Ship’s Journal from Mallorca to Fiji

Update 02/03/25 13:30 GMT-5 Shelter Bay Marina, Colon, Panama.

It took us exactly 7 days to cross the Caribbean Sea. The whole crossing has been pretty uneventful. The wind direction would have taken an inflatable flamingo from St Martin to Colón. We had nothing but Code Zero up for 90% of the time. You would think that that made it monotonous or boring but, it was neither. It allowed for even more of a daily routine than we’ve previously managed. Sara really took the homeschooling to another level with a fixed schedule that was created together with the kids. Alarms were set to act as the school bell. To underline that it wasn’t a tedious trip, I caught myself missing a day early on when I calculated our daily progress by dividing the distance by 2 days instead of 3. 

To our surprise we didn’t see any dolphins until last night around sunset. But a little swallow did befriend us. It had landed while Charlie Beau led her first yoga session as an instructor. An amazing training from auntie Sara resulted in her giving a class with authority, knowledge and care. 

The little bird therefore earned the name “Yogi” before it came to sit at 30 cm from me and picked butter from the kids fingers.

Almost nothing broke. Only last night the bilge alarm went off but very quickly we discovered one of our 2 freshwater pumps was leaking. It was quickly isolated and since it happened the night before our arrival, the timing wasn’t that bad either. And, luckily we have 2 sets of pumps. Otherwise we’d be without tap water now,… and until we find the new part. I discovered the accumulator tank had rusted and exploded… So the quest for a new one has started! 

The kids are already running around the marina hoping to spot crocodiles, jungle cats and tropical birds. Tomorrow, Monday, our agent will come on board and will hopefully be able to tell us when our transit slot is.