24th February 2024 Isla Chapera, Las Pearlas, Panama – Playa Grande, Isla San Hose, Isla Pearlas, Panama via Playita, Panama We’re finally coming to the end of prepping for the Pacific and we have finally done the final things. We do our last big final provisioning. We find a source of cheese, cured meats and cheap wine. The last spares arrive. We have a watermaker membrane and lots of amazing bits. Off we goto the big Panama fresh market and fill up on everything that we hope will last weeks. Check out is super easy and we’re not asked to buy a cruising permit. Final test sail and everything ..read more

7th February 2024 Isla Ampon (West), Las Perlas, Panama – Las Brisas, Panama via Isla Contadora & Isla Ampon (East), Las Pearlas, Panama We’re not big fans of boating rallies, but there is one rally we are fans of. The Ruffin Rally and for the fist time since Bonaire the Ruffian Rally with Sauvage was going to be in full effect. We headed to the RRR (Ruffian Rally Rendezvous) while testing all our offshore kit. Peter was deployed and actually steered us. Ampie was deployed and charged us. We’re almost feeling Pacific ready. WM is super unhappy and we actually run out of water. Sauvage arr ..read more

29th January 2024 Las Brisas, Panama – Isla Ampon (West), Las Perlas, Panama via Isla Taboga, Isla Contadora & Isla Chapera While Panama city is burning and making international news we head off to find fresh air and clean water. We finally find some great hiking in Taboga. We anchor within a stones throw of both the beach and scary point rocks. We walk every trail on the island and some that havn’t been walked in years. The rural hiking in Toboga is exchanged for urban exploring in Contadora. Love abandoned boats, hotels, wharfs, bars and they are all over the island. The watermaker isn ..read more

21st January 2024 Rio Sucio (East), Darien River, Panama – Las Brisas, Panama Dr Who zips about through different worlds and time in his Tardis. The Tardis also has remarkable properties that it is small but has limitless storage capabilities, it highly functional while providing comfort for the Dr and his trusty companion and wards off the external threat of the darleks and cyberman. Ruffian has proved to be our very own Tardis. Senang nursed their poorly engine, gearbox and thrust bearing out of the Darien river system and we stood by ready to give assistance. With Senang’s engine banging an ..read more

13th January 2024 Isla Iguanita, Rio Darien, Panama – Rio Sucia (East), Darian River, Panama via La Palma, Islas Bellas, Rio Iglesia & Rio Sucia (West), Darian River, Panama What drove Cook to sail to Australia? Why did Scott wander across the bleak Antarctic to the south pole? How did Zheng He persuade his fleet of mariners to venture all over the Arabia and the South China Sea? All these intrepid explorers were drawn to blank spaces on maps where they would discover untold riches and have unknown experiences. There was a blank on the map and Panama, the Darien River* system, and we were ..read more

6th January 2024 Las Brisas De Amador, Panama – Isla Iguanita, Rio Darien, Panama via Isla Chapera & Isla Cañas, Las Perlas, Panama Sometimes the name of a destination tells you everything you need to know about it. Guatemala is full of guacamole, Cayman is full is Caymans, and on Bikini you’ll always find people wearing bikini’s. Heading to the Islas Perlas we wondered if every beach would be covered in pearls and every reef teeming with pearl laden oysters. We left the city waters of Panama City, which teamed with fishing boats, trawlers and container ships , for the flat waters of the P ..read more

16th October 2023 RAM Boatyard, Rio Dulce, Guatemala Apparently, every cloud has a silver lining, and at the moment in our world, there is a pretty big cloud. In the thick of our latest disaster we have found a silver lining, which if we’d not found it, could have spelt disaster for Ruffian in the middle of an ocean. As RAM Marina put everything in motion for replacing the damaged items on the mast, and with Guatemala going into lockdown due to political unrest all our parts sat stuck in transit around the globe. With everything stopped we turned our attention to Ruffian and tried to make the ..read more

12th October 2023 RAM Boatyard, Rio Dulce, Guatemala Silent roads, conspiracy theories, a population under control, food shortages, empty shelves, uncertainly. This was the situation all over the globe at the height of Covid in the spring of 2020 and its now the situation in Guatemala. This time however, the country isn’t locking down due to a internal biological threat, its locking down because of anti-corruption, regime change and the will of the people. The first we knew of this new eerie situation in the Rio was the silence. Gone was the constant soundscape of lorries and their noisy air-b ..read more

8th October 2023 RAM Boatyard, Rio Dulce, Guatemala As you hang on the phone listening to painful muzak you are told that ‘This call is important to us’, closely followed by ‘We are currently experiencing high call volumes’. As you sit there you can see your life disappearing in front of you and your time ebbing away. This has been our life as we have embarked on getting Ruffian once again fixed and everything has been on hold. With the go ahead being given RAM told us that orders were being placed, global logistics were being organised and hard to source components were being sourced. Wanting ..read more

1st October 2023 RAM Boatyard, Rio Dulce, Guatemala Waterfalls, huge vistas, sunsets, culture; these are all hugely photogenic. Inner emotions, traumatic thoughts, emails, contracts, damage reports; these cannot be captured through the lens of a camera. After the chaos of our mast crashing down, RAM’s clear negligence and our lives being derailed there have been limited photographic opportunities. After the disaster of the previous days our bodies were filled with conflicting emotions. One minute we were full of rage, then bereft with grief, then full of resignation and this cycle repeated its ..read more