1 August 2013 Shelter Bay Marina, Panama
It threw it down again this morning. Greg, the local mechanic, came on board and replaced the timing belt on our engine and replaced the crankshaft oil seal on the generator – tick another two jobs off the list.
I did a few small jobs, finishing off the rudder, so that it was ready to be painted and then spent the rest of the morning doing some admin and helping Greg as necessary. I’ve appointed an agent to organise our passage through the Panama Canal in September. I thought that it would be a good idea to get the paperwork sorted out and to get the measurement of the boat done now, so that we will be able to go through the Canal whenever we’re ready. It’s pretty expensive - $1,450 for everything including $350 for the agent fees.
Glenys caught the bus to the Shopping Mall and came back with some syringes, on to which I stuck a small tube and managed to successfully squeeze some Life Seal sealant around the stern tube. I replaced the cutlass bearing housing, the rope cutter and the propeller, so that we’re now ready to go back into the water.
The yard labourers came along, moved the stands holding up the boat and painted the resulting bare patches. They also painted the rudder to complete the first coat of paint. I told the Yard Manager that we want to be launched on the 3rd August, providing that the second coat of anti-foul paint is put on tomorrow. We’ll be glad to get back into the water.
2 August 2013 Shelter Bay Marina, Panama
I caught the courtesy bus to the shopping mall and was dropped off at the Novey hardware store, where I had a good wander around and bought things to replenish our tools and spares – two fire extinguishers, propane torch, replacement twist drills, turpentine, etc. I also bought a small single ring electric hob which will be a good back up in case we run out of cooking gas half way across the Pacific Ocean – a nightmare scenario.
While I was out, Glenys supervised the yard labourers painting on the final second coat of antifoul paint, so we’ll definitely be back in the water tomorrow. In the afternoon, I pottered about doing a few last jobs including making sure that the steering cables to the rudder are correctly tensioned. We’ve got a sea cock for one of the cockpit drains that is seized and I had another go at freeing it, but failed abysmally. It’s jammed open, but it's not really a critical seacock, so I’m going to leave it and sort it out next time that we get hauled out, which should be in New Zealand in 18 months’ time.
Glenys spent the afternoon polishing the hull above the waterline and the boat looks a lot better for her efforts.
We spent the early evening tidying up the mess of working aboard for a week and prepared the boat to do some sea trials tomorrow.
3 August 2013 Shelter Bay Marina, Panama
The yard labourers came at nine o’clock in the morning, loaded Alba onto a hydraulic trailer and transported us a few hundred metres to the haul out dock. We were put into the travel lift and I was given a few minutes to do some final anti-fouling. I hadn’t thought this process through enough and only had a small paint brush, which dribbled paint everywhere because I was painting upside down. I’d also put on my best sandals instead of the old ones that I’d been working in all week, so my sandals now have attractive blue splodges all over them - next time I need to have a roller ready.
Once in the water and clear of the travel lift slings, I started the engine, but after a minute we didn’t have any water coming out of our wet exhaust pipe, so I shut it off and in a mild panic, went to investigate. I checked the sea water pump impellor which seemed to be okay and I couldn’t see anything else that was wrong, so I tried the engine again. After ten seconds, I was pleased to see water spurting out of the exhaust, so I guess that it was just an air blockage.
We motored over to the fuel dock and topped up our fuel tanks. They have a strange system here, because you have to pre-pay for fuel, which was a little awkward because I didn’t know how much I wanted up front - I had to overestimate and then had to go back to the marina office to get a credit. The fuel is dispensed by a fuel barge and is geared up for much larger boats than ours, so we had to be very careful that the fuel was only dispensed slowly. The fuelling guys were very proficient and even gave us a sample of the diesel with a label stating when it was dispensed.
We then took the boat out of the marina to do a short sea trial. I wanted to make sure that the engine ran well after the timing belt had been changed and also that the rudder worked correctly. We must have looked an odd sight as we pirouetted around the large ship anchorage just inside the Colon breakwater. I ran the engine at various speeds including full revs (which sounds scary) and did various manoeuvres using the steering wheel and the autopilot, we even spent a few minutes going backwards at 3 knots to put different loads on the rudder. All seemed to be working correctly, so we went into the marina and tied up in our allocated berth.
We spent the afternoon chilling out, grateful not to have any more jobs to do. In the evening, we went to the bar to have a celebratory dinner.
4 August 2013 Shelter Bay Marina, Panama
I woke up feeling pretty grim with some sort of virus – aching limbs, sour throat, etc. We’d arranged to go for a walk with Jerry and Susan from “Vida Dulce”, so I went anyway – I was keen to try out the new hiking boots that I bought back in the UK. It was a pleasant walk along a road through the jungle, with a small detour to a beach. Unfortunately, we didn’t see much wild life although we did hear Howler Monkeys occasionally.
By the time that we arrived back at the boat two hours later, I was feeling decidedly grim, so after a quick bite to eat, I retired to my sick bed for a few hours. Glenys went to the bar to play Mexican Dominos with some of the other cruisers and left me to suffer alone.
5 August 2013 Shelter Bay Marina, Panama
I had a restless night and woke up still feeling ill. Greg the local mechanic came on board to check the engine alignment and found that the stern gland was wobbling a little bit. He tweaked the alignment by lowering the front engine mounts by one turn and the wobble went away – it’s amazing how a little adjustment can make a big difference. Hopefully, I won’t get any water leaking into the engine compartment now.
Glenys started the chore of cleaning the deck and coaming, which was looking very grubby after a month stuck in a marina and a week on the hard. I had a relapse in the afternoon and spent most of it lying in bed reading a book and napping.
