Well, once again we have spent more time than originally planned in port. This time our delay has not been the result of major repairs to be made, but rather, the need to wait on the arrival of a basic $30 part (an oil pressure regulator valve) to complete a minor but necessary repair of the port engine. Waiting is frustrating, of course, but we have been keeping pretty busy, engaging in some fun and/or productive activities beyond the boat—(hence our lapse in blogging). I am going to try to catch you up on our recent activities while also making suggestions for those who plan to pass through.

Meet fellow cruisers
Since Shelter Bay Marina is the only marina on the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal, all cruisers who pass through the Canal stop here either before or after they transit. Some of them have been here for several months or even years in order to make major repairs or deal with medical or financial issues. For example, we met an older British couple who had been cruising for three years, were delayed here due to engine problems (see below), and were finally planning to sail home across the Atlantic when their Canal advisor informed the woman that a scab on her leg was skin cancer! Naturally, she got on the next plane to England where she found out she had lung cancer which needed to be treated as well. Her cancer is now in remission, and she and her husband are back on their boat and ready to follow through with their plans.

Others cruisers stay here only a few days, just long enough to provision and get in touch with an agent who schedules their boat inspection/measurement and Canal transit. One such transient who arrived early this morning is Zac Sunderland, a 17-year-old American who is attempting to be the youngest solo circumnavigator! Thus, there is an interesting, ever-changing collection of cruisers here from various countries, all of whom have common interests and goals.

The pool has been a great place to meet people, and naturally we got along well with the youngest of the cruisers, a motley crew of 20-somethings from the U.S., Sweden, France, and Belgium. The American of the group had just left Bolivia after spending a couple of years working as a Peace Corps volunteer and came to Panama just to experience a transit of the Canal. When asked by the Belgian captain to stay on for their 5-month trip to Australia, Dave initially replied that he could not, but when pressed, he had no good reason as to why not and is now part of the crew. It will be interesting to see what he thinks about sailing!

Marionette is ready with tires required for the Canal

Dallas met some of our favorite cruisers on one of his several trips on the free bus into Colón to process paperwork for the transit. Jeff and Jose are English and Dutch, respectively, and are aboard a trimaran, Stravaig. Jeff has traveled the world aboard various boats, one of which he and Jose built, and has many interesting tales of the South Pacific. He has piqued our interest in places like Vanuatu that are still quite isolated from the rest of the world and as such, have some really unique traditions. One such island engages in Pagan worship of the Duke of Edinburgh. More recently, Stravaig sailed through tropical storm Alma which became a hurricane while they were in its midst! This was not intentional, of course—it was the first storm to have hit so far south at that time of year in 125 years. Despite the 80 knot winds and 45’ seas, they managed to maintain their composure and ride out the storm with relatively minor structural damage!! As much as we admire them for their courage, we are reminded that we should steer well clear of hurricane zones!

Stravaig

Consider being your own agent
Dallas appears to have become the local expert on immigration/customs and Canal paperwork among current residents of the marina, as cruisers have paid him a visit to ask him about the procedures involved in taking care of the paperwork oneself. Dallas explains to them that the immigration/customs paperwork is time-consuming to complete and requires fairly proficient Spanish. On the other hand, scheduling the boat inspection with the admeasurer’s office and calling to schedule a Canal transit is quite simple and does not require any Spanish (and saves the $200 that the agents charge).

Be a line-handler
As each boat is required to have four line-handlers to transit the Canal, many cruisers are in need of others to join them and would prefer to take along fellow cruisers rather than pay for professionals. Thus, we asked around and found spots for Dallas and Wes aboard Dragon, a home-made 38’ Wharram catamaran. They reported that this was a very worthwhile experience in terms of demystifying the procedures of the Canal transit and was fun as well. Check out the pictures of the transit that Wes posted (see Photos link above) as well as his videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jd5MlMfAPM

Dragon, a Wharram Tiki 38

Dragon's crew for the transit

Explore the jungle
Since the high crime rate prohibits us from spending any leisure time in Colón (the concrete jungle), we have been pretty penned in here at the marina. However, some other cruisers suggested that we explore the real jungle that surrounds the marina. We were told that we could see monkeys and sloths. So far, no sloth pictures yet, but we managed to see at least ten Capuchin monkeys that swung from tree to tree just above the road on which we were hiking. When they noticed us, they became more timid, but once we were a safe distance away, they continued on, and Dallas was able to catch them in action. We also saw long rows of leafcutter ants, which were amazing in terms of their organization and ability to carry leaves twice their size.

