We've finished the provisioning and can finally leave the most uncomfortable anchorage to date. Playita de Amador as it is clled is subject to north winds, south winds, noo winds, bg swells out of the south, Canal pilot boats that assist the supertankers roaring through the anchorage and lots of wash from passing boats. Early one morning, I'm talking 5am dark, we were startled awake by a wave of seawater coming in through the open rear hatch and dousing our feet. One of the pilot boats must have passed very close to our stern and caused a massive wake that crashed onto the sugar scoop at the back and up and in through the hatch. Not nice. Funnily we kept that hatch locked down after this.
Our destination today is the Las Perlas islands, 30 miles south from Panama City and reputed to be a haven of wildlife and seabirds. There wasn't any wind and flat calm seas so we motored but it was a fair trade off to be away from the city. On the way we had dolphins playing in the bow wave and we passed two sharks basking on the surface. First we spotted the fins above the water and as we went past we could see their long tails so definitely not dolphins. They were too big.
Late afternoon we dropped anchor off the north coast of Contadore island, an exclusive island where the rich Panamanians and Internationals have weekend mansions. One mansion is the former home of the former Shah of Iran, I expect after he'd left Iran. It's calm, very quiet and peaceful and we can open the rear hatch once more.
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