6 August 2013 Shelter Bay Marina, Panama
Glenys jumped out of bed at seven o’clock and caught the courtesy bus into the Quatro Altos shopping mall to buy provisions for the next four weeks. I’m afraid that I was feeling so grim that I couldn’t drag myself off my back to go and help her. I finally rose from my sick bed at ten o’clock, had breakfast, took some paracetamol and went back to bed.
Glenys arrived back at noon with five big bags of shopping, made lunch for me and then spent the afternoon continuing to cleaning the deck. I lay in bed sweating out the virus – thank god for the air conditioning; I dread to think what it would have been like without it.
Arturo from Marine Warehouse arrived with our consignment of stuff from Florida. I was very relieved when I unpacked my new guitar and found that it was the correct model and undamaged. Unfortunately, I was feeling too grim to play it.
Glenys had bought some more medical supplies to add to the painkillers and antibiotics that we brought back from the UK, so she spent an hour sorting through everything and packing it away in water proof containers.
7 August 2013 Shelter Bay Marina, Panama
I woke up feeling much better and spent the day pottering about, getting ready to leave tomorrow. I packed away the various spare parts that we received yesterday and installed the new sheets for the stay sail. Glenys continued on her mission to clean down the decks while we have lots of free fresh water available. Our teak decks haven’t been cleaned for about a year and are now showing signs of mildew, mostly because they haven’t had any sea water on them for the past six weeks and it’s constantly raining.
While Glenys was going through her cleaning supplies, she came across various bottles of teak cleaning liquids left behind by the previous owner over two years ago – teak cleaner, teak brightener, teak oil, etc. These went into the bin. Instead, she used a mixture of 2/3rds cup of bleach, 3-4 tablespoons of tri-sodium and a dash of washing up liquid put into a bucket of water. She swabbed this onto the teak deck with a sponge and swilled it off after leaving it to soak for ten minutes. We never use a brush on our decks because it rips out the soft part of the teak and wears the deck away very quickly.
I spent a couple of hours, swapping the strings on my guitars and cleaning my old one to sell it. I’ve put some extra light strings onto my new guitar which are supposed to be better for finger-style playing. They sound a little bit bright and “thin” to me, but I guess that I’ll get used to it. I wrote out a notice to sell my old guitar, but don’t hold out much hope. If I can’t sell it in the next couple of months, I’ll probably give it away to a local school - it's taking up too much space.
I tried to get a zarpe from the port captain to get us to Porvenir in the San Blas islands, but I found out that he’s on holiday and I have to go to Colon to get the documents. I’m not going to bother – it’ll take me at least 4 hours to go there and I don’t have the time or the inclination to do it. I won’t clear in to the San Blas and will still have my current documentation when I come back to Shelter Bay. There’s a slim chance that someone might want to inspect my papers in the San Blas islands, but I’ll just act ignorant about the procedures – at worst I’ll get a small fine, which will probably be less than it would cost me to get a zarpe in Colon.
8 August 2013 Shelter Bay Marina to Portobello, Panama
We were up early, getting ready to finally leave Shelter Bay Marina. I belatedly remembered that I’d bought a 3G modem and a SIM card, to allow us to access the Internet while out in the San Blas islands. Unfortunately, I’d not installed it or tested it, so I had a go after breakfast - it didn't go well. I first installed the software that came on the USB modem, but that was linked to the telecom provider in the UK, so I had to download a new program called Mobile Partner, which seems to work, but I can’t get the modem to connect to the Digicel network.
I went over to see Jerry on “Vida Dulce” and we tried various combinations of things by putting his SIM card in my dongle and vice versa. However, I still don’t have a working modem. The good news is that my SIM card works okay on his modem, but the bad news is that my modem doesn't connect using either my SIM card or Jerry’s SIM card. A dead end and two hours of my life wasted.
I spent another hour rushing around the deck, lashing things down and preparing for sea. We dropped the dinghy into the water and installed the outboard, which thankfully started first time. We finally managed to slip away from the marina berth just after eleven o'clock.
We’d had a nice 12 knot wind from the north in the marina, so I was looking forward to a pleasant, close reach to Portobello. Unfortunately, the wind veered around to the north-east as we motored through the breakwater and we had to resign ourselves to 3 hours of motoring straight into the wind. At least the waves weren’t too big and the batteries got a good charge.
Portobello lived up to its reputation of being one of the wettest palaces in Panama, because it threw it down as we approached the harbour, but it soon stopped before we anchored. It’s nice to be at anchor again, with pelicans gliding past and parrots flying on dead straight routes from their feeding grounds to their night roosts. Unfortunately, there’s not much wind in the harbour and the air is heavy with humidity, so we spent the afternoon reading in the cockpit, trying to catch any breezes and missing the air conditioner.
We had dinner up in the cockpit for the first time in six weeks, which was very pleasant. I even plugged in my new calabash cockpit light that I wired up a few days ago. It works well and the small holes let through an attractive light – all I need to do now is to finish off painting it to make it look prettier.
9 August 2013 Portobello to Isla Linton, Panama
We had a slow start to the day. I've put on about half a stone extra weight over the past couple of months – too much entertaining in the UK and evening meals of chicken burger and chips in the marina bar, so I started to do my morning exercises again. It nearly killed me.
Glenys wanted to do some more provisioning, so we hopped into the dinghy and whizzed into town. It’s still as scruffy as ever, but at least they've stopped people dumping garbage opposite to the Port Captain's office. We bought more heavy stuff like drinks and some more fresh vegetables and meat. The supermarkets in Portobello are rough, but well stocked.
