Puddle Jumpers Gather

In various ports and anchorages along the West Coast of the Americas, a wide variety of international sailors is preparing to make the 3,000-mile leap to French Polynesia — a passage we like to call the Pacific Puddle Jump. Because the greatest concentrations of these westbound voyagers are always found in Banderas Bay, Mexico, and at the Panama Canal, those are the chosen locations for Latitude 38’s annual Pacific Puddle Jump Sendoff Parties.

The first will be held at the Vallarta YC, at Nuevo Vallarta’s Paradise Village Resort on Monday, February 29, 3-6 p.m. Latitude 38 staff will be on hand to share cruising info via media presentations, host a few party games, and interview each crew for mini-profiles that will appear in an upcoming issue of Latitude 38 magazine. All sailors registered at the Puddle Jump website are welcome to attend.

Our second departure fiesta this season will be at the Shelter Bay Marina on the Caribbean end of the Panama Canal: Sunday, March 6, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. We’re thrilled to note that this will be a special affair as it is being co-hosted by our partners at Tahiti Tourisme, including Paul Sloan, the head of that organization. They will fly out especially for this gathering, which has been dubbed Tahiti Bon Voyage, along with a representative from the Whangarei (New Zealand) Marine Association and a rep from Tahiti Crew, that Papeete yacht agency that facilitates bond exemptions for registered Pacific Puddle Jumpers. (A second Panama event may be announced soon also.)

Look for reports on these festive events here and in the pages of Latitude 38. We’ll follow up in a few months with a full recap on the crossing experiences of this years fleet members. Will El Niño affect their passages? That’s anybody’s guess.