Panama Paradiso

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  Colon, Colón, Panama
Thursday, March 24, 2011

Panamanian Paridiso

One of our New Year's resolutions was to write up this blog more often in 2011 than we did in 2010 …. so here we are again and it’s only March!! We won’t tell you about some of the other resolutions that we haven’t quite kept too!!

Again it’s been an awfully long slog to pick thru hundreds of photos and to do the writing. We very much hope that the effort is worth it and you enjoy sharing our adventures with us.

We’ve really enjoyed our time in Panama –a much under-rated cruising ground and we wish we had more time to spend here.

Bocas del Toro

Bocas del Toro is known locally as Velcro Bay as it is very easy to get stuck and catch port-itis here. We met cruisers that had arrived for a week or two many years ago!! And while we did manage to drag ourselves away after 2 months it was really only supposed to be 2 weeks! But there was just so much going on and we made such lovely friends we don’t regret a minute of it.

The cruising community is really active in Bocas with two main focal points – the first is a great bar/restaurant, the Calypso Cantina, in the Bocas marina run by Dillon & Darian. They were forever having special party nights – Friday was always a Fiesta of Fun with live music and a fire show, then of course there was a Valentine brunch starring Darian as cupid complete with gold glittered body, white feather wings and of course his bow & arrow …. as well as book swaps, movie nights, jumble sales etc. The second was the morning VHF radio net which kept everyone informed of upcoming events. One weekend a group of about 8 boats all went out to Zapatilla - a lovely island with golden beach
  and coral reef. Saturday night we went ashore and built a huge campfire, everyone brought food & drinks to share and there was music and festivities late into the night with the last of the stragglers ending up on Sharkita for more singing early into the morning … or so our neighbours told us!!

Cave and river trip Isla Bastimientos

We’d heard about a cave trip that sounded right up our tunnel. So along with friends Georgia & Steve we headed across to the island of Bastimientos to the restaurant Roots and met up with our guide Rafael. Originally we were going to go in one of their boats but seeing Steve’s big RIB Rafael decided we could go in that. A quick stop at the fuel station (read – hut over the water with jugs of petrol) and we were on our way. Unfortunately with the 5 of us in the RIB it wouldn’t plane so we were slower and more importantly used more fuel than we had expected. We arrived at the entrance to the river with less than half a tank of fuel … oops …. how were we going to get back??  Nevermind those trifling details it was time to go exploring. We went some distance up the river and saw a few sloths. One was really close to in the dinghy, and you could see the adrenalin buzzing as he decided to take flight, within five minutes he was definitely making a move to climb up the tree. The Sloths we saw were three toed Sloths, and although they may be slow they are really strong and there protection in the forest is their sharp three toed claws which are said to be particularly vicious. In Spanish Sloths are called Oso Perezoso which literally translates to Lazy Bear.  Rafael also spied a Cayman (small crocodile) who was well camouflaged in the under growth with just his eyes peeking out of the water, and we also saw lots of birds and butterflies.  We parked the dinghy next to some dug-out canoes and walked through a small local Indian farm to the entrance of the cave. Actually we’d had quite a lot of rain so it was more like squelching through mud than walking! We donned our hard hats and head lamps … wow, we almost looked like professionals …  well apart from Chris as her sandals had come apart at the seams sucked in by the deep, dark mud. Anyway professional or not in we went. Ignoring the hundreds of bats mostly sleeping in the ceiling was easy enough however when they wooshed past you out of the dark it was a little more difficult, and worse still were the huge spiders on the walls – walls that you needed to lean on and touch!! Ugh!! It was all pretty cool though. It was very soon completely dark with the only light coming from our headlamps which lit up the stalagmites, stalactites and other rock structures created/eroded by the constantly dripping water … ah … the water. There were a number of underwater streams that we had to walk down or cross. We’d been told that we might get wet so were not too worried when we had to wade through first ankle deep, then knee deep, than waist deep water even though the water was pretty cold. And then we came to a dead-end with a deep pond in front of us … maybe this Rafael had got us lost. No … there was a small gap in the wall ahead that we had to swim to and duck under and then swim again … fun but definitely a little scary too. We carried on for about 2 kms and then came back exploring a side cave with a waterfall and then back out into the sunshine … and mud again.  We paddled all the way back down the river and managed to make it back to the fuel station with barely a teaspoon-full of fuel left. Phew!!! It had been a great day. Rafael had charged us $20 per person for some 5 hours of entertainment and then we tucked into $5.00 plates of rice, beans and chicken back at Roots restaurant … no wonder we love Panama compared to the ever-so expensive eastern Caribbean!

