Shifting Our Heading

Life aboard Hazel is not always about open horizons. Sometimes it is about repairing her in whatever remote corner of the world we find ourselves.

We had departed Panama with Hawaii in our sights, only to turn back when our Genoa and headstay failed. After several attempts to fix them in rough seas, we accepted that the conditions were too dangerous. We needed shelter. The chart shows the winding path we sailed for two days as we fought the wind and avoided entering an unfamiliar bay at night.

At sunrise we entered a serene bay on the island of Cebaco and set the anchor. Exhaustion hit us immediately. Breakfast came first, then the repairs. Six hours later the sail and headstay were operational again, and we used the remaining daylight to fine tune our mainsail rigging. By evening we were spent.

The next morning brought a new challenge. I woke to the sound of stomping and some very fiery language from Peter. Then the smell reached me. Hazel’s marine head had failed again. The repair took five hours and required a complete teardown. It is now working flawlessly, although Peter has chosen to rely on the five gallon bucket for simplicity.

By then we had used up food, diesel, and more than three days of water without gaining any distance toward Hawaii. Another boat, Journey Bay, was anchored nearby. They did not answer the radio, so Peter tried Hazel’s whistle. Their tender soon arrived with diesel and fresh fish. After more than thirty days at sea without catching a single fish, Peter was both grateful and humbled.

With the day half gone and no water left, we decided to head north toward Costa Rica. The trade winds toward Hawaii look stronger farther north, and we needed a port where we could refill water, fuel, and provisions.

We set our course for Fishhook Bay Marina in Golfito Bay.

More about Golfito and our time there in the next post… its beauty does not disappoint.

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Where we have disappeared to on an unexpected Pacific detour over the past five days:

The big event of our night heading north was Peter catching his first fish, a beautiful Wahoo.

Wahoo is a large, fast‑swimming pelagic fish in the Scombridae family, the same group that includes tunas, mackerels, and bonitos. It’s known for remarkable speed, reaching bursts of up to 60 mph, and for the fierce fight it puts up when hooked, which many say is what inspired the excited shout of “wahoo!” In Hawaii it’s called ono, meaning “good to eat,” and elsewhere it’s known as hoo, kingfish, or Pacific kingfish.

You can see on my AIS screenshot that this is KORU, Jeff Bezos’s beautiful sailboat. If you’ve been following our blog, you already know he seems to be trailing us from port to port. Wherever we go, he appears. The only difference is that we’re cruising on a Peter‑and‑Paul budget, while Captain Bezos is working with something a bit more generous. The large ship beside KORU is his service tender, carrying all the toys anyone could dream of for water sports, including jet skis, a helicopter, and even a submarine.

We made it to Fishhook Bay Marina at last. Hazel is tucked in and looking great, and I’ve added a few photos from our arrival.

Pedro's Preferred Place

Fun Floating Fruit:

Additional Sailing Footage: