Panama to San Diego 2020/2021

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by benbis

Hey thanks so much for all the reply’s to this thread!
There’s some great info for me to consider here.

Right now I’ve downloaded the Sarana guides and I’m going to see with my insurance if I can be covered to arrive in Chiapas by June 15th.

Or potentially take longer and then leave the boat in Costa Rica in July.
My time frames for sailing this route are Late March to November, due to work.
I know this isn’t ideal but if I can find secure marinas to leave the boat in either Panama, Costa Rica and Mexico I should be able to me lake it work.
By only sailing North of 10 degrees outside of the hurricane season.

Has anyone left their boat in Panama, Costa Rica or Chiapas for a long time?

Our boat was in Chiapas for a few months, it was fine. In Costa Rica there are good marinas but expensive.

[LeaseOnLife]

Oh, and for weather forecasts, and other reasons to access the www: We got a data only SIM card from Movistar in Panama. unlimited data (on the device, can not be used as hotspot) costs $5/week. Scratch cards for refill can be bought all over Panama.

Movistar has a program "sin fronteras", and you can get data at no additional cost all the way to Mexico, whenever you are in reach of a cell tower.

To recharge the movistar with a new scratch card, outside of Panama, dial *888# (not *312code as it says on the scratch card).


Dirk

[roland stockham]

Originally Posted by LeaseOnLife

Oh, and for weather forecasts, and other reasons to access the www: We got a data only SIM card from Movistar in Panama. unlimited data (on the device, can not be used as hotspot) costs $5/week. Scratch cards for refill can be bought all over Panama.
Dirk

Only problem is that there are few places on the coast that have cell tower coverage good enough to download, get a decent coverage map!

[LeaseOnLife]

Originally Posted by roland stockham

Only problem is that there are few places on the coast that have cell tower coverage good enough to download, get a decent coverage map!

We didn't bother buying any local SIM in Costa Rica despite spending a bit of time there, it was good enough there. Nicaragua had good reception, even had to expand my insurance via cell-internet to get permission to land there. Don't remember El Salvador, we were too far out also. Guatemala was on/off but still OK not to use the Pactor modem. That was April 2019 and I thought it worked quite well..