Red Frog, Isla Bastimientos

Red Frog is so called due to the red frogs that inhabit the island. They are the size of a postage stamp and occur nowhere else on the planet.  There are also blue and green frogs on some of the other islands close by, but they don’t appear on Bastimientos. While we were in the area there were two big party days at Marina Red Frog . One was an expansion party put on by the marina – free berthage for the weekend, plus a great free BBQ Friday night with loads of fantastic food and a fully stocked bar – we couldn’t miss that one! The other was a fund-raiser for a local small Indian community. They had had a fire in their village and about 25 of the 50 or so people were homeless with nothing but the clothes they stood up in. The cruisers in the marina did a great fund raising  job of providing fish tacos, live music, and cold beer & wine, and as well as money, they collected loads of clothes and household items. There was even a juggling show where Ray amongst other things juggled full size 10-pin bowling balls!! It was a great dock party all in a good cause. And we were lucky enough to win one of the silent auctions - a zip-lining canopy tour.

ZIP LINING TOUR

And what a buzz the zip lining was. We did the tour with two English women which was fun … better than just the two of us but only a small group so there was lots of individual attention from our two fantastic guides. It was a slightly overcast and drizzly day as we started out but the sun shone through in and out of the clouds – a nice change from either the torrential rain or the searingly hot heat that we’d been having.  The tour is done very professionally – we were all kitted up with our hard hats (again – twice in a month is a bit much!), gloves, carabineers, safety harnesses and lines etc., given instruction in what to do and what not to do, and then we were off climbing up a mammoth wooden ladder/staircase at the side of a tree to a platform some 90 feet in the air – awesome and we hadn’t even really started. Somehow Chris managed to be at the first one in line and so before she knew it she was attached to the zipline and mid-sentence (well mid-question actually) she was off – whoaoooooooooah!! Too quick to be really scared and then you realise that you are doing it and it is great!!! There were 8 lines in total – all of them different, some higher than others, others longer, some with a more pronounced downward angle … but all were great. Normally you use your right hand behind you with a glove on to slow/stop you but on the last one it was a free fall that you jump off backwards from … I’ve run out of superlatives but it was so much fun. But that’s not all there was … midway there was a outward-bound style rope cause, the difference being that this was over 100 feet in the air! There was a single wire that you had to walk across with a single wire hand hold at the top. The top line also had swinging ropes that you could use.   Trust us, it wasn’t easy and Simon decided after a few steps that capitulating showed more courage than keeping on going and getting "frozen" so returned to the platform and zip-lined that one. There were a few different ones to navigate with the last being a ladder of sorts – bits of wood strung out on wire going up-hill to another platform. Simon managed to make that one look easy but Chrisy got “frozen” midway. The ladder takes on a life of it’s own with increasing surges the further on you go. Fortunately she managed to swap legs so she was pushing off with her strong one and got on the move again without the ignominy of having to be rescued. All four of us had our own trials and tribulations with the rope course but the sense of actually getting to the end of it certainly added to the buzz of the whole experience.

NAVIGATING MANGORVES & REEFS TO MUSIC PARTY AT MICHELLES

Bocas del Toro is both the name of the town and the region. The small town is funky and friendly but it is the two lagoons, Almirante and Chiriqui, that make up the area which really shine out. Colombus discovered this place on his fourth visit and like us he was pretty impressed with the beauty.  How he navigated round the area with no engine however is a bit of a mystery to us. The inner parts of the lagoon are studded with small mangrove islands that are really not that well charted and then as you get to the outer regions there are the myriad of reefs to navigate your way through Between the inner and outer areas of Almirante there is a narrow passage rather imaginatively called “The Gap”. On our way to meet up with our mates on Zapatilla Island we went through there and pictured is a photo we took of our chart plotter as we approached the entrance.  We had checked with our friends and yes, some of them were indeed going through the inner passage rather than the longer outer one. What we didn’t realise was that what they called the inner passage was not in fact The Gap but a much different route past the southern side of Cayo Nancy … thanks guys for making that clear!! Still it was pretty cool navigating with mangrove trees almost within touching distance either side.

