1) WINDS OF THE WORLD – Mexico

Where have you been all my life;
Thank you so much for this very handy and very valuable info!
Sailing, this weekend, from P. Navidad to Ixtapa, later in March to Acapulco / P. Marques

Muchas Gracias (glad I found the posse ),

Dan Droogleever




2) SV JULIA MAX – Costa Rica

Hi Everyone, Golfito is a small town as a Port of Entry/Departure. We stayed at Fish Hook Marina, 506/2775-1624,(www.fishhookcr.com) a new well-maintained marina. Bilingual, Electricity 30/50amp, potable water, trash, laundry, restrooms/showers, restaurant/sports bar. We used a cab to drive us to the various locations for check-out and international zarpe: Immigration (very friendly), Customs, Banco National, and Port Captain. Great experience! Panama is a long, skinny country. 5 days to Las Perlas, just south of Panama City. We anchored at Punta Burica, Islas Secas, Isla Coiba, Ensenada Naranjo, and Ensenada Benao. Winds for sailing were 10-15k diurnal. We snorkeled at Coiba after paying a National Park Fee for one night of $100 for boat/captain and 1 crew. We found some great snorkeling spots, and not so great spots. One of our greatest finds was a fellow cruising boat, sv Illusion, with Stan and Sally Honey on board. Yes, the co-founders of Sailmail which we use all the time for SSB Sailblog, e-mail and weather forecasts. We had a great evening with them, and will be seeing them along the way. Our plan is to arrive at Marina La Playita on March 2nd. There is a great Panama Cruising Guide, by Eric Bauhaus, with chartlets, depths and anchorage/marina information that is highly recommended. His Guide is in its 5th Edition (2015). It can be bought in Panama City at Islamorada Nautical Bookstore (www.islamorada.com).

Cheers to all,

George and Sue


3) Panama Posse Happy Hour this Thursday – Costa Rica



March 1st @ 5 PM at  Coconutz & Angry Goats Brewery  Playas de Coco 10°32’59.2″N 85°41’48.7″W
https://goo.gl/maps/iP5UoRtvhcU2
Long and winded tales of the Papagayos welcome
There are about 12+ Panama Posse vessels in the area so should be a good shindig and the barkeep “Pete” is a
boater from Kentucky. We’ll toast to those ahead and those behind us – there are iguanas and monkeys in these trees

4)  Marina Papagayo –  Costa Rica  – Official Sponsor of the Panama Posse

* Stay three nights pay for two.  * Stay seven nights pay for five  * Stay a month and pay the annual (monthly) rate.
* Free drink tickets on arrival for Dive Bar happy hour. 

5) OCTOPUS GARDEN – Mexico
 on our way to Chiapas, we left Marina Chahue at 11 am. Broad reach all afternoon, winds 10 or 12, seas 2 feet, boat speed 4 knots. Very pleasant so far

Jim & Susy 


6) RESPITE – Costa Rica

Posse fleet, thought I would share what happened to Respite when checking into Costa Rica. We had gotten our exit Zarpa from San Juan Del Sur. I presented the exit Zarpa to the Port Captain in Costa Rica and the Port Captain in SJDS had made a mistake on the exit Zarpa he had entered the exit date where the name off the boat should have been. The CR PC would not accept this document. Said I need to back to Nicaragua. To make a long story short with the help of  Marina Puesta del Sol we were able to get in contact with the PC in SJDS to correct the mistake.  The moral of this story is to double check the documents before leaving any of the check in or check out offices. Below is the Zarpa in question.

Every days a holiday every meal a banquet


Chris & Janet
7) FRED AGAIN III

SV FredAgain III is looking for crew…looking 3 or 4 amazing adventurers to do the Pacifac to Atlantic Panama Canal crossing from Costa Rica at the end of March. Good people looking for good people! We’ll be leaving Costa Del Sol, El Salvador in a week or so for Costa Rica but sadly, my wonderful crew of many months has to leave at the end of March. Please pass this opportunity along to with my email address…robertdnuttall@gmail.com. I’ll personally respond to expressions of interest and questions.

Robert



8) TOTEM – Panama
PAPAGAYO INFO. Chris provides weather updates via SSB and some boats here are close enough to find it useful. Tune into 8137 at 1700 EST. Today the discussion included take on the pattern in Papagayos over the course of the next week and when was best to make tracks.   http://www.mwxc.com/

(note – luckily as every season the Papagayos are ebbing over the next few weeks as they do every year and very importantly Jamie on TOTEM is a SAILMAKER)

Jamie & Behan






9) ANILA – Costa Rica 

Anila had a good run down from Bahia Del Sol in the unpredictable Papagayos. As far as we can tell the actual conditions never matched the forecasts.  We had wind anywhere from 7kts in the early morning to around 35 knot gusts overnight. We tucked in for a night at Bahia Santa Elena at 10°55’22.2″N 85°47’30.0″W with flat waters but the winds still pumped over the hills. 

After completing the complicated check-in process at Playa Del Coco. The phone number for customs at the airport is +506 2668-1336 in case the security person doesn’t know who to contact. We are now kicking back for a few days at Marina Papagayo. Harbormaster/Manager Dan and his staff are super friendly and helpful.  Be careful when coming in if the Papagayo winds are blowing.  The surge and wind make docking a little challenging, but the marina provides several dock hands to help grab our lines. They are $2/ft/day, with moorage deals for the Posse depending on how long you stay. We had friends visiting from Seattle for spring break and were able to enjoy the pool, Andaz Beach House on Play Nascascolo (free use with marina stay but restaurant is very expensive for lunch).  The DiveBar restaurant at the marina is reasonably priced and good. They have a small chandlery (expensive, do you see a pattern?) and a snack store, but no other real provisions. We rented a car at the marina today for $115 for 2 days and had a nice 2-hour horseback ride on and around Playa Panama with Tico Tours for $75/person followed by a fabulous dinner at Ginger restaurant (Asian tapas) just down the road in Playa Hermosa. We’ll be heading inland for some touring tomorrow and then back to Playa Del Coco by Thursday to meet up with anyone who is still there and do the paperwork shuffle again.