After lunch, we motored ten miles around to Isla Linton and anchored amongst the thirty or so other yachts in the anchorage. There’s an active fish farm at the entrance to the harbour, which gave us a few concerns as we approached, but there’s deep water all the way into the anchorage.
This is a well-protected harbour, but it’s crowded with lots of permanently moored yachts, most of which appear to have been abandoned here. We anchored close to “Nuwam” and went over to see Robert and Heidi for sun downers to catch up with them.
10 August 2013 Isla Linton, Panama
It was a beautiful sunny day for a change. “Nuwam” came over in their dinghy at ten o'clock and took us to Panamarina to go for a walk. There’s a really nice small boat channel through the mangroves between Isla Linton and Panamarina, which turns into an enclosed tunnel formed from the mangrove trees for half of its length.
We had a pleasant hike along a dirt road, through rainforest and cultivated land to a small village called Hosé del Mar. There’s a very small store just outside the village, where we came across the owner hand-making a guitar. We stopped and chatted to him and played one of his guitars, which was a very strange shape – almost like a large mandolin. It played okay though. The guy can make a guitar in three or four days and only charges $75, but I wasn't tempted.
Having reached the village, Robert then frog-marched us back to Panamarina where the French owners' cook lunch in their small restaurant. The other eight customers were all French speaking, so it was a little strange – I kept thinking that we were in some small Les Routiers in France. The main meal was okay, but nothing to write home about.
After lunch, Robert & Heidi dropped us back on Alba and we had a quiet afternoon sleeping off the exercise and the couple of beers that we indulged in.
In the evening, we dinghied over to the dock on Isla Linton to watch the small troop of Spider Monkeys that come down to the shore every evening. There was a boat of locals that had arrived before us who were feeding the monkeys – obviously a local attraction. The monkeys have amazing prehensile tails and extremely long thin limbs. When they stretch out, they stand about four feet high, yet can curl up into a small ball – cute, but unpredictable, so we kept our distance.
11 August 2013 Isla Linton, Panama
There was a massive squall in the middle of the night with torrential rain, but fortunately not much wind. There was the usual sound of thunder all around us and then we had the closest lightning strike to date. The flash and the huge bang were instantaneous and we could hear the air sizzling as the lightning hit something very near. Fortunately, all our electronics still work.
It was still raining in the morning, with rumbles of thunder all around, so we resigned ourselves to a day indoors. This miserable rain-season weather is starting to wear me down.
The good news is that I had lots of time to play with my new guitar. It’s a Yamaha AC1M, which is very similar to my old guitar, but is a little bit smaller and has a cutaway, so that I can play the higher frets more easily. I'm getting used to the thinner strings, which makes playing barre chords much easier, but there’s an annoying buzzing sound when I pluck the strings hard. I guess that I'm going to have to adjust the truss rod to make the action a little higher in the middle of the fret board, but I’ll leave it for a week and see if it changes as the wood settles into this more humid environment.
Robert and Heidi came for a beer in the evening and gave us some more places to stop in the San Blas islands.
12 August 2013 Isla Linton to Green Turtle Marina, Panama
It was reasonable weather in the morning, so we upped anchor early and motored the ten miles around to around to Green Turtle Marina. By the time that we’d tied up on the dock, it had started raining, so we hunkered down for the rest of the day.
There’s not a lot at this small marina, but it’s a convenient stopping point on our way to the San Blas Islands – it’s only 45 miles to the Lemon Cays from here. They have fuel here and are supposed to have a good wireless internet connection, but just our luck, the router has packed up so we can’t get connected. Even the small restaurant on the beach was closed today.
However, it only cost us $12 for the night and the water on the docks comes from a fresh water spring, so we emptied our water tanks of the horrible town water that we picked up in Shelter Bay Marina and refilled with this excellent tasting water.
13 August 2013 Green Turtle Marina to Yansaladup, San Blas, Panama
I woke up early with the sun streaming through the window for a change, so we jumped out of bed and left the marina by seven o’clock. We started motoring in blue skies and caught two small bonito. By mid-morning, the wind had picked up to fifteen knots and we were able to sail for the first time in nearly two months – it was wonderful.
We approached the Lemon Cays and went towards Chichime which is a very popular anchorage. As we approached, we counted ten boats at anchor, which looked too crowded. Instead, we weaved our way through the reefs and sand banks to anchor off Yansaladup which is a small isolated island with only two other yachts at anchor, the closest being 200 metres away. At 12 metres, it’s a deep anchorage, typical of this area, but the seabed is sand and good holding. The island of Yansaladup is a small circular island covered in coconut palms and looks to have one family living in traditional grass huts – looks pretty.
The sun continued to beat relentlessly down on us, so we put up the awning and sat around in the cockpit trying to catch a little breeze. Later in the afternoon, we jumped into the dinghy and went snorkelling near the outer reef, but the water was full of sediment and there wasn't a huge amount to see.
In the evening, we were visited by a huge moth with a four inch wing span as we had dinner in the cockpit. It was a big as a small bat and insisted on flying around our cockpit light, which was very scary. I eventually caught it and, even though it was beautiful, I consigned it to the deep.
14 August 2013 Yansaladup, Eastern Lemon Cays, Panama
Before we had breakfast, there was a small knock on the side of the hull. I found a dugout canoe alongside containing Venancio Restrepo, a local master mola maker. Glenys and I then spent over an hour looking through the vast collection of molas that he had for sale.
