Las Perlas is a bit murky but it'll do!
- jeanneb
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
The last few days in Panama City were exciting and a tad bit overwhelming. With 3 trips to get last minute provisions (just one more bag of tortilla chips!) Our amazing crew, Josh & Raf, joined us on the boat and settled in. We completed our safety check with the Rally committee. We got our official rally flags and numbers. And then, the marina filled up with half of the WorldARC boats (12) all displaying their burgees and large Rally flags. It was exciting to watch them all come in. We made our last minute preparations to depart, which included checking out of the country with the officials. The checkout process was brilliantly easy thanks to the WorldARC agent. We just showed up, smiled for the immigration officer and were on our way.
We also manage to squeeze in one last tourist activity visiting the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute located a short walk from the Marina before we cut the lines. We were surprised to see a handful of sloths, some really cool frogs and a nice collection of butterflies just minutes from where we had been staying. It was a good reminder of the beautiful natural side of Panama.
We were excited to leave the dock. But it didn't go entirely as planned. In the process of maintaining one of our dingy outboards, Dan ended up breaking a part which was not replaceable -- so in a hurry, before we left we purchased a new dingy outboard. It was scheduled to arrive within 24 hours, but as luck would have it, they sent the wrong one, so we had to wait 48 hours. This was perfect because a big weather system was passing through bringing strong winds and choppy seas. When we finally left Panama City we had a beautiful sail the 37 or so nautical miles to Las Perlas Islands (The Pearl Islands).
We arrived right at sunset, excited to sleep, once again in a calm anchorage.
We were hoping to wake up to amazing crystal clear blue water where we could see all the fishes. We jumped in ready to enjoy our new pool toys, but after an attempt to inspect the bottom of the boat we quickly realized there was a bit of "murky" funk in the water (or fish call them nutrients). After some research on google, and with the locals we learned this can happen when the wind from the North picks up making the surface of the water cool, and thus creating turbulence in the usually stable levels of the water. So we didn't let the murky get us down and went to the beach for a fantastic evening fire and bbq dinner.
The beach sand felt like powdered sugar under our toes. With the gentle waves rolling in and lots of cool rocks we had a great time on a big beach to ourselves. We are a bit rusty in our 'beach' dinner preparations, but we managed well enough using sticks, rocks and whatever else we could find to make a creative dinner a success.
We are excited for watching the Seahawks to play in the Superbowl this weekend. We've spent some time ensuring that we'll be able to watch from these remote islands (there is some creative technology required to make this happen!) I made sourdough bread for the first time in months, Dan, Josh & Raf have been keeping themselves busy making steady progress on boat chores.
We will spend the next week exploring Las Perlas and crossing our fingers for some tropical blue green water, then on the 10th, we will head back to the Rally group and make final preparations before departing to the Galapagos. Reminder, you can track our location at https://www.ybtracking.com/yb-races-app and search for "World ARC 2026-2027". Onward!
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