-Mission Panamania 05_ Sailor Showers & Land Ho! (Sailing Curiosity)

What do you call that one? Uh, learning my notes. I don't think it's an actual song. Notes on the E string. Starting at the beginning. I think it's not impressed. Nope. I'm not going to lie. The past 48 hours were brutal. For me at least. Those massive waves hitting the beam of the boat. Just making us do that. Half surfing, half getting hit broadside. Horrible. Debilitating headache. It was unbelievable yesterday afternoon. It just hit me and I was out. But I think we're getting closer to Panama. We're getting closer to being out of that rough stream that we knew was going to be here. And we're 280 miles away from Bocas del Toro. Which means about two days. I'm very stoked about that. And yeah. 10.30. Got my tea. Got you guys with me. Got my books. Okay, so Dale's on ship. I look over and she's got the camera and she's super excited. I'm like, okay, what's going on Dale? She can't film at night. And she's like, no, I'm going to get the screen. And why? Because we entered the 12th parallel. I've been waiting days for this. I got on ship and it was like 13.05. Point like 999. So I'm just like watching it tick down. Anticipating the 12th parallel. The things that you get really excited about. How did I shift? My shift started at 12 and it's exactly 1 now. I've waited that long for the 12th number to show up. Because that means that we've entered the 12th parallel. We're getting close and we've only got two and a half days left if we keep up the same pace. So we're almost there. And we're going to feel like that for the next two and a half days. Like we're almost there. It's going to be counting down the hours. Watching each little tenth of a degree tick down. Stormy sunrise this morning. It's really rude to hitch a ride and then leave a mess all over everything. 5 4 3 2 1 0 and 11! We are out of the zone! The hurricane zone! Can you show your hurricane dance? That's good to get but I'm afraid to try to dance right now. Seems like a bad idea. Or a day early. Insurance will be happy about that. Oh, because it's not the worst yet. Yeah, I know. Especially out in a hurricane zone so we can relax about that. Yeah. Can you show me that hurricane zone dance one more time? Nice. We are also 191 miles from the entrance to Bocas del Toro Panama. Yes! How fast are we surfing some of those waves? Usually right around 10. 10.1 so we fluctuate anywhere from I guess we come off of it we go down to like 6 and then we go right up 7, 8, 9, 10. Feel that little drop. Hey mom, how's it going? How are you? We're good. We're just a couple hundred miles off land. I just thought I'd call and say I love you and see how you're doing. Great, it's so nice seeing where you guys are at every day. I'm missing where y'all are at. Are y'all on your mom's right now or are you just going really slow? We're going fast, mom. This is fast for sailboats. Are you? Yep, yeah. Well, we're going about 7 to 8 knots when we're going. That's pretty fast for a sailboat. She thinks we're supposed to be driving, man. Looks like we got a little bit of a storm headed our way so it sucked all our wind up. We went from like 15 knots to like 5. So we're just getting prepared for it. Furled the sail in. We're centering to main. Well, we'll see what happens. Yay for radar! Should we read? You can always go ahead and read worst case scenario and just let it out. Pull, Dan, pull! You got it! Pull slack on the other side too. Ready! Our wind was coming from behind us moving this way. It was fantastic and we were clipping right along and then all of a sudden it just died. Gone. Zero. Nada. Four knots. And now it's coming directly off of our nose. And I double checked. Re... Well, renewed. Downloaded. Whatever. The new prediction for the weather and sure enough shows we're not going to have diddly squawks all the way until we arrive in Panama. So, no wind. It will be straight motoring for us here on out. It just hurt so bad. We were doing so good. I like how you put the knife in your knot heart. I'm holding on to this. Alright, back to the sunset. I know. Well, it's there. It's happening right now. You just can't tell. Looks like our sailing. I'm busy trying to shoot dolphins. Don't shoot them. We've got dolphins! It's like way better than coffee. It's so awesome. And they dive down so deep. I know. So quickly. Kind of a slow day after our sailor shower. So we've been getting our paperwork ready for Panama. And we've got vet papers, rabies shots, certification of documentation for import. It was done all in Florida. Imported into Panama. Vessel clearance statements, coast guard stuff, insurance, dinghy. All that paperwork. Clearing the Bahamas, there's kind of some questions about whether or not we have to clear the Bahamas before we get to Panama. You're supposed to mail this stuff into the Bahamas when we leave, when we get to our next destination. So we'll see how that goes. Passports, Niki's printing copies because apparently they need copies of passports. And lots of cash. Super duper calm, huh? It's crazy calm. It's wild to believe that we're in thousands of feet of water and throughout this whole journey we've gone from fairly calm, like following seas to crazy big, you know, 10 to 15 foot seas and a squall and now it's just flat. These baby rollers coming through. It's hard to believe. I mean, it looks like a lake, not an ocean. What are we, about 50 miles out? Yeah, 58 I think is what it said last time I looked. We're gonna be there soon. It is just dolphin day today. Look at that. It is. They must be sleeping. They must be sleeping over there. That's so cool. They're just hanging out with their dorsal fins out. Hanging out with their fins out. More dolphins up here. There. More dolphins. I'm so excited. Dolphins? No. It's fish. Oh, that may be a log there. That's probably a log. That's a real log. Everybody look at the log. About 7 miles left. 5.30 a.m. We get in around 7.30 so about 2 more hours to these last couple nautical miles. The wind's picked up a tiny bit. Almost right about here. Still can't sail. It's created a little extra chop. Makes it not quite as comfortable as it was for the people sleeping downstairs but it's not uncomfortable by any means but I can finally see the tip of Panama on our radar which is set for a nautical mile so it's getting exciting. We're almost there. Almost