Molas are traditional panels made from brightly coloured squares of multi-layered, embroidered fabric depicting landscape scenes, birds, animals and fish. The Kuna Indian ladies wear the panels as a kind of top and there’s great pride in owning high quality molas – the quality depends on the number of layers of material and how detailed the stitching is. Some of the more elaborate panels can take months of work. After ploughing through hundreds of molas, Glenys finally bought two panels from Venancio – one for $60 and one for $30. I think that I got off lightly.
We had another lazy day – the heat is very oppressive and we've not acclimatised after the luxury of air conditioning in Shelter Bay Marina. I’m quite excited to be here in the San Blas and did some reading up on the history and the culture.
The Kuna Indians are fairly isolated living on the 350 islands next to the Columbian border. There is only one road to the area and that’s a dirt track only passable by four wheel trucks. A few small airstrips on some of the islands allow air access to the region, but most of the inter-island transport is via the ubiquitous pirogue, powered by 75hp Yamaha outboards. The Kuna Indians extensively use a dugout canoe called an “ulu” for local transport and fishing – these are often equipped with a removable mast and sails.
As with all indigenous peoples, the Kuna have been oppressed over the centuries – initially by the Spanish Conquistadores and latterly by the Panamanian Government. Although a normally peaceful people, the Kuna rebelled in 1925, killing all Panamanians & Kunas of mixed heritage and declared an independent republic called Kuna Yala. The Panamanian government was about to start a retaliatory military campaign, but the USA intervened with a warship and, after protracted negotiation, the Kuna are now recognised as an autonomous region within Panama.
The Kuna Indians are unique in the Americas as they have best preserved their traditions and culture. They number around 55,000 and are organised in a strict hierarchy of tribal leaders. Each village has three chiefs (Sailas) who not only act as political leaders, but hold knowledge of tribal medicine and Kuna history. There are three high chiefs (Caciques) for the whole nation with one of these being the president or supreme leader of the Kunas.
The Kuna economy is dependent on the sale of coconuts to Colombian trading boats that ply the coastal waters. Coconuts are grown on every island in the region and when the Columbian boats arrive, hundreds of Kuna can be seen paddling their ulus loaded up with coconuts. Another source of income is tourism and the sale of molas made by the Kuna ladies.
The traditional Kuna house is built with cane walls on a slightly raised hard packed dirt floor. The roof is constructed with a wooden frame lashed together and covered with palm leaves to make a thatched and very water proof covering. Inside the house, there is no furniture; just hammocks hanging from the roof - the Kuna are born, conceived and die in their hammocks.
In the afternoon, we went out of a cut to the west of Yansaladup, where the snorkelling was very interesting as the reef has been formed into lots of narrow canyons.
15 August 2013 Yansaladup to The Swimming Pool, Eastern Hollandaise, Panama
It was another nice morning, so we upped anchor at about ten o’clock and motored fifteen miles over to the Swimming Pool anchorage in the Eastern Hollandaise. The trip was uneventful apart from hitting a sodden log and then hooking it with the fishing line.
The Eastern Hollandaise Cays are stunning – small islands with white sand beaches and coconut palms swaying in the breeze. The Swimming Pool anchorage is between Banedup and BBQ Island and is named because it’s shallow water over white coral sand creating a stunning blue colour. We anchored in 3.5 metres with the anchor burying itself satisfyingly in the soft sand.
After lunch, we went snorkelling in a channel near the outer reef, which was interesting, but the water was a little murky. We had to cut the outing short because my new dive mask kept steaming up. I’d previously tried to clean the inside of the mask lenses with toothpaste, but there must have still been some film left behind by the manufacturing process. When we got back to the boat, I used a gas lighter to run a flame around the inside of the lenses. This seems a bit radical especially as the inside of the lens turned smoky black, but it did the job.
It was another hot afternoon, so we lounged about gasping for air. Unfortunately, we were invaded by no-see-ums at around five o'clock, so we had to break out the mosquito coils to try to deter the hungry little buggers.
16 August 2013 The Swimming Pool, Eastern Hollandaise, Panama
It was a horrible hot airless night, with the occasional thunderstorm and rain – we were both still tired when we got up. We had an overcast morning with the odd rain showers, so I got on with sorting and editing the hundreds of photographs that I've accumulated over the past two months while Glenys played her ukulele. She’s getting to grips with it now having downloaded lots of lessons and songs from the Internet while we were in Shelter Bay Marina.
We had a couple of large squalls with 30+ knot winds pass through during the day and in between the showers, four of the other boats in the anchorage left, leaving just us and “Gris Gris”. I’m glad that they stayed otherwise we would have been paranoid that everyone knew something bad was coming.
I spent most of the afternoon working on the battery charger. It’s finally stopped working after giving me some intermittent problems over the past few months. I was getting a failure message on the control panel telling me that there was a problem with the voltage sensing circuit. I disconnected the fuses on the voltage sensing wire and, although the failure light went off, the battery charger still wasn’t charging the batteries.
About a month ago, our friends Bonnie and Maury from “Smidge” gave us a 220 volt battery charger that they no longer need because their boat is all wired up for 110 volts, which I’ve been carrying as a spare. I removed our battery charger from the tight space in a locker underneath the chart table and then wired in our spare one. It was a bit of a mission because the battery cable connectors were too big to fit on the new terminals so I spent an hour, grunting and cursing while I hacksawed the connector to make them thin enough to fit.
Unfortunately, the spare battery charger wasn’t charging the batteries either. It’s a bit of a mystery – all I can guess is that there’s some problem with some of the wiring to the battery. I’ll have to look at it again tomorrow.