The weekend we were sadly saying our good-byes to all our Bocas friends there was an informal music festival at a small eco-resort built on a hillside on Isla Partido Lomo. To get there we had to pass through the very narrow Sumwood Channel and out into Chiriqui Lagoon. By this stage we were getting pretty good at navigating through the mangroves however once you get out of this channel it is a different kettle of fish … reefs and lots and lots of them. We managed to make our way through this maze with only a couple of back-tracking bits, to anchor off the little resort.  About 5 other boats joined us as the afternoon progressed. We had a great weekend of music ashore. The resort was a cool place all made out of wood on lots of different levels – the main “house” being an open-air structure with walls only halfway up, no windows and a thatched ceiling/roof. All the local muso’s were there doing their jamming thing, aided and abetted by the resorts mischievous monkey – a cute capuchin (Known as cappuccino  monkeys due to the dark black fur and white faces) that Michelle who ran the place had rescued. Chrisy didn’t mind him climbing all over her and sitting on her head but some of the others did not find his antics quite so amusing!


From there we sailed out to the small Bluefield Lagoon. A delightful tranquil spot with just a few little villages where we met up with another Bocas boat Xanadu who were also heading east. We tried to sail direct from there to the San Blas islands. The wind turned strong and gusty from the NE and with man and woman in perfect symbiosis with the boat we ran for cover into wrong harbour of historical Portobello.       

PORTOBELLO –

Throughout Panama they have brightly coloured buses, known by us gringos as “chicken buses”. The thing was we were never quite sure whether this was because of the fact that they will allow local people to bring on their chickens or whether it’s because the drivers play “chicken” with each other overtaking on blind bends, up hills, in fact anywhere, anytime

Portobello is an old fortified town dating from the 1500s and was the major port back when the Spanish were pillaging all the gold from South & Central America.  In 1601 the Spanish started building a set of three colossal forts, Fuerte San Fernando, Santiago and San Jeronimo these were placed around the bay with a high watch tower Micador Peri ,   These were to protect the bullion that was stored at the customs house, which awaited shipment to Spain by galleon. However the English really appreciated that the Spanish had gone all over southern and central America, collecting gold and storing it in the customs house. The previous gold storage centre had been the town of Nombre de Dios which was ransacked and destroyed by Sir Francis Drake in 1596.  King Felipe II ordered that Portobello be fortified as the bay was of a much better shape to build defences against the English. However English privateer William Parker robbed the place senseless in1602, then the infamous Sir Henry Morgan sacked the City in 1671. In 1679 some French and English Buccaneers carried out a stealth raid and got away with quite a lot of gold, but it was Admiral Vernon who really ransacked and destroyed the city in 1739. Portobello was rebuilt in1751 but never regained its former glory. The Spanish left after Panamanian independence in 1821. Some of the stone used to build the forts was transported to help in building the Panama Canal, though the forts are still in good shape and are now a UNESCO world heritage site. There's also a famous "Black Christ" statue here that pilgrims come to. In October they walk here on their knees from all over Central America.

For the cruising community there’s Captain Jacks a great bar/restaurant/back packers hostel, where travellers congregate to share stories and info of where to go/ not to go. We met up with some of our old friends that we crossed the Atlantic with over a year ago, they were heading west to the canal and we were headed east but we do hope to catch up again in the Pacific.  

From here, when the wind stopped blowing, we went to the San Blas islands - a tropical paradise with lots of uninhabited islands as well as a few where the Kuna Indians still live pretty traditionally. They are the smallest race of people after the pygmies in Africa so for once we were tall!!

