101) Panama

Colon, Panama

Panama Canal Yacht Club

9° 20.939 N 79°  54.189 W

Woke up to a clear blue sky with a nice breeze.  Somehow with an overcast sky this marina becomes even drearier and today was a needed respite.  One of the dangers of hanging laundry to dry on board is the potential to lose something.  The breeze was up and a mattress pad went down.  To the bottom.  Frustrating.  We fished it out with the pole and prevented having to search in town for a replacement.  A little earlier in the day Alan was dispatched in the dinghy to search for it and after his little venture I happened to look under the boat as I was walking by and saw it.  

Although the distance is not great, crossing from coast to coast in Panama is not easy. The main rail line from Colón on the Atlantic side to Panama City on the Pacific side parallels the Panama Canal.  Panama's two other rail lines do not cross the entire country and are used mainly to ship bananas.

I had some cabin fever and wanted to go into town so I tagged along with Nancy to the grocery store.  We parted there because I wanted to find the post office and get a souvenir stamp for my passport.  I felt this was a good opportunity for me to see more of Colon as I wanted to see some side streets.  I lasted about 4 blocks and clearly saw enough and wanted back on the main street.  There were lots of people out and several produce markets along the way.  When I glanced at the wide alleys between the buildings I was shocked at the amount of trash and dirty standing water as well as running water.  It literally looked like a dump.  This image between the well-worn-down and decaying buildings gives the impression of severe poverty and depression.  I got back on track to the post office.

 I relied on the directions we received from one of the police officers and when I got to where I thought it was I had to ask for help.  A young guy spoke English and took me right to the place.  He even went inside and translated for me.  There usually is a Good Samaritan if you just ask.  I never would have found this place.  I was supposed to continue on up the dead-end street by going down the narrow sidewalk entryway.  Then, on the left up a couple doors was an unassuming glass door.  That was the place. I never would have found it on my own.

Walking back to the marina I passed the bus station and more stores and such, got panhandled by a kid and generally feel I have seen enough of this place.  It is sad that it has been reduced to this.  Everywhere you look you see the faces of the direct descendent's of the laborers that built the canal.  This is an historical area that has been overlooked and forgotten by progress.  

100) Panama

Colon, Panama

Panama Canal Yacht Club

9° 20.939 N 79°  54.189 W

Italy to Panama

Panama Canal Yacht Club on the Atlantic entrance to the cana

Rain.  Off and on.  All day.  Hard at times.  At least the boat is…cleaner.

The marina sponsored a free food and drink function for the cruisers to celebrate the superbowl.  Free food cannot be passed up.  John and I have been plagued with a bug in our gut and today I just laid down and watched movies and read.  We don’t want to believe that it was the bacon in the fridge.  We think that it is the onion rings from the restaurant.  We’re trying to figure out what food we had in common that caused both of us to suffer from this.  I thought maybe McDonald’s, the tap water, a bug bite… I didn’t even go up to the bar to watch the game.  It was a long 3-movie and a couple hundred pages kind of day.  I will have a peculiar memory of Colon, Panama. 

I have cabin fever and tomorrow I am going to walk into town again.  That is how hard up I am for something to do.

Another canal official came out to measure the boat.  While sitting in the bar filling out forms he asked John if he really thought he would fall for the pole off the bow.  He asked if he wanted 65’ written in and John said, yes.  Busted.  Rules are rules, somewhere.  Since this guy came out it is all official and we are on the list to transit.  We just need to hang tire fenders, attach lines, get some food for lunch, KFC is the preferred food of line handlers in Panama and then we’ll be ready to go.               

99) Panama

Colon, Panama

Panama Canal Yacht Club 9° 20.939 N 79°  54.189 W

The agent came by and filled out some paperwork, collected money and left with our passports.  I was very uneasy about the passports.  Apparently, we have a stamp to get in the country but we need a stamp to get out.  This stamp cannot be had at the airport and must be done by going into Colon and, well, they said it was just too damn hard.  The 9/11 things have affected here, also.  He offered as part of his service to take the passports to the Pacific side and get the stamp and return them to us on Monday with the lines and fenders needed for transiting the canal.  Since everyone agreed to give up the passports I did too.  What’s the worse that can happen, right?  He assured us that we would have a Tuesday February 7^th departure, would probably leave the dock at 4 am and pop out the other side around 1-2pm.  We will get a mooring ball at the Balboa Yacht Club and take the 24-hour water taxi to shore.  Since Nancy and I have 730am flights the next morning we wanted to get rooms in town and make it easier.  I am so looking forward to that!