Tom & Julie from “Gris Gris” came over for sun-downers. They have been cruising Panama for over five years and have been in this anchorage for 2 months, so they know a lot about the area.
17 August 2013 The Swimming Pool, Eastern Hollandaise, Panama
It was a reasonable day today, but a little airless and we had a serious invasion of no-see-ums until I went around and bopped the boat with insect spray. I spent the morning catching up with writing two months of postings for my web site, while Glenys worked on deck cleaning our fenders which were filthy after our stay in Shelter Bay Marina.
Some of the local Kuna Indians came over in their cayuco and Glenys added to her collection by buying another mola. She’s only bought four so far, but we’ve only been in the San Blas four days and she can’t resist them – I’m getting worried…
I had another look at the battery charger and traced the problem to a loose connection. The thick positive battery cable was simply loose on a stud behind the 80 amp fuse. There was evidence that the connection had been heating up, so I was lucky that the battery charger is smart enough to switch off when it detected a high resistance in the circuit, otherwise I might have had a fire.
I cleaned up the connection with some emery cloth and tested the resistance of the connector, which was less than 1 ohm. When I switched on our generator, the spare battery charger kicked into life. I ran the water maker and charged the batteries for an hour to make sure that there were no other problems, then took out the spare battery charger and replaced our original battery charger, which works fine now. What a lot of effort for a loose connection.
Glenys mooched about in the afternoon having managed to burn her back in the sun during the morning even though she was working under our awning for most of the time. The sun here is extremely strong.
I had a go at adjusting the action on the fingerboard on my new guitar. It’s been buzzing when I pluck the strings loudly, so the strings are obviously too close to the frets. Using a set of feeler gauges, I found that the neck on the guitar was too straight – it should be slightly concave. I adjusted the truss rod to give me a 0.010 inch clearance in the middle of the fret board and the buzzing magically went away.
While I was at it, I checked that the clearance at the nut– it was okay being about the thickness of a piece of paper at the first fret. I also measured the action at the 12th fret and found that it was a little high – it should be 1/16” on the thin string and was actually 3/32”. All the strings are 1/32” too high, but I’ve decided to leave it alone because to adjust it I would have to file the saddle insert down and I don’t feel brave enough to do that on a brand new guitar. It seems to sound and play okay to me.
Some locals came alongside and sold us six small lobster for $7.50, which we had for dinner, which was a nice change.
18 August 2013 The Swimming Pool, Eastern Hollandaise, Panama
It was a Sunday, so we had a lie in and a day of rest. Glenys mooched about in the morning playing her ukulele, while I finally caught up on editing photographs and getting my web site up to date. All I need now is an internet connection so that I can publish it.
We had a bit of a scare just before lunch because a boat full of officials was going from boat to boat in the anchorage checking paperwork. Normally, I'm pretty good at clearing in and out, but I've been a bad lad for the last month. I should have cleared out of Shelter Bay Marina and then cleared into Portobello, then cleared out of Portobello and cleared into the San Blas islands in Porvenir. It’s all too much bloody effort and we've not had anyone check our paperwork for months.
When they came alongside, I went into their pirogue to do battle. I passed the first two hurdles because the immigration stamps in our passports and our cruising permit are all valid. However, when they asked for my clearance into Porvenir, I told them that I’d come from Portobello directly to here and not stopped at Porvenir. I told them in my poor Spanish that the Port Captain wasn't in Portobello and acted ignorant about having to go to Porvenir.
Fortunately, they were pretty relaxed about it all and just made me pay a fee of $35 to get a Kuna cruising permit that lasts for a month. One of the guys took a copy of my clearance papers, which I received in Portobello in June, and all seemed happy. They told me that I’ll need to get a zarpe from Porvenir when I leave, but I don’t think that I’ll bother – I already have clearance papers into Shelter Bay Marina dated 28 June and I’ll just rely on them.
Glenys made Lobster Bisque for lunch which was excellent and we continued to chill out for the rest of the afternoon. I spent a couple of hours reading up on the cruising areas on the Pacific side of Panama. We really want to get down to Ecuador as soon as we can, but the winds at the moment are coming from the south-west which will be directly against us. We don’t fancy bashing to windward for three or four days, so we want a back-up plan while we wait for favourable winds. We’re thinking of heading west towards Costa Rica, which should give us a better wind angle for Ecuador, but the cruising area looks to be a little challenging with not many secure anchorages unless we go up rivers.
I spent the rest of the afternoon messing about with Guitar Rig, which is some software which emulates an electric guitar amplifier. My new guitar is an electric-acoustic which means that I can plug it into an amplifier, so I had a bit of fun making it sound like a heavy rock guitar. I eventually got bored with that and tested the recording features which are pretty good, although my fingers turn to rubber as soon as I try to record something. Here’s my best attempt (Extract of Blackbird by The Beatles) – it’s very short. Now if I can just learn to play the guitar properly...
19 August 2013 The Swimming Pool to Coco Bandero, San Blas, Panama
We pottered about during the morning, while we ran the watermaker and waited to see what the weather would do. By eleven o'clock, the day had brightened up, so we upped anchor and motored over to the Coco Bandero Cays, stopping off at Orduptarboat. It’s a pretty little island with a couple of abandoned Kuna huts, but the anchorage is 13 metres deep between the island and an isolated reef. By the time that we’d put out 50 metres of chain, we decided that the anchorage was a little tight considering that the wind could come from any direction in a squall, so we had lunch and moved on.
