Up and motoring at 6 a.m. Skies were clearing and looked promising for a beautiful day. As soon as we rounded Punta Naranjo we saw about 6-7 ships farther out to sea. We passed our Southern most location East of Punta Mariato at 7d. 10.123 N./ 80d. 47.944 W.
Bridget made bread yesterday so we could have french toast for breakfast today. It was a pretty calm day and we arrived to our chosen anchorage around 2:30, but didn't like the looks of it. The swells happen to actually wrap around towards it and so we decided to go the 10 more miles farther N. to Benao Cove, which from reading the cruising guides didn't sound too promising either, and if we didn't like it there, there was no other option, except to keep moving on. We arrived at Benao around 4:30 and once we got in around the detached rock island for protection, the swell wasn't too bad. After we got settled in Jim installed our steaming light- it's a light on our mast that we have to have on (according to US Coast Guard regulations) when we are motoring, and also installed our front running lights on our bow railing. The running lights on Sunshine were way back on the side of the wheelhouse and the green one on the starboard side really bothers our vision at night. Also while here we took another look at how long we still have to get Sunshine to Rio Dulce Guatamala to either store her there on a mooring or have someone deliver her home the rest of the way, hopefully starting right away in early June, and get her home by mid-August. We're also considering leaving her in Bocas del Torro, Panama on the other side of the canal, 150 miles West. But there's some other things we have to look into for that, the permits for cruisers recently changed and we don't know if that also affects boats in storage.
So we decided that going to the Perles Islands was pretty much not in our best interest. We really need to just move along to the canal and keep going. Somehow, someday, we'll make it to the Perles, but not now. Dissapointed? Yes. Upset? No.- just bummed. There is so much to see her in the Pacific Panama, we didn't even scratch the scratch. We'd pass Islands and see what the charts don't show and wonder, hmmm, it'd be nice to go explore over there. And so maybe someday we'll come back across and go through these Islands more thoroughly. But also, there are so many other places, who knows what we'll do. So we replanned our course for Isla Bona, which was still 86 miles, heading around Punta Mala (bad point), and fighting a Southbound current along the way. We decided to pull up anchor at 2 a.m.- to get to Punta Mala right at the beginning of dawn, and hopefully make it to Bona before dark.