Capuchin monkey joins his friends

Leafcutter Ants

Tiffany is not as spooked as she looks

 
Provision
Since this is the last stop for cruisers heading to the South Pacific, where supplies are limited and very expensive, many people purchase enough groceries here in Colón to last for five or six months. Fortunately, the Rey supermarket is located in a safe area, is very well stocked, and carries reasonably priced goods. Much of the food here is what you would find in an American supermarket, and there is cheaper, locally manufactured stuff as well. If you spend over $200, the supermarket will transport you and your groceries back to the marina for free. There are also several stores with inexpensive clothing and housewares nearby. Finally, if you are looking for electronics (or anything else), head to the nearby free zone (Zona Libre) where there are blocks and blocks of duty-free supplies brought here by freighters passing through the Canal.

Stay at Hotel Melia
Wednesday marked four years since Dallas and I started dating (the 2nd time around), and we are using this as our anniversary since February is booked up with birthdays, etc. To mark the occasion, we spent the night at Hotel Melia overlooking Gatun Lake, the site of the first set of locks for the Canal. The hotel staff were friendly, and the facilities were nicer than I expected. Dinner left something to be desired (not much in the way of fresh ingredients), but the free breakfast buffet was wonderful with enough variety to give even Dallas the vegetarian plenty to choose from. Oh, and did I mention the air conditioning? We had forgotten how luxurious central air can be. Don’t take it for granted!

The cruisers have a reason to get cleaned up

Obtain marine supplies
OK, so after waiting for several days for our $30 part to be shipped here from the U.S., we found out that Tesa, the Yanmar dealer in Panama City, has had it in stock the whole time! We had heard horror stories about Tesa from the aforementioned British couple who spent several weeks waiting on them to install a new engine, only to have it seize up before they got out of Panama. As a result, we did not consider calling them, but in hindsight… nevertheless, our part should be here today or tomorrow, so we should be in the Pacific early next week!

The trip into town today was long, but ended up going pretty well.  Because no overhead bridge has been built, the bus has to pass through the Panama Canal on a sort of drawbridge at the Gatun locks to get into town.  When there are ships in or approaching the locks, which is almost all the time, the bus and all other traffic has to stop and wait.  The wait was about half an hour today and doubled the time it took to get to town.  I had the good fortune to sit by some other really interesting cruisers both to and from town, so we spent most of the time in conversations about their adventures to date, which so far dwarf ours.  We’re planning to put up a blog about some of the different people we have met and their stories.

When we finally reached the shopping center at Colon, someone on the bus was able to give me good directions to where I was headed, and the bus driver dropped me off not too far away.  Walking in downtown Colon is a health risk for a tourist, so I was happy to be able to catch a cab dropping off passengers at the corner fairly quickly.  I lucked out and got a really nice cabbie that spoke English fluently.  It turns out his grandparents came to Panama to help build the canal, learned English from the Americans, and taught the kids at home.  The stop at the canal admeasurement office in the port was a breeze; everyone spoke fluent English, and they only had about 5 questions, so I’m not sure why we couldn’t have done it over the phone, but I guess that’s the system.  Anyway, we should have an admeasurer visit us tomorrow to inspect us for our transit.

