Wednesday 16th May

At sea

10 24.735 N
75 32.607 W

Gerry got up early, whilst I lay in bed pretending to still be asleep, I had woken with a sore throat, head ache and the sweats – not a good way to begin a passage. He secured the outboard motor to its stand and hauled the dinghy up onto the foredeck and tied it down, then I heard him talking to Terry and Roger our nearest neighbours, they had come by to wish us a good trip – it was time for me to get out of bed! We finished securing the stuff that moves when we get underway and then it was time for us to leave Cartagena and head to Panama. We upped anchor at 08.00hrs and began motoring out of the harbour. The day was overcast and muggy again and we were the only boat on the move, it was a very quiet leaving, we would have liked to have spent more time here but we were glad to have had at least the time we did. We managed to hear the cruisers net as we made our way out of the place – someone new had picked up the ball from where the previous lady had left it 2 days ago! Overnight there were 5 new boats in the place – it strikes us that each harbour has a boat exchange program going on – Miss Cath. and us leaving today, Lioness, Neos, Calypso and Second wind leaving tomorrow in exchange for the new arrivals overnight. We cleared the wall with its 11foot depth clearance and set our auto pilot on course for Panama. The wind was non existent and we motored on a flat calm sea at the beginning of the trip. We were about 4.5 miles out from the harbor when we suddenly had a hitchhiker join us; a little bird flew onto the jib sheets and made its self at home. We couldn’t work out where it had flown from as we were nowhere near land. I expected it to take off again pretty quickly but it stayed and found itself a perch on the radar. As we got further and further out from land we began to worry that it would die on us from lack of food and water so I threw some bread out on deck for it and placed a container of water out incase it wanted a drink, it was beginning to look like it was going to accompany us to Panama. Gerry finally though there might be enough wind to put up the sails – ever hopeful, it didn’t do a great deal for our speed but he persisted. A couple of hours further on and the bird was still with us and beginning to chirp for some unknown reason – maybe in reply to the squeak coming from the boom as it moved. A large container ship was about a mile off of our port side and all of a sudden the bird went, we think it must have hitched a ride on the container ship – it was still going to end up in Panama but it would get there a lot quicker than we would. The winds continued to be light and variable for the rest of the day; we motor sailed when we could and just motored when it became impossible to fly a sail. Night time approached and we began watches – mostly to see how close a container ship would get to us during the night, Gerry and I both had one at ½ a mile off our side – mine to port and Gerry’s to starboard. The sky was lit by lightening all night, it was quite a show but as many of you know I’m not keen on being on a boat with lightening flashing around me, there are too many metal things poking up that it could hit! Needless to say it didn’t hit us and we made progress through the night albeit slow progress as the little bit of wind that we got came at us from every direction imaginable. Whilst I managed to do my share of the watches I can’t say I was too alert, I felt like the sore throat and headache, accompanied by horrendous sweats were knocking me sideways and the tablets I had taken to help me feel better were good for sending me to sleep – keeping awake was a priority on watch!