Sailing the Papagayo

We are backtracking a bit with this post.  We are actually in the Jamaica now, but we’ve had a lot of questions about sailing in rough conditions so we are sharing this video from our sail from Mexico to Panama back in December 2013.

The Papagayo wind is a north to northeasterly wind which periodically blows through the gap in the mountain ranges of Central America in which Lake Nicaragua is located. It is named for the Gulf of Papagayo on the Pacific coast.  It only occurs when the winds in the Caribbean line up just right to blow through this gap. We experienced several days of wind that was 25 to 30 knots.

The video doesn’t capture the true conditions.  The waves were a lot larger and caused us to roll rail to rail before we reefed down enough to minimize the degree to which we were rolling.  Before we reefed we were rolling so much that the rail on the leeward side would plow under the water and roll back up with a bathtub quantity of water running down the deck and quickly draining back to the sea.  Fortunately, the boat design is such that it nicely channeled all this water away from our cockpit allowing us to stay surprisingly dry..