August 14 – October 20, 2023; 10522 nm and 1674 days after departure from La Rochelle.

Even when I keep repeating myself… but boy time is flying, ain’t it? Five weeks in Europe – gone just like that! Four weeks back in Panamá passed within a wink. Does aging make us feel that time is flying? Or is it just my bad conscience not having written my blog lately and I just needed an excuse for myself…😉?

Our time in France and Germany was of course very nice. Spending time with the kids, parents and friends was special and we enjoyed every minute. Ok, maybe not quite every single minute, there were a few days which we didn’t really fancy. Imagine, somehow we AGAIN managed to catch our favourite virus, this time a very brand new type of it. Yeah! Jackpot! …maybe we should play the lottery?! It seems that we just can’t visit Germany anymore, without the honor of being somehow involved in that fabulous covid virus. Congratulations to us! Fortunately that all happened before we visited our parents. So just in time for my mums birthday I was back to be a very negative person. Yippee!!! Apart from that our visit went smoothly and we caught up with many friends and of course our family. Oh, in this context I would love to give a huge thank-you to our old neighbour friends Kissy and Alex, who were again incredible good hosts and to our dear student friends Natalie and Martin who were so generous lending us their car for the whole time. That made our stay even more enjoyable and extreeeemly comfortable! Muchas gracias a todos!
Anyhow after three weeks traveling around and seeing everybody El Capitano flew back to Altimate to work on our never ending project list. I stayed a couple of weeks longer to help my parents and spend precious time with them.

I can’t recall if I have mentioned it before but back in February we had decided to apply for an US visa. Now you might wonder why we would need a US visa as our plans were originally visiting Cuba and then spent the next hurricane season in Río Dulce, Guatemala. You might as well wonder that being a German citizen one usually do not need a visa. Correcto. In fact it is just an easy online process called ESTA which is required for foreign nationals visiting the US for up to 90 days. But for staying longer in the US and entering the country with our own vessel it was necessary to apply for a B1/B2 visa. As I said, we were not sure whether we really wanted to visit the US in the (near) future but with a visa we would be free to do so. As well Puerto Rico or the US Virgin islands could then be an easy option to visit. You never know, plans change all the time, don’t they? On top of all that, we knew we would stay the whole hurricane season in Panamá, which meant we would have a lot of time to go through an interview process as necessary. So it was more or less a no brainer to give it a shot. Decided and done! Off was the mail sent to the embassy to apply for our visas. That was, as mentioned before, in February. Clever as we were, we checked in advance if we were allowed to apply at all at the embassy in Panamá City. Not any embassy provides visa interviews for non residents. Fortunately in Panamá it was possible. So we paid the fees, applied for an interview and waited for an answer. Surprisingly fast arrived the responding email. Only a week later the interview was granted. Wow? Could that be? We thought, lucky us!! We had heard so many stories from other sailors that it had taken ages to get an interview. Ooooops shortly after our excitement of a soon interview appointment we realised that the given date was in February 2024. We only missed one tiny number. Hahaha lucky us – a whole year later🙈. What??? Damn! That was not the answer we had hoped for! For sure we didn’t want to spent that long time in Panamá. Flying back from wherever we would be by that time was also not an option for us. Well, if you now think there is an easy peasy solution – just change to another embassy! Good point, but hey unfortunately not possible (ok, unless you pay the fee again and go through the same procedure somewhere else). After being frustrated for a few weeks and almost giving up the possibility of visiting the US, El Capitano did a deep dive into the small print of the conditions of the visa application. His deep dive got rewarded. He found out that it was possible to make an emergency request. The request was possible for us because normally, we were allowed to use ESTA but not with our own vessel. So we were not fitting anywhere. That fact allowed us to apply for an emergency request!!! Yeah. Norbert used his smartest and sweetest words to write an explanation why we were desperate to visit the US. He exaggerated just a little the riskiness of hurricanes and the necessity for our visit to the states. And guess what, only a few hours later, after he had sent his extremely polite and extraordinary friendly email we received a positive answer. Yippppeeeee. And not only that, we were even asked when the interview would suit us!!! How cool was that?!!

