25 March 2022

Intro to Panama

On our first walk from Shelter Bay Marina, an easy 10-minute amble into the jungle, we were so excited to see baby and mum, or maybe dad, capuchin above us.  I knew I was going to love it in Panama!

We arrived in Shelter Bay Marina in early January, entering the canal breakwater among a hundred or so anchored cargo ships and tankers.  The marina dock staff met us with enthusiasm ushering us into a slip, tying us up with alacrity - the very best we have experienced in our limited marina stays.  And then friends, Michelle and Glenn, from Rosie Skye, cruisers we had hiked, ate and drank with in Carriacou, welcomed us with hugs.  So great to reconnect.  And it happens more often than one would expect - the "coconut run" along the trade winds, east to west, is, by far, the most common route for circumnavigation.

Our first major hike led by Peter with four others took us down a steep cliff and through a mangrove swamp.  I went on all fours, root to root, before taking the much more elegant method as Michelle was demonstrating, plodding through the sucking mud.  Glenn, an Aussie who should know, told us that it was perfect croc territory - that was when we were in the middle.

Lo and behold, Glenn was right.  This croc is a regular on the river the mangrove we had slurped through ends at.  We spied him/her from the safety of a bridge traversing the river.  He slipped off the bank while we watched, into the river after a foolish but lucky bird.  Her speed (the croc's) made it very clear that a human who wandered too close would not have a chance.

Panama made an immediate positive impression.  The marina is situated on an old American army base, Fort Sherman, now overgrown in thick jungle.  An initial wander along the deserted roads and lanes into the base led us to a deserted church with simple frescoes, batteries abandoned to bats, and cages for the exotic animal specimens they found.  The fort was built in conjunction with the construction of the canal.  A brother fort on the Pacific side protected both of the canal entrances.  It was also used for jungle warfare training - perfect place for it, the jungle has now taken it over.  In 1999, it was turned over to the Panama government who use part of it currently for their own military training - we hear the hollering of troops on double time runs in full gear and in formation regularly.  Apparently, they catch a lot of drug running vessels in the bay and escort them to Panama City.  
We usually see howler monkeys in large extended family troops.  They watch us as curiously as we watch them, often coming directly over us in the branches.  A marina nature guide told us, as he leapt away, that the males aim a steady stream of urine at human below.  An effective way of marking his territory.  The howls, aptly named, from these small monkeys are very loud.  It's easy to believe that on the mountain slopes they can be heard from kilometres away.  They open there seemingly little mouth very wide and emit an enormous howl regularly, another way of marking territory, communicating, or being macho?  


A beautiful golden silk spider at the edge of our hiking path, laying eggs as we watched.

Milly in Shelter Bay Marina on the edge of the jungle.  Our later neighbour saw a croc one day on the water's edge - another reason, among many, not to swim in this, or any, marina.

On a much more interesting note for us, the jungle here is full of wildlife.  Even on our short walks we regularly see white-faced capuchin monkeys and troops of howler monkeys, agoutis and coatis, parrots and toucans and vultures.  Even a crocodile.  And apparently there are many, many more from frogs to birds.  Our untrained eyes overlook a jungle teeming with life.  It's an amazing place, all within a 5 minute walk of Milly.  We hear howler monkeys regularly during the day, especially before rain, at dawn and dusk.

Panama is also chock-a-block full of history.  Apart from the recent 20th century story of the building of the canal - more about that when we actually cross it - the north coast is full of conquistadors, pirates and privateers with gold, forts and, unfortunately, razed towns.  It's a brutal history, all about greed, but in the locations we visited, because they are so undeveloped, it was easy to imagine the hustle and bustle of the 17th and 18th centuries.



Portobello, said to have been named by Christopher Columbus when he spied a beautiful protected bay on an otherwise exposed coast often hit by large swell.  During the Spanish colonial period, Portobello was the most important port on the Caribbean side of Panama.  It was the end point of the mule train from Panama City on the Pacific coast, carrying the plunder of gold and riches from South America.  The customs house, now closed for renovations, is the biggest building in town and held troops to guard the treasures inside.  Fuerte San Jeronimo, is one of three forts guarding the town.  Over the 200 years of the town's heyday, they were attacked multiple times by pirates/privateers including Francis Drake, whose coffin lies at the end of the bay, and Henry Morgan.

The bay is indeed bello.  Hills and mountains covered with green and the occasional crop field etched into the jungle.  Only 400 years ago, it was teeming with ships and activity.  Now, there are a handful of sailboats anchored, several abandoned.  The stone from the forts were used to build the canal by the French and are now largely ignored by the residents who kick soccer balls against the walls.  Time of prosperity has definitely vanished.

The town of Portobello is impoverished today.  Although the church, closed when we visited, houses a celebrated Christo Negro, tourists often don't venture this far east.  The surrounding land is lovely, the bay is beautiful and the nearby beaches are gorgeous and water access only.  Perhaps Portobello will enjoy a revival - at least enough to support the population.


After our first explore, I knew that Panama was going to be among our favourite countries.


9 March 2022

Passage to Panama

Our route from Bonaire to Panama.  To avoid the rougher waters off the coast of Columbia, we did an indirect arc up and over.  It worked to some degree. 

 

The passage from the ABC's to Panama is referred to by some circumnavigators as among the top five most difficult passages.  There is an almost constant pocket of high wind off the Columbian coast which brings big waves and swell often from different directions.  The trade winds funnel around the La Guajira peninsula.  And then katabatibc winds off the Sierra Nevada range contribute fierce katabatic gusts.  Instead of leaving for Panama in early to mid December, before the northeast Christmas winds exacerbate the trades, we so enjoyed our time in Bonaire that we delayed our departure until after the New Year when the seasonal winds were well entrenched.  

