Panama

7/31/2008
0900 U/W for Bahia Honda. We decided to break up the trip to Balboa into two day long legs, (Cavada to Honda and Honda to Naranjo) and one long leg (Naranjo around Punta Mala to Balboa) instead of one two-day marathon.

1605 Anchored at Bahia Honda, an almost surreal place, similar to Bahia St. Elena in Costa Rica. Several locals came by asking for fish hooks, fishing line, and school books. Some offered to trade for a fish or fruit but others were outright begging.

8/1/2008
0550 U/W for Naranjo Cove. Except for a pleasant 10 knots under a storm cloud for an hour, we saw only 3-6 knots of wind the whole trip. Thus we racked up quite a few more hours on the starboard engine.

1500 Anchored at Naranjo Cove. Swam and floated for a bit but decided the place was much too rolly to get any restful sleep. We were also concerned about our expected slow progress because of strong adverse current at around Punta Mala.

1700 U/W for Punta Mala then Balboa.

8/2/2008
0600 Rounded Punta Mala into 2 knots of current. Fortunately the wind was minimal so the waves were not too bad. We had to keep a sharp lookout for ships, though, as this is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. We had a close encounter trying to land a fish Lela had caught during the night, passing within a mile of an outbound ship.

8/3/2008
1145 Refueled at Flamenco Marina. Customs came aboard while pumping fuel and the Port Captain came just as we were paying our bill. The marina charged $3/foot/day for catamarans so we moved to an anchorage just outside their breakwater.

1600 Went ashore to search for Internet. Bennigan’s was down and cards for the pay hot-spot were locked in the marina safe.

8/4/2008
Went to Balboa Yacht Club so Lela could use Skype. John spent the afternoon checking in with Immigration and getting a cruising permit. We met up again at the Balboa Yacht Club Cruisers night where we picked up quite a bit of information about the local area from long time residents.

8/5/2008
1000 Went to Alberg Mall to buy a cell phone that would work in Panama. It took most of the afternoon to complete that process and get back to the boat. Scheduled the boat to be hauled out Monday.

8/6/2008
Lela worked on board with her new cell phone but quickly burned through one $12 phone card worth quadruple minutes. It cost her about $1/minute to call her CM clients.

8/7-8/8/2008
Lela worked on Skype at Bennigan’s and YMCA.

8/9/2008
Picked up replacement propeller from Yanmar branch office at the marina. The package was missing the spacer so will have to use one Ryan or Dominic brings.

8/11/2008
Hauled the boat after a long delay while the yard got their act together. Miraculously the spacer was still on the shaft so John replaced the propeller while Marcos and Antone cleaned and prepped the bottoms for painting. John also changed the oil in the saildrive units, a job that can only be done with the boat out of the water.

8/12/2008
Painted and launched the boat while Lela worked and bought food.

2000 Picked up Ryan, Melany, and Dominic from the pier.

8/13/2008
0900 U/W for Las Perlas Islands. Motor sailed most of the way to arrive before dark as the breeze was very light until mid afternoon.

1600 Anchored at Isla Pacheca to swim and play.

8/14/2008
1000-1130 Moved to Isla Chapera, across the channel from Survivor Beach on Mogo Mogo Island. The kids took the dinghy over there to check out the operation. Everyone played in the water quite a bit. Dominic really liked the kayak.

2030 Visited by a bass boat with four men on board who claimed to be Seguridad Nacional de Panama. We were all very suspicious because they were not wearing uniforms and the boat had no official seal or insignia. After we asked to see identification and all six of us lined the rail, they left to anchor ½ mile away where they “attacked” a home on the point. We tried reporting this on the radio but got no answer to any calls. We heard later that they may have been part of a security exercise sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security. We aren’t convinced of that, though.

8/15/2008
Moved to Isla Contadora, a weekend hideaway for rich Panamanians. The kids went ashore to explore while Lela and John floated around the boat.

8/16/2008
While playing in the water during rain showers, Ryan and Dominic were startled to see a mother humpback whale and her baby swim through the anchorage between our boat and shore in 40 feet of water. They didn’t waste any time getting back aboard even though they were in no danger.