We motored another few miles to the anchorage just south of Tiadup at the eastern end of the Coco Bandero Cays. This area has a collection of four small cays with anchorages dotted around in the channels between them. There’s a family of Kuna Indians living here.
On our first attempt at anchoring, we dragged – it felt like coral rubble. Unfortunately, there was a huge black squall line rapidly approaching from the north, so we didn't have much time to mess about. We moved a bit further north in the anchorage and thankfully the anchor bit straight away. To make sure, I put on my mask & fins and dived down to check the anchor – it was nicely dug into sand and weed. I just made it back to the boat before the squall hit us with torrential rain.
It rained on and off all afternoon accompanied by the inevitable thunder and lightning, so we chilled out reading and playing musical instruments. A local Kuna came by and asked us if we wanted any provisions, Glenys bought some nice tasting mango juice then ordered a pound of cleaned conch and some bread, which Serapio said he’ll bring over tomorrow morning.
20 August 2013 Coco Bandero, San Blas, Panama
We had an unsettled night, which started off with a huge lightning bolt hitting somewhere very close at about midnight, followed by rain and squalls passing through most of the night. There’s a gap in the reef to the north of where we’re anchored, which is letting in a small amount of swell. It’s only about a foot of chop, but is enough to slap against our stern as we swirl around when the squalls pass through – very annoying.
We had a visit from Lisa who is a Master Mola Maker and a transvestite. I've read that transvestites are fairly common in the tolerant Kuna society. Lisa had a reasonable selection of mola panels, but has been branching out to make other items such as handbags, beer coolers and even an iPad case from molas. Glenys was very good and only bought one mola for $25.
We went snorkelling around a small reef to the north of Two Palm Island, which is a tiny little sandy island with (errr) two palm trees. The snorkelling was good in clear water and a steep sided coral reef. However, there aren't many large fish and we didn't spot a single lobster – no doubt over-fished.
In the afternoon, Serapio arrived with the conch and bread. He’d brought us 3 lbs of conch instead of 1 lb and unfortunately, it hadn't been cleaned - only taken out of the shell. It took me well over an hour to clean and skin the six conch that we ended up buying – a real messy job. I don’t mind doing it when I get the conch myself for free, but I'm not too keen when I pay $3/lb. The bread was nice though.
Just before dark, we heard the soft “Ola, Ola” call of a Kuna Indian sat in his dugout canoe at the side of us. After a little confusion, Glenys finally figured out that Roberto lives on Tiadup and wanted us to charge his mobile phone for him. We've been told that Digicel, the local telephone operator, handed out a load of free phones a few years ago, but unfortunately, the Kuna Indians on these remote islands don’t have any electricity and hence no way of charging their phones.
We had Cracked Conch for dinner, which tasted very nice, but I still wonder if it's worth the effort.
21 August 2013 Coco Bandero, San Blas, Panama
We had another restless night because of squalls. It all started at about four o'clock, when I woke up because the motion of the boat had changed. When we went to bed the wind was coming from the north and now it was coming from the south causing the slight swell to slap under our transom. I saw a couple of flashes of lightning, so I dragged myself out of bed put our small chart plotter and satellite phone into the oven, which I believe will act as a Faraday Cage.
Ten minutes later, we heard the heavy pattering of large raindrops on the deck. I ran through a mental check list – hatches closed (yes), spray-hood up (yes), awning side flaps in place (yes), dinghy bung out (no). Damn! If we leave the bung in the dinghy it will fill up with water. I've worked out that every inch of water in the dinghy weighs 35 Kg and if it fills up completely, the water would weigh 400 Kg, which would be a major strain on our davits. I got up and braved the driving rain to remove the bung.
Towelled off and back in bed, I heard the wind increasing, pushing the rain over our spray-hood and down the hatch in our cabin, so I had to close our hatch. Then the flashes of lightning started getting closer with loud rumbles of thunder – it’s not easy to sleep on a boat sometimes.
We survived the night. It was overcast for most of the day with the occasional shower, so we had a day on board. I bought a new hard disk for my laptop when we were in the UK, so I started the process of installing software on it. It’s amazing how many applications I use on a regular basis – I have a list of over 30 applications to install. Of course, after a few hours, I needed to get access to the Internet to download and register some software, so I ground to a halt.
Glenys spent most of the day doing more research into places where we can go when we get through the Panama Canal next month and playing her ukulele.
Besides playing my guitar, I spent a couple of hours painting my calabash cockpit light – I've decided that I'm not an artist. It looks okay, but having re-looked at it this evening, I've decided that I still need to do a little bit more.
22 August 2013 Coco Bandero to Sabudopored, San Blas, Panama
It was a lovely day, so we decided to scoot over to the settlement at Rio Diablo to get some provisions. I did my normal engine check and noticed that there was a small water leak on the bleed screw on the sea water pump. When I tried to tighten it, it was apparent that the threads have stripped in the hole and has the screw has been stuck in place with some kind of sealant - I broke the seal and water came flooding out.
I closed the sea cock and, after a little bit of deliberation, found another screw that was longer and used it to establish that there were still some good threads deeper in the hole. I removed the impellor and cut the screw so that it was long enough to grab the few remaining threads, but not too long that it was sticking into the pump and fouling the impellor. After an hour, we were back in business – phew!
We motored five miles across to Rio Diablo and anchored to the east of Corazon. The town has around 1,000 people crowded onto two small islands connected by a long foot bridge. We tied up our dinghy at a small concrete dock on the far side of the bridge and went for a wander around Nargana which is the largest of the islands.
