It’s May 27th and we’re still in Isla Mujeres, Mexico (see, when I said a few posts back that we needed a break I really meant it!). Trouble is, the earliest that hurricane season has been known to start is May 29th. What with the dragging incident, bad weather systems coming through from the south and the need to take a pause we have scrapped our aforementioned plans of Belize, Honduras and any more of the Mexican coast. Another trip, another time even another boat will have to be how we explore those places.
Now that we have been in the Caribbean for 6 months we are really aware of the changes in the weather; the patterns and systems coming through seem to be getting messy and erratic. There are more and more storms in Florida every day and, although we’re not in the firing line, there have already been two named tropical storms indicating that this will be a busy storm season.
We consult the internet, our books and all our friends at the anchorage. Everyone at Isla Mujeres is either making tracks north or south, either Key West or down to the Rio Dulce in Guatemala or all out for Panama. We can all feel the uneasiness as the remaining days in May are dwindling.
Fortunately, we have a double motive for moving on and moving fast. We have committed the cardinal sin of sailing a booked ourselves to meet my parents in Panama on June 17th. You must never sail to a deadline – it’s an old adage that we generally adhere to. However, this time it is easily accommodated as we want to get down past that all important 10º Latitude line so that we can breathe a big sigh of relief and then spend as open-ended and unlimited a time in Panama as we fancy.
So, May 27th sees us waving goodbye to our Isla Mujeres buddies and setting sail for Panama, doing a brief stop in Isla de Providencia (a Colombian island off the east coast of Nicaragua) and tucking into Bocas del Toro (which is probably the first place I’ll be able to post this online).
Isla Mujeres to Providencia should have been about a week but a good deal of south easterly wind (not forecast) and strong current against us made it a 9 and a half day passage of 750 miles. Providencia down to Bocas is only 250 so a couple of days with good wind should see us nice and cosy in the bay in no time.
Adamastor has already been through a hurricane once, in 1991 with her first owners. She’s strong and sturdy and lived to tell the tale but there’s no way that we’re going to test it!