8/17/2008
Transited to Balboa Yacht Club to get measured for the canal crossing. Dominic treated us to dinner at Gaucho’s Restaurant, reported by his personal concierge service to be the best steak house in town.

8/18/2008
Ishmael from Autoridad Canal de Panama measured the boat at 43.80 feet.

Click this thumbnail to see photos we took during our canal transit:

Panama Canal

8/20/2008
Transited the canal. It was a lot of hurry up and wait. The only real excitement came as the tug we had been tied to for uplocking took off at near full speed and almost bounced us into the lock gate with his prop wash.

A photo sequence captured from the canal webcam by our friends Rob and Teresa on S/V Yohela is here:
http://www.svyohelah.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=slideshow.Slideshow&g2_itemId=5671
Note: The slideshow is easier to view if you change the interval to 3 seconds on the top bar.

1900 Tied up overnight at Shelter Bay Marina.

Click this thumbnail to see a slideshow of a few places we visited after going through the canal:

Panama - Caribbean Side

8/21/2008
Motor sailed to Isla Naranjo so the kids could play in the water.

8/22/2008
Moved to Portobello through a thunderstorm. A nearby lightning strike took out the wind instrument. The water in the bay was grossly dirty from the rain runoff. After a surveillance trip ashore the kids reported the town to be dingy, dirty, and not worth going back to.

8/23/2008
Sailed back to Isla Naranja Ariba to swim. The weather was clear with good sailing most of the way but the rain started just as we dropped anchor. Swam anyway and played a few games.

8/24/2008
Returned to Shelter Bay Marina, slip C-5.

8/25/2008
Kids left by taxi to Panama City for their flight back home early the next day.

8/26/2008
Laundry, checked in with Port Captain.

8/29/2008
Rented a car for a day trip to Panama City to see if the wind instrument can be repaired. It couldn’t so we ordered a new one. Purchased a replacement raw water pump for the generator along the way. Found a kosher deli and supermarket that was wonderful. Immigration could not help us with paperwork to submit to become residents (worth 25% discount on air fare and many other purchases).

9/4/2008
Welcomed Dan, Erin, Jim, and Jinny on Spirit to Shelter Bay. We had met them in the anchorage at Flamenco.

9/5/2008
1500 John left with Wahoo to handle lines on their transit south through the canal.

9/6/2008
0520 John returned to the boat by taxi, took a nap, then ate brunch at the Marina Restaurant. Lela met a photographer and invited him aboard to take some pictures on the boat of his subject for her Quinceañera. Lela hitched a ride into the Hertz store to retrieve the wind instrument we had left in the car last week. On the way she volunteered to take the photographer sailing next weekend.

9/8/2008
New wind instrument arrived in Panama City.

9/11/2008
Another road trip to Panama City to pick up wind instrument, mosquito netting, and Molas at the artisan market. The one Lela bought for $5.00 was appraised by April in the Marina as a “good buy”.

9/12/2008
1415 U/W for San Blas Islands with good winds.

1730 Anchored at Isla Linton to get some sleep without wave slap. Anchored near Nepenthé, so Alex and Carol came aboard for drinks. They had been tied across the pier from us in Shelter Bay Marina and were also on their way to the San Blas Islands. We expected to meet them again in Lemmon Cays.

9/13/2008
0620 U/W for San Blas islands.

1620 Anchored at Chichime Cove. Several Kuna’s came by almost immediately to trade lobsters for rice. Others were selling molas. The fresh rock lobsters tasted really good even though they did not have much meat on them.

9/14/2008
Venencio, one of the few master mola makers left, came by to sell his wares. He was highly recommended by Lynn on Wahoo. Lela looked through his collection while John napped.

9/15/2008
0945 Moved to Dog Island to snorkel on the wreck there. It wasn’t super spectacular as there was a noticeable current, few fish, and not much color in the coral.

1300 Moved to an anchorage at Banedup Island where four other boats were anchored. We just happened to drop anchor between Nepenthé (from the other side of the dock at Shelter Bay) and So Cal So Good (friends of Cory and Melissa on Second Wind).

We bought a huge crab (about 2 pounds of meat) for $4.00 from some locals in a dugout. It was really tasty!

