Exploring Panama

Current Date: 26th June 2022

Current Location: Ebley. England

We left Linton Bay and made our way westward along the northern coast of Panama, via Portabelo to Shelter Bay Marina. Portabelo was much fought over in the 1700s. Spain used this lovely natural harbour to ship out its silver and Britain thought it would like some of the action. Plenty of to-ing and fro-ing have left impressive ruined fortifications. It was here too that Sir Francis Drake died, possibly of dysentery in 1596 and he was buried at sea close to what is now known as Drake Island at the entrance to the bay.

The now sleepy town of Portabelo.

Mehalah dodging the Spanish guns.

And so we arrived at the entrance to the Panama Canal, creeping along the small ships channel shoreside of the big ships. A few miles out from the massive entrance breakwater we radioed Christobal Traffic Control on Ch12. They told us to wait for one large ship to emerge into the Atlantic after which we could sneak in and continue inside to Western breakwater to Shelter Bay where we had previously met Peter and Sally on Milly for their transit through the canal. Very exciting to be back there as we tied up in the marina

We were here to, yet again, put Mehalah to bed whilst we returned to the UK. It's a hot, hard job in sweltering temperatures and high humidity. Sails off, everything packed into sealed containers or vacuum packed bags, canvas down, everything cleaned, gas off, water tanks emptied, fuel tanks filled, clothing washed and dried, impellor changed, engine serviced, generator serviced, outboard emptied. The list seems endless.

Out we come again.

Into the jungle we must go.

But not so busy that we couldn't make some new friends though. A smart new Beneteau 50 pulled in across from us and we met the owners, an Argentinian couple who came for dinner. He, a top back and neck orthopaedic surgeon and she an anaesthetist. They live in Pilar in the north of the country and were taking a two month break. Pilar is a wine growing region of Argentina so they brought out a bottle of red from their friend's estate!

Soon though it was time to lift out and inspect the rudder damage out of the water. You know how it goes now. Motor to the haulout bay, lift out in the slings, transfer to the trailer and trundle to the yard where we are propped up. Nothing unusual here except my usual impeccable rope throwing as we entered the dock was somewhat less impeccable this time.

The news was not good. The sleeve and  flange which protect the rudder post as it enters the bottom of the boat has twisted and dropped. It looks as though we will have to drop the 300lb rudder when we get back in September to make the repair. On Mehalah this is a BIG job as the skeg the rudder is attached to must also be removed. And then, what will we find?

Offending flange - should be bolted to hull above.

Another few days of final full on tasks were eventually completed at 9.01 by which time the trailer had arrived for our 9.00 appointment to move Mehalah from the work yard to the storage yard. We hope that the covers, curtains, bilge pumps and the promised dehumidifier will keep her dry for when we return. Reports from previous sailors who have been through the process here are variable to say the least.

We now had five days before we flew out and we decided to go on holiday! It might sound like we are on holiday all the time but this is like leaving your land based house to go on holiday. For a few days you can forget about all those jobs that need doing and the sometimes intense world of long distance sailors to explore the world outside the marina.

We had hoped to visit Mamoni Valley Preserve (www.mamonivalleypreserve.org) but they couldn't guarantee the rivers between there and the airport would be passable even by 4x4 so we had to make other plans. Remember it is the rainy season here and we heard that a few years ago 340mm fell in three hours up in the mountains. So we planned two days in a small homestay in El Valle de Anton and a final three days in a hotel there. El Valle is, I think, the only inhabited extinct volcano in the western hemisphere. Lush, green and now becoming a centre for adventure sports it lies just south of the Continental Divide.

A long, busy taxi ride much of it along the busy Pan Mercian Highway and we finally arrived at DondeJose. José lives here in this simple house on the edge of town with Liz, her daughter Khloe and Liz's mother. He has one simple room he rents out to visitors. We were made to feel as if the house was ours and José offered to accompany us up one of the hills around the rim of the volcano the following day.

Maria, Liz and Jose

And so we came to climb The Sleeping Indian so named because it looks like a sleeping Indian. Hot, humid rainforest on the steep sides of the hill as we followed a series of waterfalls eventually coming out onto an area devoid of trees where the normal wind prevents their growth. We were in cloud and José was very disappointed as he wanted to show us the view of the the 'valley', the crater, below. Gill and José chatted on in broken Spanglish and I heard a few words my Duolingo course had taught me.

Rock paintings on the way to the top of cloud shrouded Sleeping Indian.

Next day we decided to climb Cerro de CaraIguana 'Iguana Face' so named because it doesn't look like an Iguana's face. This was even steeper but mostly on tracks and this time we were rewarded with magnificent views over El Valle below. Gill was looking for a sloth but all we saw was a large snake, possibly a rat snake, as we descended.

CaraIguana.

CaraIguana summit.