there. We're so close and that's the entrance to the channel which the good news is now because of not being able to sail we're going to get there at sunrise. Just after sunrise maybe 30 minutes or so so at least we'll be able to see the big wide open channel but all the markers are gone because it's a decommissioned channel. Yeah. Little rainstorms here and there and silly wind that just picked up right under our nose. Other than that, good night. Good night. Good night. Our last night. Thankfully. Too early to be excited? No. We made it. We're here. About to enter our first canal here in our first port here in Panama. It's exciting. We made it. It's our first big adventure. Like big big. Not just Bahamas but like it was a journey to get here. It's exciting. A whole new country. We've never been here before. Boca Sport Captain. This is incoming sailing catamaran Curiosity. Over. They don't open until 8 so I don't expect them to answer but it says everything I've read it says you should call them on your way in. It's only 7.40. Try them again in a minute. What's the first thing you're going to do when we hit land? Check in. After we're checked in? Yeah. Look for sloths on the beach. Yeah. And explore. Everything. Or monkeys. Are there monkeys? I'm so excited. I hope there's sloths. Ride the water taxi. I don't think that'll be a problem. More rain. Port Captain. This is an incoming sailing vessel Curiosity. Over. 8.03. They're still having coffee. They're still having coffee. Maybe they visited the Panaderia. Got some bread. Bocas Marina. This is an inbound sailing catamaran Curiosity. Over. That's the marina we're going to. They don't open until 8 either. We're so early. Alright. I'm going to try 68. Going places. This is Curiosity. 6.9. This is Curiosity. The marina office opens at 8 o'clock. What's the time here? Our watches say 8. 7. Guess we'll drop the hook. Thank you very much. Well apparently there was a time change. Yes. There was a time change. Must be on central time. Of an hour. So we've dropped the hook. I am making a little bit of breakfast and some coffee. And we'll wait around. Now we've only got 20 minutes or so before they open. 25. Anyway. Breakfast. Yay. We're early for once. That never happens. Might be the first time. Good morning from Curiosity. Curiosity. Yay. We're good. Good morning Kachina. It's the cruiser's net. Just started. 8. 7.45. What's the last crowd here for this rainy Tuesday morning? I hear a couple of new boat teams in there. So we'll ask them, the new boat arrivals, if you'll identify yourself and who's on board, what kind of vessel she is, where you're from. Come now. Sailing vessel Curiosity. Go ahead Curiosity. We are from Texas. Two Texans on board, two Canadians on board. We just arrived on our first long passage from Fort Lauderdale to Panama and we're super stoked to be here. It's a 43 Leopard catamaran and I think that's it. Welcome. And stay tuned here. It's a great source of information. I recall what he called a Leopard from Rio Pulse. The boat was from Texas and it was named Changing Spots. That's great. Thank you. Do you want me to call then? We don't have like crazy winds or anything like that so I think it'll be fine. Okay. And does it go around the island remember? Yes. Yeah. Focus Marina, this is Curiosity. Do you want us to come in port side or starboard side? Over. Up to you. You're going to go right here. Perfect. Thank you. It's showing 3-3. How am I on that side over there? That's pretty skinny water. Looking good. Yeah. And he's not coming until his afternoon. We already had a little nice breakfast over there on the hook. Oh did you? Yeah. It's 3.13. We got here at 7am. And are we checked in yet? We are stuck on the boat. Which has been totally dandy up until now because we've had plenty of time. We've had breakfast and coffee and then we had lunch and now we're all clean, showered, smell like regular people, ready to go see something and we can't. Ready to get checked in. I'm wearing my long sleeve pineapple shirt. I'm being respectable. It's getting really hot being respectable. In the Lonely Planet Visitors Guide it talks about how you should wear, you should dress more conservatively when you're in Panama. So I'm like, I don't know, maybe we should wear long sleeve shirts that cover up our shoulders. Maybe not wear short shorts, whatever. The customs guys come on board. Then we asked at the marina and they're all like, you're just not supposed to wear a bathing suit in town. But you'll still see people wearing a bathing suit in town. You're just not supposed to. There are a bunch of them. All done. That was quick. That was like half an hour. Man, I have a headache. Not sleeping, not drinking in a week and I'm probably hungry too. Good stuff. It was pure chaos because they came in. I had two copies of everything. Well, they wanted four copies of everything. So I got the little printer out. It's working as hard as it can scanning documents that weren't scanned. Anyway, it seems like if you're coming, you should print a quadruplicate of everything. Copies of passports, everything like that. And then it was $20 for the taxi to bring them over here. $15. Yeah, $15. $20 for customs, $20 for immigration, $20 for $41 for agriculture. Because of the cats, I guess. I don't know. It was like $20 plus $11 for something else. I don't know. I was just signing papers. And one guy's like, no, I don't give a receipt. That was the immigration guy. Anyway, we got stuff. Yeah, but we have not gotten our cruising permit. We have not gotten our cruising permit. I have no idea how much that's going to cost. But we are here. We're good to be in the country for six months. That was only $20. So hopefully the cruising permit is like $100 and we can be here for six months. We'll find out. Tomorrow. To be determined. Tomorrow they open at 9. But now, what are we going to do? Explore! I don't know. We can leave the boat. It's so late. So many water taxis closed now. Drink a beer? Yeah. Or a burrito? I'm with you on that. I hear the cantina has margaritas. They might still be open. Alright, let's go. Gracias. I almost forgot to take down our Q flag and put up the Panamanian flag. We were so excited to be free. Here we go. Dale, why didn't you sing the Panamanian theme song? I didn't have internet to download it. I don't know what it is. Insert Panamanian song here. Dale, Dale, Dale.