a Cruising permit for another year and a zarpe to Bocas. We got into dink and CAREFULLY went around the reef and back to the boat, except that when I revved the engine, nothing happened. Yes, we had spun the prop when we hit the reef. It sort of worked at idle, but had no power. Fortunately Always was down wind and we made it OK, but the dink is history until we get home and get a new prop. (I had a spare, but loaned it to Roger and haven't got it back yet.) When we tried to weigh anchor, the windless died and refused to restart for several minutes. It had been 'pausing' for the last several times, but this was the first LONG pause. This could be a problem it we are trying to pick up anchor and have say 30' to go in 20' of water as we would drift and possibly snag the anchor. Another problem. As we motored to Chichime, there was 20+ kts of wind on the nose and 9-10' seas. We were barely making 4 kts with both engines. I checked and if we left now, we could make Turtle Bay by 5:30 @ 5 kts. With this wind (it will be behind us) we will go faster than 5 kts. I called a crew meeting. Bryan pointed out that Turtle Bay has a marina and if the windless acts up maybe we can get help there. Deb was agreeable either way. So, we set sail for Turtle Bay. We came into the wind and raised the main. As soon as we fell off and let the traveler down to Port, the motion smoothed out and we accelerated. Once gennie was out and set, we were cruising at 7-8 kts, quite comfortably. There were still 9-10' waves, but they were on the stbd stern quarter and would drop once we got past the reefs and were closer to shore. And that is what happened - a fast and fairly comfortable sail. Around noon the wind faded and our speed dropped below 5 kts, but we had made enough time already that it was OK. Then the wind shifted from NE to N and we picked up speed to over 5 kts again. Entering Turtle Bay was "interesting." There was surf breaking everywhere. Much rougher than when we were here before. We had good waypoints however and there were channel markers, so we went in. The first anchor set was too close to a reef on our Port side so we picked it up and moved, getting a much more comfortable set. The windless worked fine. We'll spend the night here and then head for Escuda de Veraguas tomorrow. That will be 24-36 hours, so I probably won't post anything tomorrow.