Rat snake?

Then it was time to move to our hotel, the Golden Frog, on the other side of the crater for a final chill out. But not before José and Liz had sorted out our bus back to Panama City. As it happened Liz was travelling there too at the same time. So we said a sad farewell crossed the valley to the hotel.

Breakfast time.

The Golden Frog was an average hotel with stupendous views situated halfway up the crater side. It was basically empty. We lazed around, walked into town for last minute present shopping and climbed a small local hill. I can recommend not putting your full forearm into a Panamanian ants nest. Finally I sent a spur of the moment email to a guy who gave bird watching tours. And he said yes he could take us the next day. We were waiting outside the hotel at 6.45 and off we went. The crater is about 6km across and it has recorded over 300 bird species. Spotters come from all over the world. We visited the flat valley bottom floor, a pond, cloud forest and wet forest. Mario our guide had worked for the Smithsonian Institute for twenty years and then run various ornithological companies since. He was amazing identifying most of the species initially by call and then imitating them until they flew close enough to us to see them. Bird of the Day was the rare Amazon Kingfisher but we also saw toucans, tanagers, herons, swallow tailed kite, ringed kingfisher, woodpeckers, flycatchers and mot mots. Over 50 species in 4 hours. Quite amazing. Gill had told Mario she wasn't too interested in birds. She just wanted to see a sloth. Last tree of the day and what was that up in the branches? A sloth! Amazing. One happy Gilly as we made our way back to the hotel.

In search of the elusive mot mots. It is VERY jungly.

The rare Amazon Kingfisher.

And finally.....here he is!

Hope you like the time lapse photography?

Next day was travel day. José arrived in a taxi he had organised to take us and our luggage to the bus stop. The bus was early and passed us going the other way. José simply flagged it down, got it to turn around, and off we went to meet up with Liz. Turned out she was only travelling the three hours to make sure we arrived in town safely! The bus driver treated the Pan American Highway like it was a Formula 1 racetrack and then Liz's brother, who just happened to be a taxi driver, drove us to the airport. Wrong terminal but who cares. A long flight to Madrid and another to Heathrow where Harry and Sandra from the canal met us. We finally arrived in Ebley 30 hours after setting off to find our fridge restocked with food. Thank you Harry and Rachel.

Modern Panama City.

And so we return yet again to England and as is customarily when we arrive at a new place here are the key points to watch if ever you think of entering this small island.

1. It is now VERY expensive.

2. Everything works - except the trains and the baggage handlers this week and British Airways staff later in the summer.

3. They have great, deep, hot baths.

4. They have the comfiest beds.

5. No one says "Hello" when you pass them in the street. We got about 65% eye contact today.

6. Everyone speaks proper English.

7. Pigeons nest on your enclosed balcony.

8. Your best, long term friends live there.

9. It's not very warm and the sun is low.

10. The roads are even busier than Panama City but etiquette is considerably better.

11. Cheese, veggies and bread are excellent.

12. Everyone wears grey.

And some final memories of Panama.

1. Surely the best pineapples in the world.

2. So much green, so much jungle. Green, green, green, green.

3. Some dangerous areas, notably Colon.

4. Such hospitable people.

5. A very turbulent recent history (read Six Minutes to Freedom).

See you in September.

The Indescribably Beautiful San Blas Islands

Current Date: 20th May 2020

Current Location: A Tropical Island, San Blas, Panama

Early morning passage.

Dinghy surrounded by fallen coconuts 

We left Linton Bay Marina and motored east all day to the San Blas Islands or Kuna Yala as the Indians that live here prefer to call it. A 30 mile by 20 mile group of over 300 coconut laden islands many of them uninhabited.

We've been here before but not in our own boat. Remember "Fucking Bueno" back in 2016? Some cracking photos there!

Our first stop was Chichime where we were soon met by Venancio one of the sellers of the famous Kuna molas. These are layered pieces of material intricately cut out and sewn to make beautiful images of birds and fish.

Three layers of material and detailed stitching.

But now it's the off season in Kuna Yala. The wet season. The lightening season. It's quiet with few yachts in the anchorages. Time to chill and make new friends.

Like Reg (Canadian) and Debs (Australian) who came here 28 years ago on their way to New Zealand and never left. Their boat, Runner, is now fixed to the bottom in the middle of Swimming Pool anchorage by a 237kg anchor recovered from a sunken ship and delivered by a couple of local boats. They have an amazing network of Panamanians who can source anything from fridges to dim sum. Mostly it comes from Panama City, the last bit of the journey by 4x4 and then "pongo" the modern equivalent of the dugout canoes.

Or like the Brazilians from two boats we kept meeting in each new anchorage - always ready to party.