After such a short stop, I still had an hour or two to kill, so I asked the cabbie to show me around Colon.  We’d seen most of the inner downtown area on our previous trips so he mostly took me around the outskirts of town, which are a little nicer.  He had some answers and insights that may or may not be true, but were interesting.  He said that much of the downtown portion of the city of Colon was originally built by the Americans as part of the canal project and remained a pretty nice place until 1969 when a military head of state declared that tenants were no longer required to pay rent.  Landlords couldn’t collect rent or evict tenants after that so the buildings fell into disrepair and still look pretty rough today.  He attributed the violence in Colon to two primary factors.  The first was the gangs of young males with handguns, which he noted were a problem all over the world, including the US.  The second factor was the small size of Colon — roughly 16 x 16 streets (not counting the industrial/retail duty free zone) which leaves most “parts of town” within walking distance of each other.  We saw several more upscale residential areas, and like other cabbies, he explained that “this is where the Arabs live”.  Apparently Arabs, Israelis, Chinese, and Indians own the majority of businesses & property in Colon (we’re hoping this will translate into some good Middle Eastern cuisine later this week).  The minimum wage in Panama is $1.50/hour, but he didn’t say how many people actually earn that.  There’s definitely a lot of poverty, but there are also a lot of cars on the streets (mostly Asian sedans and buses).  Colon has no functioning stop signs or traffic lights that we’ve noticed yet, so the taxi rides through town are pretty entertaining at intersections.

Exploring Colon, Panama

Panamanian police look for gang symbols

One cool piece of news is that Wes and I have been able to find an unpaid job as linehandlers for another boat on our dock that’s headed through the Canal Sunday night and Monday.  Each yacht is required to have four linehandlers in addition to a helmsman for the transit. Some boats hire guys through their agent, some people fly in friends, and others recruit from the boats in the marina or the sign-up sheet on the office. (In our case, we only need one additional person and intended to recruit a fellow cruiser, but it turns out that we have to hire a Panamanian who will take back the lines we are renting following our transit.)  We’re going through with a South African couple on an owner-built Wharram-designed Tiki 38 catamaran.  It’s a pretty boat that’s very well maintained, we like the couple, and we’re really glad to be able to go through once while helping someone else before we take our own boat through so we can find out what it’s like.

Dallas & Andy with engine manuals

In the meantime, we’re getting ready to start the process for our canal transit. A local “agent” can take care of all of the formalities for about $100 or so, but we’ve already navigated the Spanish-speaking port authority and immigration, so the English-speaking canal authority shouldn’t be too bad. Besides, none of the cruisers we’ve talked to have been thrilled with their agent experience. We’re at the end of the season here and from what we gather from others here in the marina that are at different stages of the process, we shouldn’t have a very long wait.

The general steps are: go the the canal authority to apply for transit, pass a visit by the admeasurer who inspects the vesel, pay the transit fee (about $600 plus a $900 deposit), and then wait for an assigned slot. We’ll do the first set of locks (Gatun up-locks) in the evening, anchor for the night in Gatun Lake, and then cross the lake and transit the down-locks the next day. Tomorrow I head into Colon to try to complete the first step.

Shelter Bay Marina is on the location of the old US base Fort Sherman and is surrounded by the San Lorenzo national rain forest, which we’re hoping to explore a bit some afternoon. Here are a couple of pics of the marina restaurant’s nocturnal inhabitants.

Nocturnal lizards

Late night guest for patio dining

We did it! We made it to Panama! It took a mere 13 days to traverse the 1,000+ miles from Key West to Colon, Panama with the 2 day layover in Swan Island. Granted, it would have taken about 3 hours to fly here, but that would have cost us a little more than the $20 that we spent on diesel and wouldn’t have involved nearly as much adventure.

As it turns out, most of the adventure occurred during the first half of the passage. In fact, our overall experience prior to Swan Island was just about the polar opposite of that which we experienced afterward. For over four days, 15 knot winds blew from the east, the seas were only a few feet, and judging by our average speed of about 4 knots, the current was not a major impediment. 

With all four of us taking turns at the helm, we kept a schedule of three hours on, nine hours off. We later shortened the night watches a bit to provide quicker relief to the weary and begin to shift the watches backward in time so that the toughest watches were rotated among the crew.

Other than staying awake, the major challenge of the passage seemed to be simply fending off boredom! Each of us had our own methods of doing so, of course. I think that for me, it was useful to establish a routine of daily tasks in order to avoid becoming lethargic, to read something that piqued my interest (“Real Life in Castro’s Cuba” by Catherine Moses), and to remind myself how fortunate I was to have so much time to myself. It was also very nice to get the crew together for sunset dinners in the cockpit. It is probably no coincidence that this seemed to be the only time that we were all awake. Yes, true to form, the Clow brothers are not missing many meals aboard Pura Vida. In fact, Dallas has begun taking pictures of the food in preparation for a blog dedicated to one of his favorite topics.