It only took a couple of minutes for a “guide” to latch onto us and for once I was grateful to have someone to help us with our shopping. The town is a mixture of traditional thatched houses and single storey concrete buildings dotted along hard-packed dirt streets. All of the shops are very small and it’s difficult to differentiate between homes and shops. Fortunately, Onel was able to take us directly to places to buy various things.
The only liquor store is a small, unmarked concrete building, but our guide first had to take us to the owner’s house a few streets away to get him to open up the shop to sell us a couple of cases of beer and some wine in litre boxes. In the other shops, Glenys managed to buy essentials such as bread and vegetables, so we’re okay for another week now.
The Kuna Indians who live in Rio Diablo have decided not to follow the traditional way of life, so the women dress don’t normally dress in their traditional clothing, but today was some kind of holiday and there were plenty of mola outfits in sight. Unfortunately, we missed the main festa put on at the school, but some of the children were still walking around in their little traditional outfits - and didn't they look cute. I was desperate to take some pictures, but restrained myself because I didn't want to appear rude.
Back on the boat, I tried to get access to the Internet having been told that Wi-Fi is available at the school. We haven’t been on-line for two weeks now and I need to pay off our credit cards soon otherwise we’ll get fined and charged interest. I picked up a strong signal, but couldn't connect to the gateway on their router, which was very frustrating.
It was so hot in the anchorage that we soon left and had lunch on our way towards our next anchorage. As we approached Green Island, we could see two boats in the rather tight anchorage, so we back tracked a mile and weaved our way through a few reefs to Sabudopored, where we dropped the anchor in ten metres of water just off a scruffy looking beach.
There were large thunder storms building up over the mainland shore, a couple of miles to the south of us causing the winds to be very light and the humidity to be very high - it was too hot to move, so we read our books in the cockpit and gasped for air for most of the afternoon. We eventually motivated ourselves enough to go and look for somewhere to snorkel, but most of the area is sand and weed with the occasional shallow reef of little interest, so we ended back at the boat and snorkelled around near the beach just to cool off.
23 August 2013 Sabudopored to Coco Bandero, San Blas, Panama
We motored back to Rio Diablo in the hope that the school had rebooted their router and we’d be able to get Internet access – to my great relief, we got a good, but slow connection and I was to pay off our credit cards. I also checked our email and there was nothing of great importance, so we can relax for another few weeks now.
There was no point in hanging around the town anchorage, so we were soon motoring to Green Island. The anchorage is ten metres deep and there’s not a huge amount of room to swing, especially because there were two boats already anchored in the best spots. I put out my usual scope of 5:1 but with 50 metres of chain out, we ended up a little too close to the other boats. There are so many other anchorages around here that there’s no reason to be so close to other boats, so we had lunch and moved on.
There were thunderstorms building up, so we decided to go back to Coco Bandero Cays and anchored in the same spot that we’d left yesterday. We went for a snorkel in the afternoon out at the fringing reef, which was good. Dave and Belinda from “Sea Biscuit” came for a beer – they’re cruising in a trawler-type power boat that they've brought down from the States.
24 August 2013 Coco Bandero, San Blas, Panama
It’s Saturday, so the rich Panamanians came out to play. The normally tranquil anchorage turned into Blackpool as over a dozen big power boats arrived, anchored on the beach and disgorged hordes of people with their floating ice boxes and drinks holders. Loud music poured from speakers as the mostly white Panamanians started to party.
The locals are well used to the routine and there were a group of fishermen camped on Olosicuidup last night ready to paddle out in their dugout canoes to sell fish, lobster and crab to the new arrivals. It was chaos with a constant stream of dugout canoes parading past and ribs driven by rich kids zooming around. To add to the confusion, an official boat was wandering about checking documentation and collecting the Kuna cruising permit fees.
We sat and watched the antics for most of the day and even went ashore onto Tiadup to get a closer look. The Kuna family on Tiadup had set up a stall displaying molas, bead bracelets, carvings, etc., so we had a look while they were set up – Glenys just had to buy another mola.
Dave and Belinda from “Sea Biscuit” invited us over for appetisers of freshly steamed crab and lobster, which went down well with a few beers.
25 August 2013 Coco Bandero, San Blas, Panama
It was a very overcast morning, so we chilled out. Glenys is getting better with the ukulele and we’re starting to learn to play “Meli Kalikimaka” together, although it isn't anywhere performance level yet…
The rest of the day passed quietly. All the power boats left last night to go over to the Hollandaise, so there were only two other boats in the anchorages and it was very peaceful. The only exciting event of the day was catching two nice 1lb lobster when we went snorkelling at the south side of Guariadup , which is a nice bit of reef.
It was cool enough that Glenys even turned on her oven and made Lasagne for dinner.
26 August 2013 Coco Bandero to Esnasdup, San Blas, Panama
We woke to blue skies, so we decided to move on and headed towards the Naguargandup Cays. On the way, we had a look at Esnasdup and liked it so much that we stayed. The anchorage is a 150 metre diameter, 10 metre deep hole surrounded by reef and the island of Esnasdup – it looks lovely.
We had a little bit of trouble anchoring because we kept ending too close to the beach for our liking – it took three goes before we found a place with good holding, which was far enough from the edges of the lagoon. I'm not very fond of these deep, tight anchorages – putting out 50 metres of chain gives us a 100 metre diameter swinging circle, which doesn't leave much room to drag in a 150 metre diameter lagoon.
It was very hot and humid in the afternoon as thunder clouds built up around us and we had a sustained attack by no-see-ums causing us to light a mosquito coil and spray ourselves with deet. I managed to motivate myself enough to service my fishing rod and reel, which was a minor miracle in this heat. Fortunately, it cooled down in the evening, as we got a breeze back.
