In for a blow!

Ensenada Benao, Panama

After two blissfully tranquil nights in Bahia Honda, it was time to move on. We knew the next couple of passages were bound to be more challenging, but the strong winds still took us a bit by surprise.

For the first half of the journey, the winds were light and we even managed to sail for a few hours - everything was looking pretty good. As night fell and we started rounding the point at Punta Mariato, we picked up some favorable current along with light headwinds - we were motoring along very nicely. Sometime around 3AM, the winds, from right on the nose of course, picked up to 12 to 18 knots. We attempted to sail for a while but with the bad angle we could make, we made little forward progress, and ended up motorsailing the rest of the night.

As dawn broke, we found ourselves beating into the tidal rips off of Morro de Puercos, probably staying a bit too far off shore. The boat had lots of fun climbing and diving into the steep waves. Our favorable current seemed to have left us as well and we made very slow progress for several hours.

As we approached our destination at Ensenada Benao, the winds just kept getting stronger, and constantly from directly in front of us. We motored with just our double-reefed mainsail up, tacking back and forth into 18 to 25 knots of wind and nasty wind-waves - very slow, bumpy ride.

Entering the bay at Ensenada Benao, around noon, the winds did not abate, although the sea was much smoother. We set our anchor outside of a couple of other boats that were already here, and watched the winds climb into the low 30s in the afternoon. We kept a careful watch on our anchor but it seemed to be well set. A couple on one of the other boats, Neil and Peggy on Night Sky (another Canadian boat) gave us a ride to shore in their dinghy, where we were able to stretch our legs and get some food and drink at one of the surf hangouts which abound here - apparently this is a sort of surfer's paradise.

As far as the boat and equipment goes, everything is holding together quite well, except for our primary netbook computer, which has totally failed, taking with it some irreplaceable data. I have managed to get our backup netbook up and running and briefly connected to the internet via our big Wifi antenna - thus making this blog entry possible, although not enough of a connection for photos.

The other two boats left this morning to challenge Punta Mala on their way to Panama City. We have elected to wait another day in hopes of a more favorable forecast around the point. Checking the "spot" forecasts and grib files this morning are making us think it unlikely it will get any better for the next week. Most likely we will venture around the point tomorrow.

{GMST}07|25.533|N|80|11.411|W|Ensenada Benao, Panama|Ensenada Benao, Panama{GEND}