Brazilian meet up

Navigation is more challenging than normal. The whole area is shallow with numerous coral reefs to be avoided. We are starting to be able to guess water depths by the colour of the water. The Navionics charts we have used everywhere so far are less accurate here. The charts to use are those produced by a German cruiser and marine surveyor called Eric Bauhaus. His book and charts are invaluable. See below how Navionics has us  on a reef when actually Eric shows us accurately in the channel. His charts can be used with OpenCPN an open source navigation programme I have started using. Amazingly OpenCPN can also use what are effectively geolocated screen shots from Google Earth. We can see ourselves moving through the shallows as our little boat icon traverses the Google Earth image. Quite amazing and it's even possible to make your own Google Earth 'charts'.

Eric has us nicely positioned between two reefs.

Navionics would have had us on land where the red arrow is.

Communication with the outside world is much more patchy here too. Only the islands closer to the mainland have a mobile connection so our Spanish Duolingo courses have had to take a back seat. We can talk to other boats locally on Channel 72 VHF and there is also an HF net at 8.30 each morning run by Debs of Runner. It's pretty quiet this time of year but on occasions they've had boats as far away as The Marquesas on the Pacific checking in.

Sharks. They're here. Today I threw the old vegetable matter overboard. The water was flat and blue as blue. A few ramoras that live on the back of sharks, attached by their suckers, came up to investigate and then up came the big old nurse shark too. 2m long and swimming round the boat just a few inches beneath the surface. Too enthralled we didn't take a picture. This was our second encounter. Previously when snorkelling we spotted another one lying by a rock. They are harmless but we turned and swam the other way! More seriously the Kuna told the boats with children to keep their kids out of the water because a hammerhead and tiger shark had been seen in the bay. They are NOT harmless! To make matters worse crocodiles are also not unknown here though mostly they keep to the creeks and rivers of the mainland.

We're travelling on and off with Wit Wat the boat who crossed from Aruba at the same time as us. But otherwise we now see more South American boats than European ones here. Still a fair number of monohulls out for skippered backpacker charters too. But it's all very low key and laid back.

Home shopping delivery. Panamanian style.

We are having to be more careful with our services and provisions too. We are on our second, and last, gas bottle. The often cloudy weather means our solar array can only just, or not, keep up with our minimal electrical demands and we have not come across any water taps here so far. What there is though is LOTS of rainwater. Our rain catching systems are less than a hundred percent effective but we can collect over 100 litres overnight plus the dinghy which might hold another 80 litres. This is the only use for the dinghy at present as the kayak is much better in these shallow waters. So plenty for washing clothes and dishes which leaves our main tanks for fizzy water, tea and coffee making.

Part of the water catching system 

There's weed too. Big swathes of brown sargassum. It clogged our raw water filter as we left the Swimming Pool anchorage. On Mehalah this is tricky. The engine seacock doesn't completely seal the filter is attached to the through hull well below water level. It's the original, 40 years old. And once you've removed the cap and the glass and the perforated filter you still have to poke around in the inlet with a pair of Gill's eyebrow tweezers to coax out the bits of weed (it looks like short lengths of tagliatelle). And water is coming into the boat at the same time.

Just outside the weeded area....for now.

This is the problem.

I mentioned lightening. This is the big worry at this time of year. The north coast of Panama and the San Blas in particular are frequently hit. Once you have made the decision to be here there's not much you can do except cross your fingers and hope for the best. If you do get hit the first thing is to check we are both OK and then make sure it hasn't blown a hole through the hull, knocked out a through hull or set fire to anything. Next it's a review of electronics to see what's not working. Then talk to the insurers. Getting a direct hit is not to be recommended.

We'll be here for another few weeks before making our way to Shelter Bay Marina where we met Milly for their Panama Canal transit. We'll lift out there and return to the UK for the rest of the wet season. And then? Who knows?

PS: I spoke with Dave Wilton the other day. Dave of Dave and Vera our Cumbria neighbours of 30 years who brought anodes, shaft seals and Covid out for us earlier in the year. Dave was most upset that I had omitted to mention his sterling work on the generator charging and monitoring system. Here's a picture.

Ae we friends again now Dave?

Current Date: 23rd May 2022

Current Location: Green Island, San Blas

We thought we were getting good at this anchoring business but three nights ago in the Coco Banderos island group we drifted into a sand bank. The bow with the depth finder in it said we were still in 3.3m of water (which is plenty in these shallow waters) but the rudder was firm in the sand with the wheel spinning as the front of Mehalah swung around. Then there was an ominous "clunk". We carefully upped anchor and reanchored 15m further away. Next morning, after a sleepless night we donned masks and snorkels and went to assess the damage. Part of the bearing where the rudder stock comes through the hull had twisted off and we thought the stock might be bent. Added excitement when Gill shouted out to me that 'Nursey' our resident 2m nurse shark was under the boat too. Oh dear what a nuisance (or words to that affect) and we should have known better and moved earlier! A quick post on the Stevens 47 forum and it sounded as though we should be OK to limp back to Linton Bay. Today we motored carefully a few miles to this more open anchorage and we are encouraged that the stock is not bent. We shall see but we've decided to stay here a few more days before working our way west.