27 August 2013 Esnasdup to The Swimming Pool, San Blas, Panama
It was a hot airless night and the damn no-see-ums were biting me in the middle of the night, so I had to get up and spray myself with deet.
Just before breakfast, a large squall hit us which made me glad that we’d spent so much time re-anchoring yesterday. At the height of the squall, we spent half an hour with 30 knot winds and the shallow reef only 20 metres behind us – if we started to drag, we’d have been up on the reef within seconds, with no time to do anything about it…
The weather looked to be horribly unsettled and we didn't like the thought of having a squall come through when it was dark, so we waited until the weather cleared a little and scurried across to the Swimming Pool in the Eastern Hollandaise. It was such a relief to anchor in 4 metres of water in the lovely white sand, which gobbles up the anchor. I’ll be able to sleep tonight.
28 August 2013 The Swimming Pool, San Blas, Panama
It was a beautiful sunny day, so we had a play day and went snorkelling both in the morning and the afternoon – the fringing reef to the north-east of BBQ Island is interesting with lots of gullies.
Glenys cleaned the very nice Triton's Horn shell that I picked up while snorkelling a couple of days ago and I spent a couple of hours looking at how to play Bohemian Rhapsody on the guitar. It’s over six minutes long and there are lots of very tricky bits – I reckon that if I start learning it now, I’ll be able to play it by Christmas 2014…
29 August 2013 The Swimming Pool, San Blas, Panama
It was an unsettled night with the occasional thunderstorm passing us by, and the morning brought an overcast day. After breakfast, Glenys went to start the generator and to my horror, the starter motor didn't turn at all. Bloody boats!
After four hours of investigation work, I isolated the problem to a relay, which connects the battery negative to the generator chassis. It’s designed to connect the earth only when the preheat or the starter buttons are pushed – apparently to prevent catalytic corrosion. Anyway, the relay was not operating, so there wasn't any connection between the negative battery lead and the generator chassis. The starter motor and solenoid use the chassis ground, so it didn't operate.
Fortunately, I figured out a work-around, which uses a jumper lead to by-pass the relay. I connected one end of the jumper lead to the generator chassis and the other end to the negative battery lead on the engine starter motor. Once the generator starts, I just removed the jumper lead – simple but effective. I've contacted Panda Fischer to get a quote for a new Earth Connection Relay. I ran the generator and made water for 1½ hours and it was all fine – fingers crossed that it will be okay until I can get the new part.
After dinner, we heard the splashing of fish around the boat, so I grabbed my small spinning rod and managed to catch a couple of nice Horse-eye Jacks – the biggest one (of course) got away with another of my lures.
30 August 2013 The Swimming Pool, San Blas, Panama
It was raining in the morning, so we mooched about. I finally finished painting my calabash cockpit light and, in my humble opinion, it looks okay. The rest of the morning was taken up sorting out the data on my laptop and backing it up prior to swapping over to another hard disk.
It brightened up nicely in the afternoon, so we went snorkelling on a shallow reef to the north-west of Banedup, which was the best bit of reef that we've seen in the San Blas Islands. I spotted a Yellow Stingray, which was a first sighting for me and I finally got a good picture of a Spotfin Butterflyfish. Even better, while I was diving on a fairly deep coral head, I managed to snare a large Spider Crab, which was 5 inches across the carapace. We steamed it when we got back to the boat and it’s very, very tasty.
It’s Friday, so the rich Panamanians arrived in their powerboats. One anchored really close to us and despite our glares, refused to move – we’re obviously in the wrong place. Fortunately, they all left as the sun went down to go and anchor off Ogoppiriadup for the night. Don’t you just love the names of these islands.
We were invited over to “Gris Gris”, where Tom & Julie treated us to Conch Salad, which is raw conch marinaded in lime juice with onions, peppers, etc - delicious.
31 August 2013 The Swimming Pool, San Blas, Panama
It was a lovely blue-sky day, so we upped anchor early and motored across to Rio Diablo to buy some provisions. We managed to avoid any “guides” for twenty minutes and had a quick walk around the two small islands, but there’s not a lot to see.
We started our provisioning by going to the liquor store, which again was closed. Fortunately, we soon found the house where the shop-owner lives and got him to open up for us. At this point, we picked up a “guide”, Pablo, who insisted on carrying some of our cases of beer. As we walked around, we discovered that he has nine children all of school age – I wonder what they’re all going to do when they grow up.
There are only a few small stores in Nargana, but we managed to stock up on vegetables, flour and even found a frozen chicken. On the way back to the dinghy, we passed a small bar/restaurant which was cooking some rotisserie chickens – they were irresistible, so we bought one for $12. We gave our guide a small tip and a couple of carrier bags full of beer cans, which he willingly took because the Kuna recycle the aluminium.
By midday, the clouds had started to build up, so we had a quick lunch and motored around to Sabudopored. Our anchor dragged on the first attempt, but on the second try it held well. I snorkelled down and found that the anchor was buried in hard packed sand in ten metres of water, but Alba was actually sitting above a small isolated reef about six metres deep. I guess that on our first anchoring attempt we dropped onto the reef. As I snorkelled around, I was lucky enough to pick up a conch which is a rare thing around here.
Late in the afternoon, a huge thunderstorm passed to the south of us along the mainland shore causing the wind to reverse blowing us towards the shallower water by the beach. As the sun went down, I spent an hour worrying and watching the weather while eyeing up a sunken tree about 15 metres behind us, wondering just how shallow it was…