Commarca Kuna Yale

Gringo’s call the place the San Blas Islands, the indigenous Kuna call it Commarca Kuna Yale, They have been able to keep to their ways through the trials and tribulations of Columbus, Spanish Conquistadors and Columbian and Panamanian governments and as such are now a self-governing state of Panama. They have their own congressos on each island village. They have quite a few rules that us cruisers have to abide by. In a lot of places it was rude to take photos of the Kuna. Kuna’s have strict ideas about preserving their culture. Mostly they are subsistence farmers and fisherman. They do market coconuts which they sell to Columbian trading schooners. To do this as far as we could see  most of the 365  Islands are uninhabited and used for coconut plantations, these coconut islands are tended by farmers on a rotational bases, it seemed about a month for a farmers family to live there. Other inhabited islands are covered in small thatched houses where the Kuna live. The Kuna women folk sew molas which are applique pictures. They are exquisitely hand sewn and cut from different coloured cloth 3 to 6 or more pieces thick.  We bought 2 Molas that are 3 thick and cost us 20 USD each, but really good Molas can go up to 120 USD or more, which is a good income for the Kuna.

Our trip in the San Blas
  
 We happily enjoyed the San Blas Islands. We spent  a few days anchored amongst lots of beautiful coral islands - picture perfect, it’s a place Gringo’s call the swimming pool. They're just what you would imagine a tropical island should look like with golden beaches and coconut trees swaying in the breeze with the odd thatched hut on some of them. We've spent quite a bit of time in the water both snorkelling amongst the beautiful fish - it's like being in your very own tropical fish aquarium - and coral reefs - amazing underwater sea gardens ... that's the fun bit. We've also (well mostly Simon) spent time cleaning the underwater of Sharkita. It was really fouled with barnacles oysters and seaweed -  we thought about trying to harvest some for dinner but decided against it!! We've probably gained an extra knot or so now we have a clean bottom. I also spent time cleaning the waterline and topsides as they too had been a bit neglected. We had a party ashore one night as we had met up with Tom and Liz, friends of ours who we first met in Morocco, it was Tom’s 60th birthday. We had a fun night with a bunch of new cruising people we hadn't met before plus the local Kuna Indians who live on the island joining us.
  
  
 We had a great sail - about 16 miles with our cruising chute up in a light wind and calm sea doing 4.5 - 5 knots to the Isla Robeson group. We anchored off one of the more inhabited islands.  We bought fish, bananas and avocados from the local people in their dug-out canoes called ulus. Some of the ulus have sails and some are only paddled. That morning we went for a walk around the village. It really is completely different to anything else either of us had ever seen.   The islands are very small and almost every inch of them is covered in thatched houses. They are in the process of making new islands over the reef to be able to house the growing families.     The next day we headed off to the nearby mainland to do a trip up a river in an ulu with Bedio are guide, who took us for a trek through the jungle where we met up with some Kuna farmers tending small Banana plantations. We had a great trip.

Panama Canal, Colon, Atlantic Ocean Entrance.

All to soon we had to make tracks to the canal as we are running late for the seasonal winds in the Pacific Ocean, So It was a swift goodbye to the San Blas and hello Panama canal. We decided not to use an agent to get the boat measured and paper work ready for our transit as our Spanish is good enough. We arrived on 15 March, got measured the next day, paid 1500 USD to Citibank for our transit fee which includes 890 USD buffer payment which we get back if we don’t damage or delay the canal operations. We now have the all-important canal ship identification number and reservation to enter the Gatun locks at 1500 hrs (liable to be an hour or so after that) on  Saturday the 26 March, we should enter the Miraflores locks about 1100 hrs on the 27th and enter the Pacific Ocean about 1300 hrs. Time zone here is GMT minus 5hours.


We’ve done an enormous amount of provisioning here, enough to last us the 7 months it will take to get to New Zealand, as a lot of the places we will visit in the pacific are in French Polynesia which is really expensive, beer at the supermarket is 3 USD a can, we now have a ¼ ton of booze on board!

We are really looking forward to our Panama canal transit, which is a big milestone in anybody’s  book, but will Sharkita get through safely, will she be eaten by a massive ships propeller or get trapped in a humungous lock gate, you can read the next episode of Sharkita’s Great Adventure here. Or alternatively you can watch it live on the Panama Canal web cam @
http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html

We hope you're all doing well,
Allo the very best from Simon and Chrisy

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