I arrived late Thursday the 21st of September in Panama City coming from Paris. Our visa appointment was scheduled for the following Monday morning. Perfect! Norbert had picked me up from the airport and we spent the weekend in a nice airbnb in “Casco Viejo”, the old city. That got me slowly adapted back to local time as well as to local heat. At night we used the lovely ac (air conditioning) from the apartment. What a treat!!! I never would have thought that I would be able to enjoy an ac. In fact I used to hate it, buuuuut coping with the extreme humidity and hotness in Latin America I changed my mind. It does feel good once in a while not to perspire like a professional football player after a 90 minute game and melt away in your own (hopefully not smelly) sweat! Yes! I stand by it, ac can be veeeery nice!
Already knowing the city from our last visit, this time we were more focused in not doing much. Like relaxing, cooling down, having a drink, things like that. We did manage to visit two museums (the bio museum was great, highly recommendable!), went to our favourite fish restaurant at the fish market and had a few strolls through Casco Viejo. That was it – nice! Monday morning Alonso, one of our preferred taxi drivers, picked us up and took us to the embassy. In less than an hour we went through the checks and had our interview. Alonso drove us and already at midday we were back at the marina. Not only was our visa granted by the nice lady who had “interviewed” us (it felt more like a small talk while she was typing to pass the time), she even surprised us with a super fast pick up time for the passports, which was only two days later. That got us happily going! With these good news we could leave much earlier than we would have dreamed of. End of the week we could leave the marina. Yeahhhh!! Monday afternoon we got a Kärcher from friends and took the opportunity to deep clean Altimates hull. Tuesday we went for a huge grocery shopping tour. The shopping was the easy part. It took us almost all day to stow all the things away and document them. Wednesday we left the marina early to first go to Colon to get our “consentimiento” and then take the bus to Panama City to get our passports. Boy, that was a looong (10 hours) though very successful day.

I have to explain a few things. As you might have already guessed, with our new visas in our passports, we decided to actually visit the US. We have been in the Caribbean for quite some time and also heard so much from sailors about the beauty of the US east cost that we thought we will go for it. It will be a complete change of climate and culture which we are very much looking forward to. The more we think about it the more we get excited. As much as we loved the area here, with its beautiful rainforests, the easy simple living and super remote islands as much are we now looking forward to have some culture and a cooler climate. Although I’m pretty sure I will soon complain about being cold and fed up with wearing a lot of cloth, I just can’t wait to imagine how nice it would be sleeping without sweating and enjoying a warm blanket. Or even better enjoying a nice cuddle and not thinking: “please no, don’t come to close, I can’t cope with more heat”😉. Or the thought of being able to go to a supermarket and just buy whatever you need for your chosen meal. And not the other way round, you buy what you get and try to cook a meal with the ingredients you have. Or to order parts for Altimate and get them within a few days. Or just go to the cinema and watch a brand-new movie. Or, or, or… I think you get what we are looking forward to. But that’s not all! Imagine sailing to NYC with your own boat and anchor in front of the Statue of Liberty!!! Ain’t that cool?! I bet you’re already jealous 😁. In the end it was an easy decision!

Roughly our plan is first to head to the Dominican Republic, which will be a challenging trip of 7 – 10 days After that we want to spend three month in the Bahamas where Jana and Benoit will visit us and about beginning of May we will go up the US east coast all the way up to Maine passing New York, Boston and much more.

Well, we are talking here about more than 3.000 nm one way. Just to compare, our Atlantic crossing was 3.000 nm, so it is some distance we want to sail from November 2023 until August 2024. The first part getting from Panama to Dominican Republic will be the tough part. Usually you have pretty strong trade winds from the east along the Columbian coast and in the central Caribbean see with some significant waves and strong current pushing you westwards to Cuba and Mexico, but we need to go east and north. In the winter months (December to February) the trade wind is the strongest and makes it nearly impossible to make this trip. The hurricane season ends officially end of November. So, what to do? At the end of the season typically the tropical disturbances do develop in the central Caribbean and move north and after north east to the US. That creates some easing of the trade wind along the Columbian coast and a potential window for us. In short we are waiting for the right weather situation which gives us a doable close haul sail from the SanBlas to the Dominican Republic (roughly 800nm) End of October/November.
Maine is pretty far north so the sailing season starts there in June/July and we should leave end of August latests heading back to the south before the winter storms do kick in. That defines how quickly we need to get up the coast and down.
However, we are very excited about these plans and we will definitely improve our sailing skills. 😁