John, Nancy and I walked into town for a distraction and had to be able to say that we’ve been to Colon.  What a shock.  The guys at the gate said take a cab and when we declined they said to be careful.  Once on the main street it was obvious that this place was a little run down.  It appears to be engulfed in poverty.  We walked to the free zone, which is a duty free area of some sort, but all the stores were closed.  It was very weird.  And then, McDonald’s for lunch!  No surprises in the food we had. 

Part of this trek was to make a run to the grocery store so we popped into a large brand new place.  Immediately to the right once inside there was a display of several coolers and John has been thinking about getting one.  The refrigerator is not working well and he is going to try this approach.  There was also a chair like the one on deck on display.  The boat chair is fading, rusting and some of the seams are splitting.  So, while he pondered the large display of coolers and which was the best deal he sat down.  Nancy and I moved in different directions and canvassed the store.  She found staples and I found coffee and rum.  We had been cruising the aisles for quite a while and wondered what was keeping John.  The security guard woke him up and told him he couldn’t sleep there.  

  

 

  

Colon, Panama is on the top of my list of places never to visit again.  It is very unsafe to be on the streets at night and there just aren’t any attractions like museums, etc to want to stay here.  Life at the marina is so removed from the reality of the city.  I am now convinced that the marina is an oasis and I appreciate it.

98) Panama

Colon, Panama

Collectively, we have expended great energy to avoid hitting obstacles and staying away from ships.  On this passage we could not avoid staying away from ships because they all go where we are going.  I counted 17 at anchor or underway outside the Atlantic entrance to the canal.  But, we saw more debris in the water in this short passage then we have seen in all the passages combined.  There were large palm fronds as well as small palm trees, general flotsam and then the big stuff.  There were logs at least 30’ long.  And some like the one above were just thick chunks of trees.  Luckily the pointy end deflects them away from the hull.

Going thru the breakwater entrance to the canal.

  

Panama flag over the quarantine flag.   

 The life of a sail

Colon, Panama

Panama Canal Yacht Club

9° 20.939 N 79°  54.189 W

...subsequently demolished.

Don’t let the words yacht club mislead you.  This one is not what the imagination thinks.  Basically, it is an office with a little spot for Internet, a restaurant, a bar, laundry and shower and a couple docks.  Cruisers say that this place has more than most places.  I was a little let down.  Some of the marinas we have stayed in have been very nice and upon retrospect I admit that it does have amenities.  The yucky part is that we are in a commercial harbor that is full of ships loading and unloading, sirens and horns blowing, and the worst part of all is the diesel exhaust fumes wafting inside the boat.  I prefer boating away from exhaust fumes. 

The Internet is everywhere.

     Framed molas on the wall.

Panama Canal Yacht Club

As I walked up the dock to the buildings I noticed a small 2’ spotted stingray gliding thru about 4’ of water near the shore.  There are also lots of small colorful fish cruising the shallows.  Down on the bottom are discarded ropes, trash, etc. and yet it is still alive.  The docks and buildings are pretty run down but at least there are docks, power and water.  Our view on the waterside is of a freighter tied to the dock.  Out the other side is the dock with all the sailboats and beyond that the marina buildings and then shipping containers about 4-5 high.  Not much to see from here.  Going into town is on the list of things to do.

Amor Fati is straight ahead hanging past the dock.

The bar was shaped like the pointy end!

It is February 3rd and there are preliminary speculated dates of transiting the canal on February 27^th or maybe the 7^th.  It gets confusing how this works for small boats.  With an advisor there will be a long wait.  If you pay for a pilot you can get in earlier.  But, you can’t get a pilot unless you are 65’ long.  We are only 58’ long.  They said to extend something off the front and maybe hang the dinghy off the back further to cheat.     

