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Hebe - Day 6 Nearly there.



10'05'93N
77'52'67W

Thursday 16th January

Last night was AWESOME. Full moon, clear sky and the foaming seas white and luminous. The seas were the biggest and wind strongest yet and we just barrelled along at one point hitting 17.5 knots. We sat in the cockpit on our watch mesmerised by the silvery sea and following waves and then the huge wooooosh when the boat is lifted forward on the surf.
I am especially happy to be describing this scene in the past tense as this evening finds Hebe 50 miles from her destination, the San Blas islands, in calmer waters, gentler breeze and the small asymmetric spinnaker flying carrying us to the end and those beers.
There is an unexpected current against us caused by localised land effects which is annoyingly slowing us down as we all want to get there.
There are about 300 San Blas islands off the coast of Panama where the Kuna Indians live, many islands are uninhabited. We are all really excited about seeing it all, at this rate it'll be in the early hours of the morning. There may not be enough light to navigate but we hope to creep up the large sound into a safe anchorage. We will then have 5 days before we need to be in Shelter Bay outside the Panama Canal. We are all looking forward to getting some sleep and cooling off in the sea.
Twice each day the fleet links up on the SSB radio to exchange news, some of the other boats have had breakages and problems, Firefly hit a tree trunk and Ghost was pooped, water over the back of the boat and down the hatch….not nice. Everybody sounds very cheerful though and managing, not as wimpish as me, though I haven't been singing hymns this time, much to Harry's relief.












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