THREE HOPS ΤΟ PANAMA

With our hearts set on Pacific voyaging, we headed out from Massachusetts, planning just two stops on the way to Panama.

- TOM LINSKEY

EVER since we cruised from Acapulco, Mexico, to Bay of Islands, New Zealand, in 1988 on Freelance, our 28-foot Bristol Channel Cutter, my wife, Harriet, and I longed to return to the South Pacific. In spring 2021, while going through a closet full of stuff in our condo, out slid a box of old paper charts from our voyage. A large chart of Bora Bora unfolded in my hands. The perfect circle of reef, the lagoon of dazzling blue, clouds streaming like cotton from the island's volcanic peaks-the South Pacific had enchanted us again. We sketched a plan: From our home port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, we'd head to Bermuda, then Puerto Rico, then the Panama Canal, the Galapagos, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, the Kingdom of Tonga, and Fiji. We'd arrive in New Zealand a year later. It would be about 10,300 nautical miles, most of it downwind in the northeast and southeast trade winds.

Ocean, our Dolphin 460 cat, had recently undergone an extensive refit and was up to the task. So, off we went.

MASSACHUSETTS TO BERMUDA 
Bermuda is an old friend for us. During the 13 years we operated our Caribbean child-literacy nonprofit, Hands Across the Sea, we called into the island 22 times. But getting to Bermuda from the US Eastern Seaboard in the fall is tricky.

First, we looked for the tailwinds of a departing front to launch us off the continental shelf. Next, we looked for the Gulf Stream to quiet down. Finally, we looked for a favorable slant to get us into Bermuda after a three- to four-day hop.

Powerful autumn and early winter gales can be dangerous, so we checked and double-checked the forecasts (we find PredictWind helpful, and we rely on meteorologists at Commanders' Weather to determine a weather window). We also had an old friend, Capt. Bill Truesdale, join us. Bill is a circumnavigator, and is cool, calm, and able to diagnose and fix anything.