1730 Had Rich and Pat aboard for drinks, munchies, and conversation. We actually had met Rich and Pat at Two-Harbors, Catalina, for the Pre Baja Ha-Ha pot luck in August 2006. Both Pat and Lela thought they recognized the other but it took a couple of minutes before they identified the place and time we had met before. This proves that the Cruising Community really is not that big.

9/16/2008
1145 After the rain stopped we moved to Coco Banderas in very light breeze (4-6 knots). The water in the lagoon was very calm so moving at only 3 knots didn’t cause any problems rocking and rolling as it normally does in the ocean.

9/17/2008
John snorkeled with Pascal on the other boat in this tiny anchorage while he hunted fish. He is an ecologist from France. He and his wife had their two young children with them. Lela kayaked around the small unnamed island.

9/18/2008
0900 Snorkeled off the west side of another nearby unnamed island.

1330 Moved to the “Swimming Pool” in the Holandes Cays.

9/19/2008
Dan and Erin on Spirit swam over so we all swam and floated off the stern while chatting for a couple of hours until a squall came through and disrupted the party. By the time it blew itself out, it was time for us to go to Nepenthé for sundowners (Cruiser-speak for cocktails) and conversation with Carol and Alex. On the way back to the boat after a couple of Scotches, John ran over a reef with the dinghy, breaking the castle nut that holds the propeller on. Fortunately, the cotter pin remained intact so the prop stayed on the shaft. Damage to the prop was minimal.

9/20/2008
0915 U/W for Shelter Bay Marina. Winds were less than 6 knots until late evening so we motor sailed until 2200. There wasn’t even enough wind to fill the spinnaker. Off shore breezes during the night allowed us to secure the engines until reaching the breakwater at Colon.

09/21/2008
0420 Anchored at the edge of the channel into Shelter Bay rather than try an approach in the dark.

0920 ACP (Canal Authority) patrol boat chased us out of the anchorage and took our boat name and registration information. They apparently didn’t like us so close to the hazardous materials anchorage. Proceeded to slip C-7 in Shelter Bay Marina.

9/22-30/2008
Lela worked in town while John putzed around the boat. Sold 10 caps to Hokus Pokus.

10/2/2008
Went to Portland for nephew Jesse’s wedding, to visit family, and to use up some time share time in Florida.

12/2/2008
Returned to the boat to discover widespread mildew. Luis, the local we had hired to open the boat to air it out, reported that two weeks earlier during a serious downpour, he closed the hatches but slipped leaving the boat. He lost the key into the water so the boat sat and cooked the moisture that was trapped inside. Our visions of hopping on the boat and taking off within a couple of days were dashed as we cleaned bows to sterns with bleach solution.

12/5/2008
Ran generator and water maker to test them. Both worked fine.

12/6/2008
John chipped barnacles off as much of the bottoms as he could reach alongside the dock.

12/7/2008
The sea water pump on the generator failed when the nut holding the drive gear on the shaft came loose. During the troubleshooting process, John shut the hull valve and neglected to reopen it. Thus when running the generator after tightening the nut, the impeller burned up. Replaced it with the one from the old pump that needs its seals replaced.

12/8/2008
Computer was stolen from the boat.

12/9-18/2008
Recovered most of Lela’s work from a backup on a thumb drive and old e-mails on the Gmail server. Filing a police report took three trips to the Colon police station. Posting reward signs around the marina did not produce any leads.

12/20-29/2008
Waiting for a weather window to leave. Strong trade winds whipped the seas up to 12 feet at times, not something we wanted to beat into on our way north to Belize. Every time we got set to leave based on a favorable prediction 3-4 days out, the conditions went bad just before we could get underway.

12/30/2008
1130 Winds appear to have diminished slightly so we got underway for Isla Linton to clean the rest of the starboard hull and to get a more favorable angle to the prevailing wind. The ride was rough but manageable. A bird snatched Lela’s fishing lure so John used a pliers to remove the hook from its beak.

2230 Anchored at Isla Linton.

12/31/2008
John cleaned the starboard hull.

1130 U/W for Isla Andres, a Columbian island off the coast of Nicaragua.