Hard at work in the galley

Another diversion during the passage came in the form of two dolphin sightings. The second occurred on the last day of the passage. The wind had dwindled to just a few knots, and after playing with the sails for a few hours in vain, we resorted to using an engine. The sound of the motor must have attracted the dolphins attention, as we soon found ourselves hosting a dolphin convention with at least 20 in attendance!

The dolphin convention

Putting on a show

Speckled dolphin

Watching the dolphin show

We arrived in the channel at Cristobal in the Republic of Panama around 4:00 a.m. on Monday morning. The AIS showed over 100 boats in the vicinity, but fortunately most of them were anchored, and traffic was limited to a few 500-foot tankers. From there, we proceeded to Shelter Bay Marina and helped ourselves to a spot on the T-head of the dock. We awoke early the next morning in order to announce our arrival and determine customs and immigration procedures. Dallas was told that while the office staff at the marina could handle the paperwork for us, there were many fees involved, so naturally, we decided to take care of it ourselves. It was something of an ordeal, however. The first step according to the instructions we were given was to go to the immigration office. However, once there, Dallas was ranted at in espanol for several minutes regarding all of the paperwork that he should have obtained prior to coming. Then we went to obtain the necessary papers and had other issues. Little did we know that since we did not clear customs in another country prior to Panama and thus did not have a “zarpe” (clearance papers), we would get so much grief. In fact, they informed Dallas that they had the authority to charge a stiff penalty and even take him to jail! Fortunately, though, we got away with a “next time you better have this…” and were sent off to the 3rd office. Our advice to cruisers planning on cruising straight here from the U.S.? First, get a “courtesy clearance zarpe” from U.S. customs. Then, consider paying the marina staff the $100 so as to not have to mess with it.

The only real advantage of handling the paperwork ourselves is that it provided an impetus for us to explore the city a bit. The marina is cut off from the downtown and is surrounded by nothing but jungle and former American army barracks, but cruisers tend to stay close by due to the high crime rate in nearby Colon. However, our brief excursions around Colon during the daytime by taxi seemed safe enough while also giving us an opportunity to get to know Panama a little bit. What we learned cannot be summed up in a few words (although the following come to mind: “air-brushed”, “straight-forward”, and “worn”). Fortunately, though, Wes brought his camera, so I will let the pictures do the talking. (Check out the photos link at the top for more photos of our trip thus far.)

The city bus

Apartment building

So it looks like we will be spending most of our time in Panama here in the marina. Fortunately, there is a pool, and we have air conditioning and high speed internet on the boat! In terms of how long we will be here, we are waiting to find out what the mechanic says tomorrow about the cause of the low oil pressure alarm sounding on the port engine. We are also going to try to purchase new solar panels after discovering how difficult it can be to support our refrigerator and auto-pilot when running downwind.

Shelter Bay Marina Pool

We will keep you posted regarding our scheduled transit through the Canal as well as the specific procedures involved. We are gathering info from our fellow cruisers, and it sounds as though it will be quite an adventure! What’s more, we discovered that each boat’s transit through the Miraflores lock, the last of the three, will be broadcast by webcam, so we will try to determine what time we will be going through just in case anyone wants to take a look!

So far this passage has been much smoother than the last one. I suppose you all haven’t heard much about the passage to Swan Island, as my last blog did not post correctly. I hope it didn’t cause too much concern for those who read the dramatic title but could not read the happy ending! Anyway, despite the adversity of the last passage (which you will get to read about once we get to Panama and get the full blog posted), all is well with the crew and the boat. The seas are relatively calm, and we are all feeling well enough to take turns at the helm, resulting in a much more pleasant time for all.

Lat: 15 11.990′ N
Long: 82 17.050′ W

We are well offshore now, but the closest landfall is Cabo Gracias A Dios at the border of Honduras and Nicaragua. We have enjoyed the protection offered by the reefs over the last couple of days, but we just changed course to head toward Panama and anticipate having less protection and more sea-swell. We shall see!