After studying the weather charts, we decided to leave on the five day (and night) passage on Tuesday.  Due to technical difficulties, we were unable to use our satellite system to upload weather info while on passage.  Peter took multiple screen shots of weather for the five passage days.  And our dear friend, Anne, assisted by husband, Rob, in Canada volunteered as weather router, texting us at least daily with updated info re the red blob - location, size, wind strength, wave direction etc.  We couldn't do much about it but at least we knew what to anticipate.  Along with the weather forecasts, talking with other cruisers who had done the trip gave us the local wisdom - don't do the tempting rhumb line from the north end of La Guajira Peninsula to our destination, Shelter Bay Marina at the northern mouth of the Panama Canal.  Instead, sail northwest from Bonaire, then west, not turning southwest until beyond the red (high wind) blob.  At all times, at least 100 NM off the coast of Columbia.

We left Bonaire with three other boats on January 4th. We had all had lunch together the day before to say good bye, one of the difficult things about cruising.  We had spent Christmas, New Years, hikes and dives with the German and Swiss crew and we were sad to part ways.  All three were headed to Dominican Republic.  We were going west.

Leaving Bonaire, we headed northwest with the waves and swell on our beam.  Big and choppy. My worst point of sail for seasickness but I had taken Bonine - my treatment for seasickness along with chewy ginger candies - and I was grateful to be fine.  No reading but otherwise happy.


Day of departure: The white dot is approximately at our second waypoint and as far north as we thought we would go.  The white streaks are the wind direction, on our stern one we turned due west - very nice.

You notice that the wind direction curls around to come from the north which, thankfully, made almost our entire passage downwind.

Sunday's forecast on the previous Tuesday before leaving Bonaire.   We thought/hoped we would be in the green almost at the canal before Sunday when the blob got more widespread.  Unfortunately, by Saturday when we thought we would emerge out of the red and into green, Anne told us it was red to the Panama coast.  No problem really but demonstrates that this five day old forecast was inaccurate.  We were glad to have Anne watching for us.

Downwind sailing, even in big waves, is quite comfortable.  The boat surfs down the swell, riding the waves with ease.  And these swell were BIG - higher than the arch on the stern.  We estimated three to four meters high.  More importantly, they were steep.  Instead of a long, gentle swell with a period of 10-12 seconds, these were about 6 seconds.  We didn't get pooped - sailing lingo for a wave/swell breaking over the stern of the boat - but we were thoroughly soaked with splashes on the port quarter (back of the boat, port side).  By the third day, we couldn't sit in the cockpit except at the helm, which was high and almost dry.  I had made lots of frozen meals but even heating them up on the stove was not enticing.  Still, we were relatively comfortable and marvelled at the waves after two years off the sea.

The end of my final watch at dawn, brought the ships only visible on our chart plotter at night, into view.  You can see eleven in this shot.  


The little triangular icons are other ships on our AIS, a system which is a godsend, especially at night. At this point there were 250 targets/vessels on the AIS system.  It tells you how fast a vessel is going, it's direction and in how many minutes the closest point of contact/collision with Milly will be.  It always amazes me how often in the wide open sea, we are on a collision course!  The black icon is Milly.  The black line on her stern is the route we have travelled.  The blue vector off her bow is the direction the boat is steering while the red vector is the actual direction we are going with current and swell taken into account.  Each vector ends at where Milly will be in 10 minutes.  The other ships have black dashed lines on their bows showing us their direction, speed (by the length of the vector) and where they will be in 10 minutes.  These enormous 300 m ships move fast!! The dots in the centre of most of the ships indicates that they are anchored - we can go as close to them as we want but you never know when they will begin to move.  The blue x at Milly's stern is our last waypoint we had entered on the chart to put us at the opening in the Panama breakwater directly south of us.  

The final challenge that made this passage interesting was the number of ships we encountered in the final two nights.  Once we turned southwest, we realized that our route was also the same path that these humungous cargo and tanker ships were taking to go to the Caribbean, US east coast, Europe, The Suez, the northeast coast of South America, etc. etc.  To further complicate things, there were the occasional ships that came toward our port beam from Columbia.  

Peter sleeps well on passage because he knows I am extremely (maybe, too) diligent in my goal to avoid ships by at least 2 NM at night.  I would move to the right or the left to avoid ships coming up our stern to pass or coming toward us along the same line.  That was relatively easy although our path jogged a couple of miles to the left or right through my watch.  

On the last night, I felt like a tiny mouse chased by a huge cat that was coming toward us from Columbia.  Although downwind is comfortable, it is limited by gybing if required to go past 180 degrees.  I can manage a controlled gybe on my own but really prefer not to.  It's also impossible to tell whether the ship will pass in front of us (better) or behind us (unnerving since it means we have to squeak by in front of it) until it is quite close and under, say, 20 minutes away.  So it was hard to tell whether I should slow down - at the wind's discretion when downwind, speed up with the motor or head up making us go faster and change direction by a few degrees.  So this huge ship called, Ocean Mystery, bound for the canal, kept me on the edge of my helm seat for my last watch.  Happy ending though.  It passed in front of us less than 1NM distant as the dawn broke.

As we approached the canal, we followed the radio chatter of the Cristobal port officer - very efficient woman - giving direction to the many ships, telling them where to anchor, when to pick up anchor, when to head to the breakwater entrance, where to go once in Limon Bay, how to pick up a pilot etc.  It was fascinating entertainment.  She didn't want to hear from us until we were 1NM away and told us just to keep on going through and to the marina, situated inside the breakwater.  

We entered Shelter Bay Marina, were directed to our slip, assisted by very friendly and efficient dock staff and welcomed by our friends from Carriacou who happened to be there.  After cleaning the salt off Milly's inside and outside and off ourselves we were ready and excited to explore Panama.