Sailing Catalpavideo
Sailing away from Panama City Episode 498
5 July 2026 · 19 min · 13K views · Panama City
What this video covers
Catalpa, an Australian family's sailboat, departs Panama City for a 4,000-nautical-mile Pacific crossing to French Polynesia, stopping first at the Las Perlas Islands to clean the hull and prepare.Watch At the market in Panama City — described as the largest there — Sarah and the kids load up on bulk produce: mangoes at $10 a bag, oranges at $14, green bananas, pumpkins, carrots, and beetroot.0:31 Lee secures jerry cans of fuel and tidies the boat.0:40 Provisioning strategy gets detailed coverage: green bananas hang in the cockpit, onions go in hammocks, carrots split between fridge and ambient storage, and the freezer is packed with minced beef because red meat is scarce in the Pacific.6:30 Over 30 kg of flour is aboard.5:18 The windlass gypsy wheel is a known problem — a replacement arrived but doesn't fit the chain, so they depart with the faulty one.7:52 At Las Perlas, Lee dives to clean the hull, which holds well under Total Boat antifoul after a month in harbor, but the propeller and shaft need scrubbing.14:02 Lee and Sarah weigh PredictWind's routing (south) against Jimmy Cornell's guidance, leaning north for comfort.14:51 A waterspout near the anchorage prompts urgency to depart.19:20 Departure timing hinges on weather and ripening produce.14:43
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