Dave, Satin, Camille & Kyra


10) WAPONI WOO – Acapulco –  Sideways ?

(note next time please provide  who – what – where why 😉 ) 

Caroline & Ryan

11)  The Panama Posse Net Frequency and times are changing.

New net times are 13:00 UTC (currently 7:00 AM local time)


We will start our calls on 8297 (8B) and fallback to 4417 (4C) USB.

The following are confirmed net control operators – we need to fill a few slots please confirm if you can help.


Monday – 
Tuesday  – ANNAPURNA   – Confirmed
Wednesday – EASY – Confirmed
Thursday – CARINTHIA – Confirmed
Friday – 
Saturday – 
Sunday –




12) CROSSROADS

Dear Panama Posse,

We miss you all. Fortunately we have met many friendly cruisers along the way. We really liked Golfito. It was small and is still a typical Costa Rica town. The anchoring is very easy and plentiful, with good holding, in the natural harbor, just behind the Land and Sea houseboat and the Fishhook Marina. We were planning to go to a marina, but the anchoring was so nice that we did not move. Clearly all of the marinas will negotiate their price if you desire to stay at a marina, but we really enjoyed anchoring out. Unfortunately, when we were in town, the main street the entire length of the town was torn up for road construction and so there is one lane through town, which alternates traffic direction and makes taking a taxi or bus through town a very long ordeal. So we either walked or took our dingy up and down the length of the town. We highly recommend taking your dingy for checking in and out. When we went to the Port Captain to check in, he said that we didn’t have to check in to Golfito if we had checked into the country in Coco (which we had done). However, we did have the Port Captain check our paperwork and we were given a little slip to use later at checkout to tell the bank what we owed. The Port Captain is at the other end of town from where we anchored, just outside the new marina which you will see when you enter the harbor. We went to the fuel dock at the new marina and asked if we could leave our dingy there to go to the Port Captain and they were very friendly and said yes. (Bring a large fender or two for your dinghy as the fuel dock is high above the water exposing your inflatable to some sharp aluminum square tubes that could make for a bad day).
From the fuel dock you just walk outside the marina, turn right and the Port Captain office is just there.

To check out,you go to
    1. Immigration,
    2. Customs,
    3. Bank,
    4. Port Captain.

(The Sarana Guide has a very good description and map of the process) Immigration is in the center of the town on the main road, just across the street from the Samoa Restaurant and Bar. Happily the Samoa Restaurant has a dock that you can dock the dinghy at for 500 colones an hour, and cross the street to Immigration to get the first step done. There is a sign on the dock that says Bienvenudo, which is constructed of plastic floats. Immigration requires three copies of all documents, including the zarpe and document that you received in CoCo. If you don’t have them, Immigration will send you to a place where you can get copies made, but it is several blocks down the road. Immigration is open 8 a.m.-4 p.m, Monday-Friday. After immigration you can take your dingy back to the new Marina and ask if you can leave it at the fuel dock. It will take you awhile to complete your check-out. First you have to walk or take a taxi (recommended) from the new marina to the duty free zone where all the duty free stores are located. There you ask where to find the customs office (Aduana)and take you paperwork from immigration there. We waited quite awhile at Customs. Then we went to the Banco Nacionale, which conveniently has an office there in the duty-free complex, and paid our $50.00 exit fee. The fee is based on boat size, so you need to get that information from the port captain before you go to the bank. If you do not have it when you leave customs, there is also a branch of the bank closer to the Port Captain’s office. Finally you go to the Port Captain and get your international Zarpe. We spent from about 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. doing this. You need to go to the offices the day before you plan to leave and you must leave in 24 hours (although per immigration it is 12 hours, but don’t worry if it is less than 24 hours we were told). We hope that this is helpful as we were sooooooo happy to find the docks for our dingy when we were doing the exit paperwork. We did make the walk back and forth to the new marina on one of our excursions, and it was LONG and HOT! We also ate at the beach-side restaurant at the new Marina which was fairly good but not cheap. Enjoy yourselves,

M/V CrossRoads Enroute to Panama City via Bahia Honda (tonight’s stop then an overnight run tomorrow).

We anchored at Isla Parida at 08 08.340N 12 19.584W about 18′ of water. We are currently underway from Isla Carvada to Bahia Honda. We expect to be in Panama City by Tuesday or so. After we get measured and in queue for a transit, we’ll go back out to cruise the Las Perlas Islands. We saw Julia Max in Golfito, they are about two days behind us. Are you guys all having fun without us??

Cheers, Stan & Diane


13) GADDABOUT – Mexico 

The dreaded Golfo de Tehuantepec crossing is behind us and Gadabout is in Chiapas. After a smooth trip from Acapulco we did a quick turn in Huatulco to take advantage of a perfect weather window. Once clear of the main potential T-pec’er impact zone we stayed about 7 miles off the coast. We dodged a lot of commercial fishermen and battled a current but didn’t have to worry about the panga long lines. Overall it was exactly what we had hoped for, including last night’s meal of freshly-caught mahi-mahi.

Arthur “Wags” & Paula



14) SEA GLASS – Costa Rica

Posse Fleet in Playa Coco Costa Rica – Picture of the week !



Keep em coming !