Sailing to the Las Perlas Islands - Sailing Tarka Ep. 46

We slept very well after our two-day journey through the Panama Canal and we're so, so, so relieved to have that experience behind us. We were also so grateful for our three wonderful backpackers slash line handlers, Agatha, Antony and Arnab, but five people is a bit too many for Tarka, so we bid farewell and Neuster brought our friends to shore so they could make the trip back to the other side of the canal. We also had to return the lines and fenders that we rented, which are being picked up by the same guy we rented them from. I still can't get over how giant these fenders were and I'm so happy we're not carrying them around with us any longer. This is the only dinghy dock for the entire anchorage and there's nowhere at the beach a dinghy, so this dock can get pretty crowded. Other than a re-provisioning trip to the American-style supermall in town, we didn't want to spend much time around this anchorage. For one, the water quality here isn't very good. I don't think it so much has to do with our proximity to Panama City than it does the fact that it's the rainy season and there's a lot of runoff and particulate matter from the rivers and streams around here, not to mention all that water coming out of the Panama Canal. Some fish actually thrive in these conditions though, and visibility isn't necessarily an indicator of an unhealthy habitat. Our friend, the long-spine porcupinefish, a common puffer that we see a lot of, seems to really love munching on the mollusks and other critters on the dinghy dock and the bottom of our boat. But we really wanted to explore our newfound ocean, so after one last trip to shore to stock up on some fresh water, we were heading back to Tarka, ready for some new adventures. We have decided to set sail to the nearby Las Perlas Islands. They are mostly uninhabited tropical gems just 50 nautical miles from the coast. They're also the first and last stop for boats heading to the Marquesas. Well, unless you're stopping in the Galapagos. So the next morning, it was anchors up at dawn to make sure we had plenty of time to get to the islands before dark. We don't have any experience with the winds in this area, and they can be pretty variable this time of year. In fact, we're sitting right underneath the Intertropical Convergence Zone, or ITCZ, so the weather can be pretty unstable or just dead calm. This is also the same weather phenomenon responsible for the doldrums. Fortunately though, this morning we were able to get the sails up and full of wind. These are actually just about the most perfect sailing conditions that we could ask for. No waves, and just a nice breeze pushing us along at a good clip. We let the electronic tiller pilot do the driving today, as we didn't want to fiddle with the wind bane and the changing winds that we expect to encounter throughout the day. But we did have to keep an eye out for logs and branches that get washed out from the rainforest during the heavy rains. In fact, we actually hit a tree-sized log that brought us to a dead stop. It happened so quick that we didn't get it on camera, but there was no real damage other than a small dent to the bow. Other than that little bump in the road, the sailing was going pretty well, and we just enjoyed what were probably some of the best sailing conditions we've had on Tarka in a long time. I also took this opportunity to reread some passages from Tanya Abbey's book about her circumnavigation. She sailed this same route some 30 years ago and saw some of the same islands that we are about to see, so it was kind of fun to get her account of everything, and her experience with the Panama Canal that we just transited. But more than that, she is also a huge inspiration for this journey, and my choice to go small. Not only was she the youngest woman to circumnavigate at the time, she did it on only a 26-foot boat, which is pretty cool. As the afternoon progressed, the thunderstorms started to build. Meanwhile on the starboard, things looked downright nice. So Las Perlas is just 10 miles that way now, but we're only doing about three knots. Don't have a lot of wind anymore. We might start up the engine so we can get there before it gets dark, or before one of these squalls catches us, but otherwise it's been a really good sail today. There's not much we can do about this squall though, other than watch and hope our paths don't intersect. Luckily though, it looks like the squall is moving towards the islands faster than we are, and though it sucked the wind out of our sails, it's not going to give us any trouble. Approaching the islands, we were greeted by the local welcoming commission. Since we were just motoring at four knots, I don't think they really found Tarka to be a worthy playmate. But it was nice for them to say hello all the same. These first set of islands in the group are pretty low and featureless, making them a little bit difficult to discern against our charts. We're using paper charts here, as they happen to be far superior to the Navionics ones in this region, and we plotted a simple course to the anchorage between two islands that we think will be safe. It is a fairly shallow entrance, but it's high tide and Tarka only has four feet of draft anyway. We anchored in about 30 feet of water, but at low tide here that might be as low as 10 feet. Like any time we anchor, there's a fair bit of post-sail breakdown work to be done, and this time we were racing against an incoming squall. You can sometimes tell when a squall is packing a punch, or if it's just going to be wet, by how the rain looks when it's coming out of it. And it looks like this one just has the rain coming straight down. So we prepared to get wet, but we weren't too worried about pre-anchoring. A tropical downpour is a sailor's best friend because it means a free shower, especially if there are no other humans around. And with the shower gone, we were just left with a