But now back to where we were in Shelter Bay. Thursday was supposed to be a fairly relaxed day. We had planned to already check out of the country at the marina as it is quite a hassle to check out from other places in Panamá. In the morning we had a last laundry, a quick rigg check and at about 10am we wanted to checkout at the port captains office. Usually if all goes well, the procedure is, getting the above mentioned “consentimiento” which is a paper you need to get from the port captains office in Colon. Without that paper the port captain in the marina (or other places) is not allowed to check you out. It is only valid 48 hours. (A few month ago it had cost about 5$, meanwhile we had to pay 105$. I have no clue where that money suddenly is needed for…but I could guess.) Then you visit the port captain who writes and stamps a lot, then you are ready to go to customs with your “exit zarpe”, a crew list and you should be soon ready to leave the country with exit stamps in your passports.
Organised and well prepared El Capitano went to the marina’s port captains office, which was supposed to be open from 10am to 3 pm. Well, what can I say… the office was closed. I’m not sure if that was a surprise but definitely annoying. Another hour later the lady was still not there. We asked at the marina office but they just told us that she should be there. At least after asking again, the marina lady tried to get hold of her. Nobody knew anything. We slowly got concerned. Talking to other people also didn’t lift up our hope that she might come at all. They said things like: ” Hey, we’re in Panama. It’s Thursday which is almost weekend, why should she turn up at all.” Oh no! The supposed to be relaxed Thursday turned into a stressful and unnecesarily annoying day. As well our planned leaving the next day got smaller and smaller. We didn’t know what to do, meanwhile it was already 12:30. Shall we go back to Colon and try to talk to the officials there? Not really an option as they told us the day before that we had to check out in Shelter Bay Marina where the boat was. On the other hand we didn’t want to pay this stupid “consentimiento” again if we would have to wait until the next day. Especially also not knowing whether the lady would turn up anyhow. Again we went up to the marina office to look for help. This time we run into Mr. Ranger the bus driver. Frustrated we explained him our situation (he speaks fluent English and Spanish). He told us that there was a law in Panamá which says that if it is not possible to get your official paperwork done in the office you are supposed to go and you can proof that, then you can go to another office 🙈. His opinion was to try it in Colon as he was anyhow sure that the port captain lady would not come anymore. Despite our earlier thoughts we decided to try that and I jumped in the 1pm bus to Colon. Just before leaving I also quickly checked how long the customs officer (he actually was present, yeah) would be working that day. He ‘d be there until 3:30pm. Mr. Ranger was super nice he explained again that I should make sure that they have to serve me in Colon as it was my right! I just thought, that is going to be really funny. They only speak Spanish not even a word English. How am I going to explain all that? I started to imagine trying to explain the situation and tell them my rights. Hahaha that was going to be interesting. I was sure I was heading for a big language challenge. While driving Mr. Ranger was really annoyed about the whole situation and complaining about the system and all that. I don’t know what happened but when we arrived in Colon at the port captains office he said: ” You know what, I’m coming with you to help. Just let me park the bus.” Wow! How nice was that!!! I couldn’t imagine my luck! With him explaining everything it all worked out fine and within 45 minutes I got the important exit zarpe . I was so very happy and so incredibly thankful. Mr. Ranger was sensational! He even called his brother to take me back to the marina. Again I was so so glad that he had organised his brother as Colon is not the most fun place to be as a white and obviously not local person. It not only saved me from finding a taxi but also gained me some time to be back just in time for the customs officer. This officer was very nice and within minutes we were completely and officially checked out of the country!!! We could leave the very next day!!! A big, big hug and thank you to Mr. Ranger. He was just the best!!!

The day ended with a nice meal at the restaurant of the marina and a goodbye sundowner with some friends. Relaxed and very happy we went to bed and early next morning we headed to Linton Bay. There we needed to fill up our propane bottle as they didn’t do it in Shelter Bay. Fortunately we kew that Hans, a dutch guy could fill it up. It was again a long day for us. We were looking forward to a nice dinner and a cool sundowner but as we knew we would have to wait a couple of days to get the propane bottle back we immediately wanted to take it to Hans place as soon as we arrived. Dinghy down, engine fixed to the dinghy, bottle packed and off we wanted to go. Not with our outboard engine. It just didn’t want to start even though El Capitano had cleaned it inside out at Shelter Bay. That was exactly what we needed after a long hot day. There was nothing we could do but try to get the engine going. I don’t know how long it took but it felt like ages until the engine was running. Finally off we went to Hans. We did not stay as it was already getting dark and headed back. Then the engine refused to work again. Damn! It didn’t say anything anymore. Poor El Capitano had to row us back. Sailing is fun! Yeah another project! Fortunately we had time anyhow waiting for the bottle. Again Norbert took apart the outboard engine, cleaned it even more properly and double checked everything. At midday we were good to go ashore, yessss! Since then – knock on wood- the engine works perfectly💪. Sunday evening we could pick up the bottle and Monday morning we headed to San Blas.

Meanwhile we have been back in Kuna Yala since almost three weeks. We are now waiting for a weather window to sail to the Dominican Republic.