The Nature Cruise

We left Providencia on Wednesday morning about 0800 heading for Panama. Astarte is a sailboat and we decided we would try to save fossil fuel and sail as much as possible - even if it meant going quite slow. The weather window was at least three days long - so as long as it held, we'd be okay. The sun was shining, the seas were very flat and the wind was light - and unfortunately coming from the direction we were heading. So we tacked back and forth going about 4 knots - but making only about 1 knot towards the destination. That meant it would take us 250 hours to get there! Yikes. But we persisted, hoping the wind would back (as predicted) as we went along. If the sails weren't clanging and banging, we'd sail.

That lasted until the wind really died causing the sails to go slack and bang around. This isn't good for the sails or the sailors as the noise is annoying. We'd turn the motor on when this happened. What was funny is that over the next few days we would sail longer than we'd motor - but we'd motor further than we'd sail. A few hours of motoring took us further than sailing for three times as long. But it was really pleasant out - and we enjoyed sailing and being out on such beautiful days.

Plus, we saw some really cool things. About 10 miles south of Providencia, in the late afternoon (yes it took us most of the day to get about ten miles), we saw about eight whales basking in the sun on the surface. We could see them spouting water and just lazing there. We couldn't quite tell what type they were - they were larger than pilot whales (at least we think so). So if anyone knows what type of whales are around the western Caribbean at this time of year - let us know. We stopped the boat and just watched them for about a half hour seeing a whale tale and a head pop every so often. Then we moved on, now keeping a closer eye out for the large mammals so we wouldn't hit one.

Another interesting sight was all the large dark colored moths that were floating in the water. These were very large - about seven to nine inches long and dark colored. There was one every so often floating in the water and we wondered if they were exhausted from a migration or perhaps got blown offshore in some storm.

Then there were also a lot of man-of-war jellyfish. They are very interesting - though you certainly don't want a close encounter with one while swimming.

The best part of the nature cruise so far (other than the whales) was the mahi that was curious enough to grab at our "Mexican flag" lure and get caught! (Thanks for the lure, Tommy) It was a relatively small one, but he was caught at 0915 on Thursday morning and cooked that night for dinner. Talk about fresh!

It's been flat enough that cooking hasn't been an issue. Barbara tries to prepare a few meals prior to offshore passages. We had some lasagna, eggplant parmesan (M.R.'s recipe), and black beans and rice ready for our dining pleasure - things that are easy to heat up. But because it was so flat, we could easily cook up the fish. We do try for a nice hot dinner everyday on passage at sunset before we begin our watches. That is unless it's too rough and nobody feels like eating anything. But this passage has been quite pleasant - though the motor is running more than we wish.

It's Friday morning and we're under sail doing between 2 and 2.5 knots. We'll be out one more night and then we'll motor to get in. Destination is now Porto Bello.

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