perfect little rainbow. Do you like my tuna? It's delicious. Oh my god, it looks so good. Usually we don't buy tuna because it's not really fished sustainably, but we had it for our lion handlers, and I got to finish it. Pretty rainbow. Oh, I see the rainbow. Oh, double rainbow all the way across the sky. Well, not quite. Double rainbow partially across the sky. Though we slept well from our long day of sailing, we did find out during the night that our little anchorage was just a tad bit rolly. To address the rolling, we need to get Tarka pointed into the waves, but the wind wants to have her pointed across the waves. This is one of those situations in which adding a stern anchor is helpful. Normally you'd row it out in a dinghy to set the anchor, but we didn't want to inflate our dinghy just to set an anchor, since we can swim to shore from here. So I tied it up to some fenders and decided to float it out instead. To be honest, this is pretty awkward and potentially a dangerous way to do this. You really wouldn't want to get tangled up in a line if the anchor released unintentionally. But it worked out well for what we needed, and for the most part we got Tarka pointed in the right direction. With all that hard work done for the day, it was now time to go explore our little island, which we of course just swam to. The island is uninhabited, but we did read somewhere that it was used for one or two seasons of the show Survivor, and someone has tied up a little swing on the beach for us to play on. It was really nice to just relax on our own little beach without another human in sight for many miles. The evening came with a squall threatening to test our anchor's hold on the sand, and our stern anchor's ability, marked by a fender, to keep us pointed into the swell. Luckily though, night fell and only the sound of rain disturbed our sleep. The next day we decided to raise anchor and go explore another island, and maybe find a more protected anchorage while we're at it. There was no wind though, and not very far to go, so we just motored our way on over. It's high tide again, which makes the shoals and rocks just beneath the surface extra dangerous, so we proceeded quite slowly. It's a narrow gap. I had trust the waypoints that I grabbed out of our paper charts, but Nushta kept an eye out on the bow just in case. See anything? No rocks. Fortunately, we didn't hit any rocks, and we were soon anchored yet again in our own little piece of paradise. This is actually one of the few islands that is inhabited, and even has a small airstrip. All this visible land are islands in the Las Perlas change, and a few of them are quite big. Making a cake. Yum yum. Hey, hey, don't do that. We don't make a lot of cakes on Targa, but ever since we got this Swedish stovetop oven from our friends in Curacao, we definitely do treat ourselves from time to time. It does take a bit of fuel though, so it is a real luxury on Targa. This used to be full of cake batter, and she ate it all. Can we make a cake? Cupcake. Big cake. Your underwear. Yeah. This is paradise. Yeah. This is how you live. We also wanted to see if we could catch a fish for dinner, but unfortunately, we only caught this little puffer. He wasn't at all happy about falling for the bait. What am I supposed to do? I don't know. I can cut it off, and then he's going to die. While trying to find some gloves, apparently the little guy just spat out the hook on his own. I don't think he was actually hooked, but rather the hook that just got stuck inside of his mouth. All right, you ready to be free? Yeah. In any case, I think the puffers are just going to keep going for our lures, so no more fishing here. Yeah. Instead, Noosha prepared some pumpkin for us to eat. It's no fish, but it will do. The evening's outgoing tide also made clear just how close we were to the rocks that were invisible when we came in. The pitter patter of rain greeted us the next morning, and we arose to a dead calm. A frigatebird circled above, maybe looking for some food to steal. Pelicans vine from one rock to another, hugging the water, probably so their wings have to do less work. And there are even some humans to be seen in the distance, as a fishing trawler tows another. I really like quiet moments like these. So much of life on a sailboat, at least in the trades, is dominated by the winds, and seeing the ocean flat like it is today is actually quite unusual. But these are also perfect conditions to jump in the water and go explore some of our surroundings. We first made a stop at what we're calling the pelican rocks. We scoped it out on the drone footage as a potential snorkel spot. However, the visibility here just isn't that good. I think this whole region suffers from low visibility, especially in the rainy season, and all that particulate matter is just generally not conducive for good coral growth. So although we saw a few fish that we chased around, we instead set our eyes on the nearby beach to relax instead. Like all islands in the Caribbean, these beaches too are sadly littered with plastics, which always makes us think twice when disposing of or purchasing something plastic, especially if there are other options. If there's one good thing about the constant threat of squalls in the evenings, it's that they have made the sunsets here pretty dramatic. It looks like it's on fire. Hopefully we don't get a thunderstorm all night again. I'm smiling. As the sun set and night began to fall, we made some popcorn and settled down to watch a marathon of tarka episodes. Nushta hasn't seen all the old ones from before she came aboard, and well there's one other reason we're watching these tonight, but more on that next time. This time on the Adventures of Tarka. Next time on the Adventures of Tarka. We set course back to Panama City, and finally run out of luck with dodging those squalls. Nushta says farewell to Tarka, and I fight to save the boat in the worst storm I've gone through to date. you