97) Panama

Portobelo, Panama (at anchor)

9° 33.327 N 79 39.615 W

Columbus called this bay Puerto Bello when he stumbled in with his weary ships in November 1502.  Portobelo, as it is now known, rose to importance in 1597 when the annual meeting of colonial merchants with the fleet from Spain was moved here from Nombre de Dios.  Francis Drake used the port in 1570 as a base to rob Spanish merchantmen.  He returned in the 1590s and promptly destroyed the beginnings of the Spanish fortifications.  Drake died during the same voyage and was reputedly buried at sea near a little island recently named Isla Drake. 

The riches plundered from the native nations of South America were sailed to the Pacific port of Panama and then conveyed by mule trains to the Atlantic side of the isthmus for the meeting with the “flota”.  According to Thomas Gage, an English born Jesuit, the warehouses of Portobelo would get so full of gold and silver that silver ingots lay in the streets, unguarded.  No wonder the place attracted constant raids by buccaneers, including Henry Morgan in 1668.  British Admiral Vernon destroyed the Portobelo forts in 1739 and the great commercial fair never returned to the bay after the Spanish Crown finally allowed trading voyages around Cape Horn.   

The ruins of the largest fort supplied rock material for the construction of the first Cristobal breakwater during the Panama Canal project from 1904 to 1914.  However, the remains of forts give Portobelo Bay its unique character and bring occasional buses of tourists.  Once a year, in October, a fiesta for the Portobelo Black Christ, a patron of pickpockets among others, attracts crowds to the church originally built in 1776.

Portobelo is one of the rainiest places on this coast.  Ashore in town you will find basic groceries and fresh bread in the mornings.  The Chinese grocery near the old church sells gasoline, too.  Water is available from a spigot on the side of the police station.  Since 1996 police come to visiting yachts to collect a $15 USD fee imposed by the town council.   

We arrived at Portobelo just after sunset with plenty of light to make the anchorage.  From all I’ve read this place is steeped in history.  It’s neat to look around and know that hundred of years ago there were large ships at anchor in here and this was a very active port.  The remains of the forts were visible from the boat.  Since most of the structures are gone it is hard to determine what they looked like.   

The bumpy hill on the left is where the foundations have been overgrown.

 

We were only here for one night and wanted to go into town and get some dinner.  Of all the unmarked and indistinguishable docks we pulled up to we ended up at the transplanted American dock.  She and her husband have been here for 15+ years and were very helpful.  John and Nancy and her had a mutual acquaintance and they talked for a little while and then she gave us directions to restaurants.  From the water this place looked asleep and in the middle of nowhere.  Once we rounded the corner of her building we noticed there was actually a little town.  Walking into the square was like a daydream.  It was dark, not well lit and there were people everywhere.  It seems in these Latin American communities that socializing comes alive after dark. 

We happened upon a little restaurant called Ida’s and it looked open for business and deserted at the same time.  It took a little girl to say you got food? to the kitchen to get the ball rolling.  She eventually got hers to go.  In this adventure we have noticed that cell phones have pervaded everywhere and this place was no exception.  While the young guy was taking our order his cell phone rang and he stood there and talked.  We all laughed and he kinda laughed about it too.  There is a cell tower at the entrance to this bay and when I first saw it I thought there was no way cell phones were here.  

 We lucked out with this find.  After a little negotiating and walking in the kitchen to look at the langostino’s I ordered lobster and chicken.  The entire meal and soda’s cost about  $9USD!  Most of our best meals have been in the most unlikely places.  It seems that a dog shows up when we are eating, too.  Back at…?  We gave bones to a few and then here we gave this dog bones.  For the record, this dog did not like lobster.   

And, it’s always fun going into the grocery store and this one did not disappoint.  On our way back to the boat the square was even more alive with people.  There were some kids with drums and some kids chanting but they did not seem to be in time.  It was almost like a jazz tribal thing.  Being the only tourists at the moment we drew stares but were glad to have been there.   

Cell tower   

 

 

 

 

 

Departing Portobelo