Not much sleep that night and not much last night either as a big lightening storm crashed around us. We were still a bit jumpy after the rudder incident but all was well as we swung into deeper water. Another 100 litres of fresh water collected overnight in the dinghy.

Tonight is a beautiful evening though. A big star filled sky with the lightening 30 or so miles away from us. We can see the Plough pointing north and to the south lies the Southern Cross. A light shone in the water reveals a myriad of 15cm fish splashing around and a couple of small sharks darting from under the boat. Usually I would get the fishing rod out but somehow the thought of hooking a shark is not too appealing!

Current Date: Linton Bay Marina

Current Date: 2nd June 2022

We decided to head down right close to the Panamanian mainland to take a look at one of the small Kuna towns, Nagana. A grey day saw us motor 10 miles and anchor in mud for the first time for a while. Dinghy into town. It's crowded together, poor but very friendly. School was reconvening for the afternoon session. Everyone on the island wore masks. Next day interspersed with the ever present thunder and lightening storms (another three inches of rain overnight) we took the dinghy up the River Diablo. Dinghy because we were a bit wary of crocs biting through the thin floor of the kayak. We grounded the dinghy on the way over the bar to the river but luckily this time no damage done. Another world. Dark and mysterious.

Nagana Town

Many, many mangroves up the Rio Diablo 

Then it was back to Chichime before leaving for Linton Bay where we are now. Chichime was pretty busy again as it's where the charter boats stock up and where most boats spend their first and last night's. During one rainstorm Venancio who sold us the molas when we first arrived came on board and told us a lot about the culture of the proud Kuna Indians. At one time the Spanish tried to conquer them and although this was generations ago he is still frightened when a Spanish registered boat comes in to anchor. He also told us that Nagana the town we had just left is no longer a traditional Kuna town. The school we saw only teaches in Spanish and Spanish is the only language spoken there. He told us he owned some coconut trees on several of the small islands and the proceeds were shared across his entire extended family. Coconuts and the hand crafted molas are traded with the nearby Colombians for rice, sugar and other goodies. He asked us if we had any reading glasses as many of the women who work on the intricate molas when the are younger lose their close vision. We gave him two pairs and promised to bring out more pairs when we return from the UK. We had a fascinating hour with him until the rain stopped.

Next day we decided to make for Linton Bay. We we're going to stay longer in the San Blas but actually, a bit like lobsters, you can have too much of a good thing. It was time to leave.

Somewhat apprehensive with our rudder issue still not properly understood, we set off through the tricky dog leg exit between the reefs in the grey early morning. We very quickly realised there was not much water coming out the exhaust, a sure sign that we were blocked with weed again. So we turned round anchored just off the island and began the risk fraught clearance of the filter again. All was well but replacement of the system has come high up the must-do list. The water we took on in this process caused the bilge alarm to come on a couple of times and as we neared Linton Bay we realised the rudder post was letting in a steady trickle of sea water too. More jobs to sort!

Here lies the problem. Another job when we lift out.

Today we has another adventure. Our little 2.5 Yamaha outboard suddenly decided not to start yesterday and despite dismantling and cleaning it it refused yet again today to start. And we needed it for a trip to the nearby Panamarina through the 'Tunnel of Lurve'! YouTube came to the rescue with a Q-Tip rotated in an electric drill up inside the sticky float needle housing and a couple of newly made gaskets. Off we set to collect 1,600 USD in cash from the marina office who had sold friends Jack and Fizzy's wind steering after they had decided to sell Carpe Die for health reasons. Dodge the shallows, cross the bay, over the bar and into the Tunnel of Lurve, a mangrove fringed passage just wide enough to get a dinghy through. Very evocative. Out the other side to find Sylvie the joint French owner of pretty Panamarina was out to lunch. So we opted for a nice French lunch, watched the vegetable man arrive and sympathised with a very hot dog. Sylvie arrived and said she didn't have the money but would go into Panama City tomorrow and bring it across to Linton Bay herself. Hopefully she and it arrive tomorrow. On the way back we called in to see Carina who are leaving tomorrow for an overnight sail to Bocas do Toro, another island group further west. We probably won't see them again.

No wonder it stopped with all that gunge on the jet.

The Tunnel of Lurve.

We have decided to return to the UK for July, August and September but then we'll be back out again to continue our travels. But before that we will work our way to Shelter Bay where we'll leave Mehalah. We are then trying to organise a few days in a jungle eco setup before flying out of Panama via Spain on 23rd June.

Click here to see all the earlier Mehalah and Petronella posts.