We enjoy a light and tasty dinner while watching the fiery sunset. With a full belly and darkness falling, I gets sleepy. I settle in the cockpit to take a nap, wishing to keep John company, but after a couple of hours spent turning and tossing I go down for a more comfortable sleep. With serious eyes and pointing a finger at me, I make John promise to wake me up when or if he gets tired "Sure!" he say, fully knowing he is lying thru his teeth... John enjoy traveling in the dark, the only way for him to sleep during an overnighter is to be totally exhausted and that would certainly take more than just three hours.

There is a full, bright moon, casting the sea in a silvery shimmer; it never gets totally dark. We can clearly see the outline of the coast in the distance, the occasional fishing boat far away. For a few hours everything is so quiet, to the point of almost boring. We check the chart to make sure we are on course and also verify nobody is around on the radar just to make sure everything is all right and to break the monotony. Around midnight, however, we are about to get all the excitement I can handle...

The AIS and radar screen is alerting to the presence of three large cargo ships heading down the coast, and a cruise ship which course is directly on our nose! The first a few miles away, the second 14 miles, the third 21 miles; one after the other, coming from all angle. It's true that we decided to stay well off the coast to avoid fishing vessels and nets, putting ourselves close to the shipping channel frequented by cargo and cruise ships! It's a big, blue ocean out there and we always seems to have behemoths aiming straight at us regularly. Playing around with our trusted electronics we discover that they are traveling at a speed between 18 to 20 knots against our 9.5. We will just have to keep an eye on them, there's quite some time before I have to take any decisions to wake up John or make any adjustments to our course.

A word on our electronics that I LOVE so much: We have radar, which is great, my seeing-eyes in the night; then we have AIS, which is a God sent marvel, supplying enormously helpful information. AIS stands for Automatic Identification System. All commercial vessels carry it, and some pleasure crafts too -we are one of them-. What it does: it spots vessels around you, signaling their direction in relation to yours. It provides their name -in case you need to hail them on the radio-, which we have done many time, length and width, type of vessel (cargo, cruise, oil tanker). It reveals their speed, destination and most of all it tells you in no uncertain terms in how much time it's going to intersect your course, and at what exact distance you are going to pass each other (closest point of approach). Basically, it provides you with every piece of information you need about the other vessels around you, short of what their Captain had for dinner. This piece of equipment is worth every one of the many thousands of pennies we paid for it. AIS and a pair of eyes (for those without AIS) on deck are our best friend!

So I'm just mildly nervous as the cruise ship gets closer; anyone who have been on a cruise knows how big these boat can be... I decide that if she doesn't change her course within 4 miles from me, I'm going to hail them on the radio. In the unlikely chance they won't answer me, at 2 miles' distance I'll change my course. There, I feel better already, knowing what to do... But there's no need, as I see that they change their course just a smidge. We'll be passing each other port to port at a distance of 1.30 miles. A little closer than I'd like, close enough to smell their burning fuel but safe enough, no need to do anything. Of course these ships are so big and very well lit, and I see them clearly coming up closer. It's quite a fascinating sight!

The next one, a cargo, travelling at a faster speed and starting to alter her course just enough to avoid us. The next one is a cargo going to Panama and going fast! Just as I'm relaxing, I see there's another one coming up pretty fast behind us and to our right, going to Guatemala. All of a sudden I feel like the cream in an Oreo cookie! Panama is an impressive sight at night. A smidge of alarm rises, my eyes stay glued to the screen to monitor every move, every change of direction. We don't have much space to maneuver, surrounded like this! So we must be vigilant. But they are all true professionals and eventually stay far enough away from us even alter course according to the Collision Regulation as they can see us on their AIS system as well without any need for us to alter our course. They all pass by, leaving Sete Mares on its course in their wake. By then we are both on deck and awake, time for a muffins and a tea.

Unless you are in the vicinity of a shipping lane or the Panama Canal you need all eyes on deck otherwise the rest of the nights are quiet, with just a couple of mysterious big fins flapping about and sometimes ending on our deck "flying fish" you can tell when that happen as you get the smelling of fish really strong.

We spend the rest of the trip dodging more tankers and cargo ship until just before sunrise and finally anchored in front of Shelter Bay Marina avoiding a ground cargo ship without ligth outside the dangerous cargo anchorage area and arrive at destination. Las Hadas, finally! The trip lasted less than 3 days, the difference a benevolent current can make.

Once we slept a few hour and late morning we made our way in Shelter Bay marina.