A decision made easy, to sail and to surf.
After careful consideration I took the opportunity
to sail across the pacific and surf some of the best waves in the world. Who
wouldn’t!!
I met Daniel the captain and Kyla the other
new crew member on the 6th of June and we got on pretty good, so
once the plan was set out we were bound for the Pacific. There was a going away
party, then another one and finally after we recovered we were ready to go for
the 9th of June…. or so we thought.
Boats are tricky things I must say. There
is a saying that you should never buy a boat unless you can afford to “stand in
a shower and tear up £20 notes” according to sea angler magazine. This I took
as a slight exaggeration until I spent 4 weeks moored in a harbor, fix one thing,
right ready to go…oh wait one more thing…
After 4 weeks of trying to get us prepared
visas, food, booze, alternators, fuel filters, dingy problems, fuel, electrics,
fridges the list goes on. Finally on the morning of the 5th of July
we set sail at 2am for a small island off the coast of Panama City, with the
promise of a solid incoming swell.
At this point of my adventure I am sad to
say that I hadn’t surfed in close to a month or done anything fun really except
for getting used to spending a long time on the boat. But saying that I did
have 2 weeks of 5hr per day surf at Morro Negrito so all in all not too bad at
all.
Daniel told me about this wave at Isla
Chepillo is one of the best in Panama, so we were hoping to score for a couple
of days before we moved on to Las Perlas Islands about 60 miles off the Panamanian
coast.
Sailors have certain rules that you cant
start a journey on a Tuesday or Friday, as it is bad luck, but we weren’t
really going very far so we didn’t take any notice as its only major voyages
that really count and the swell was coming...needless to say the 5th
was a Friday and before we even left the harbor we somehow lost one of the
anchors! We are now an anchor down with 3 leftover but still the Friday curse
hit us hard!
We arrived in Chepillo at around 10am to
see good swell but crap winds, there was a couple of people out but with a big
thunderstorm on the horizon we chose to give it a miss until later in the day.
The storm hit and brought 30 knots onshore winds and lots of rain for about 2
hours. And then the wind died…
We stayed at Chepillo for 3 days of epic
righthanders, barrel section at the peak followed by a wall that you could fit
in about 6 turns after. It kind of reminded me of pink rock for those of you
who know where that is J
We surfed early morning, noon, and evening
for about 2-3 hrs. a session, a couple of boats would arrive from the city
around midday on the higher tide when it wasn’t much good so we took that time
to rest up, only to head back out just the two of us again on the drop after
they left. It certainly has its advantage the old yacht! I did a bit of fishing
off the side of the boat and caught a catfish, not very big about 3lb but it’s
another new species to my growing fishing list.
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| Early morning perfection |
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| Afternoon perfection |
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| Captain Daniel |
A fishing experience
On Sunday we set sail for Las Perlas
Islands about 20 miles south of Chepillo, after our little surf break this was
really the start of the adventure, finally leaving sight of Panamanian
coastline. I through out a nice big lure to trawl as we were sailing, on
Daniel’s Penn Senator (proper fishing rod). Not too much action on the way
fishing wise but just as we were coming close to the islands I pulled in a 6lb
sierra mackerel which made for some good eating the next two days. Cruising along we caught a show of some
migrating whales breaching, pretty epic start to the trip!
We moored up at Isla Pedro Gonzales, as it
was getting dark. I pulled out the fishing rod and dropped a line down straight
to the bottom and let it sit there hoping to catch something. After dark I went
below deck to cook dinner and left the line secured to the deck. In the middle
of frying up some big tasty mackerel fillets I hear a shout from Daniel “Your
line man, get your line!!” In turn I replied that I was busy with the dinner
and asked if he could pull it up, he said, “Man you got a shark on here or
something is pulling the boat around!” I ran up on deck and grabbed the rod and
made my way around the boat to clear the line from underneath, it was pulling
hard! The line was almost full out and it took all my strength and Daniel too
to try and hold on to it. After we managed to get a bit of line back on the
reel I hopped down into the dingy so that I could have more room to try and
pull up whatever was on the hook. Daniel and Kyla were on the boat shining the
flashlights and me in the dingy hauling ass! Whatever it was it was by far the biggest
fish I have ever caught, we thought it was a shark but in truth we didn’t know
what it was. It took me about 40mins to pull it to the surface and to my
surprise a shout came from Daniel “ holy shit man, that’s a f**king manta ray
or something!” I was told I have to cut the line, as they are too dangerous to
land and big! It measured around 1.5m wide and 2m long! Most definitely the
biggest fish I have ever caught! I pulled it up to the surface and shouted at
the guys to grab my camera and take a photo but in the pitch dark and with the
fish still fighting, they said no way, the dingy I was sitting in was being
pulled all over the place, the rod bent to almost below the waters surface. I
brought it to the surface and got a good view of it then dropped it back to a
depth of around 2ft got the weight clear of the water and cut line. I really
wanted to land it but in order to do so we would have had to gaff it and
probably kill it, so despite the fact that it swam away with a hook in its
mouth at least it swam away. What an adrenaline rush and what a start to my
adventure, epic surf, whales, tasty fish and to top it all off a big fish on
the line!
Today is the 9th of July and we
are on our way to the big island in Las Perlas, Isla del Rey. The fishing line off
the back just started reeling out, I pulled in a Dogtooth Tuna and Kyla cooked
it up for brunch. We are rounding the headland of del Rey now the swell is 2ft
at 18sec and there are some solid white water chunks breaking off the points.
The swell is increasing tomorrow to 5ft 16sec so we are hoping to score again
over the next couple of days before setting sail for the Galapagos.
We arrived at the southern tip of Isla del
Rey, a few good size waves coming in but wrong tide, so we decided we would
swim to the beach and mess around in the shore dump after a bit of lunch. I
of course had my fishing line over the side of the boat and after a few minutes
I got a bite. Well now I have to say I gave a shout despite its small size when
I pulled up a baby hammerhead shark! One can be sure that big momma wasn’t too
far away! Holy crap this trip is getting crazier by the day! I think I might
have to keep my legs on my board tomorrow in the surf. Needless to say we took
the dingy to shore
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| Baby Smooth Hammerhead, can grow to 16ft long this one just about 2ft |
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| Isla Del Rey shore dump |
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| First sight of Humpback whales off the Las Perlas Islands |
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| Two of them here breaching, they put on quite a performance for us |
