The drive to the second anchorage was nice. The island was beautiful, there were coves, little beaches, lots of greenery, and wild life.
Cove anchorage
The spot we anchored at had all these cute little coves to explore with beaches. One even had a little fresh water spring just high enough for all of us to use as a shower. It was nice and cold but you have to swim to it. There are two ways to get to it. You either swim in the shallows or go around the little reef which I didn’t do I carefully picked my way in the shallows which I don’t like doing, I really don’t like swimming in super shallow water with reef.
While dad went to the other side of the island, mom and I went snorkelling and saw many things (see pictures).
Later that day it was decided that we would leave the next morning at 6:00 for Portobelo, 110 seamiles further.
Exodus breaks loose…
Then in the middle of the night I wake up with the sound of the motor running. So I immediately knew that something was up. But I was still tired so I took Capo and myself to mom and dads bedroom.
The next morning I heard we had left our anchorage at Veraguas because a squall had broken our anchor chain and Exodus had freed herself! It was pitch dark, rainy and windy, with shallow reef close by, so we wouldn’t be able to find our anchor. The only solution was to sail to Shelter Bay marina and find another anchor and chain… Maybe we should change the name of the anchorage to “Anchorless” or “Broken Chain”?
Seasick Capo misses the sights
Poor Capo was sea sick again. I felt ok but in the morning it started coming slowly, so my mom had me put on seasickness bands and later gave me a pill and made me sleep. I felt better when I woke up.
Capo was so scared he went to hide under my parents bed because we were bumping and rolling around a lot.
In the morning at some stage it started raining very lightly and I was chatting with Doug and my mom when I looked out to sea. Suddenly I spotted a pod of dolphins making their way toward us. So I told my mom and together we went up front. They just kept coming and coming and gave us an amazing show. There must have been 2 dozen of them, spinners.
Heavy traffic
Around 4:00 pm we approached the Colon Port area, where you can see lots of cargo and container ships lining up to go through the Panama Canal. We made it through without hitting anything and got permission to enter the port and make way to the marina. When we entered behind the long breakwater, Capo gave a huge sigh of relief because it was a lot more quiet there. The approach to the Canal is often windy and choppy.
Gitane