We are picking up Luisa Bosci (Tupi), Mark Hilton, Tom and Jeanette O'Brien. Panama is large with 3.5 million people with lots of new office and apartment towers. However, it is expanding so quickly the road system cannot keep up, so long traffic jams are a daily event. It is about 75 Kms across the isthmus to Colon, the city on the Caribbean side where the canal starts it's southerly journey. Black Pearl is moored in Shelter Bay Marina, an old US army/navy ...

Today we leave Panama for Costa Rica. We had been told of extraordinary fishing grounds some 30 nautical miles north of our current anchorage on 'Isla Jicaron'. We leave at 5.30 am to be there at 8.30 to fish for a few hours. This is out of our direct route to Golfito which will be another 8 hours North. Tom and Jeanette have never travelled by sea like this before, he comments how vast the ocean is and thinks how small the country is compared to the rest of t...

This is a National Park that everyone has told us is a 'must visit'. We fish for the last hour of the 3 hour trip, landing a nice Mackerel and loosing a Wahoo. We arrived at the Island near dark and Paul finds it hard to see the water depth, as the charts are not quiet correct, he is close to running aground in shallow water. We anchor near the ranger's station and immediately go ashore to pay our fees and to get information about the Islands. All the Islands ...

We left Panama City at 6pm on a beautiful evening cruising overnight, North for 20 hours to the province known as 'Veraguas'. The capital of the area is Santiago. This province is the only one that spans across the isthmus from the Caribbean to the Pacific. We anchor between the islands, 'Isla Cebaco' and the town on the mainland 'Santa Catalina'. There has been a lot of rain and a huge 4 metre tide, making the sea brown with lots of debris that has been washed...

We left BP in Aruba, flying to Costa Rica, via Panama City. We stay with Warick and Susan Leeming overnight at the Intercontinental Real, San Jose. We have a good meal in the hotel, then early to bed as we are up next morning at 4 am for a light plane flight to 'Barro Colorado' (Colorado River mouth). This is northeast from the capital of 'San Jose',near the border of Nicaragua. Even though it was fairly cloudy we could observe the high volcanic mountains and d...