7 October 2013 Las Brisas, Panama
We took a taxi to the Cinco de Mayo area of Panama City and walked the length of the pedestrian shopping street. There are lots of Chinese stores selling electronics, household goods, clothes, etc., which is very reminiscent of Port of Spain in Trinidad. Our main focus was a shop called “Pico Pico”, which is a fabulous fabric shop with two floors packed with bolts of cloth. Glenys bought various colours of cotton fabric so that she can make things with the ten molas that she acquired in the San Blas islands. We also bought some grey sunbrella and Velcro for various projects on the boat.
Having walked the full length of Avenide Central to a park with a bandstand and church, we returned to Avenide Balboa and went down to the Municipal Market. This long building is split into sections – dry goods, vegetables & meat. The dry goods area had a reasonable selection of spices and the vegetable section is very good. However, the meat market has plenty of strange cuts of meat and the floor was incredibly greasy – not the cleanest place that I've been to.
We continued walking down Avenide Balboa to the fish market hoping to buy some shrimp and have lunch there, which we've heard is fantastic. Just our luck, the whole market was closed for fumigation, so we jumped into a cab and headed over to Transistmica area of town.
Our taxi driver was a maniac, swerving from lane to lane and trying to beat the traffic. As we approached the posh banking area of town, we got stuck in a traffic jam and he decided to take a side road, which was also jammed solid. He then decided to overtake a long line of stationary traffic and shot down the wrong side of the narrow, single lane street. Unfortunately, a lady in a nice, shiny car decided to do a u-turn and we ploughed into her front wing.
There was lots of shouting and screaming in rapid Spanish while they both blamed each other. We sat there for a couple of minutes watching the spectacle, then climbed out, paid the guy $3 and walked up the road going faster than the grid locked traffic. The taxi driver had given us some vague directions, but we made a few wrong turns and ended up walking for 45 minutes until we found the Transistmica area.
We had lunch in a small local restaurant, which had good wholesome food. We had a big bowl of soup followed by pork with rice & plantains for only $3.50. After lunch, we wandered around the various stores here – Abernathys (a big chandlers), two hardware stores and Riba Smith, which is an upmarket supermarket that all the Americans rave about. We’d been told that you can get all sorts of hard-to-find items there, but they didn't have mint sauce or Heinz salad cream, which Glenys is craving.
It was easy to pick up a taxi outside the supermarket and we were soon back on the boat, having survived the Las Brisas dinghy dock.
8 October 2013 Las Brisas, Panama
I checked into the morning net on VHF Channel 81 at eight o‘clock. In the “Treasures Of The Bilge” section, I asked if anyone had a short length of 1¼“ stainless steel tube because we have a slight leak on a joint in the sea water intake hose on the engine. John on “Second Star” does some welding work and told me that I could buy it from a place in Panama City, but I couldn’t be bothered – I’ll wait until we get to Ecuador.
We had a pottering about day, tidying up ready to sail to Las Perlas tomorrow. I managed to get my phone to work as a modem for my laptop, so I’m now able to receive emails and access the internet as long as I have a phone connection – I’m a very happy bunny. After getting some petrol from the marina, I tidied up the deck and put the dinghy up on the davits with springs to stop it moving around while we’re (hopefully) sailing tomorrow.
In the afternoon, I swapped the battery chargers around, so that our main battery charger is wired in again. I ran the water maker for an hour to test it all and it looks good.
We invited Paul & Judy from “Grace” for sunset drinks. They are heading to Las Perlas in a couple of days and planning to go onto the Darien rivers, so we’re planning to go with them possibly with some other boats that are already in Las Perlas.
9 October 2013 Las Brisas, Panama
I woke up at three o’clock in the morning with my subconscious mind telling me that I need to sort out the leak on our sea water intake pipe. The existing bit of stainless steel tube is badly corroded and if it fails completely, we’d effectively have a 1¼“ hole in the bottom of the boat – mucho agua coming into the bilges!
On the morning net, I found that the stainless steel supplier is at the other side of town and I couldn't get a firm address out of anyone, so it would be an expensive trip in a taxi wandering around trying to find the place. I decided to have a look at the bits and pieces of spares that I keep on-board and found a perfect piece of 34mm diameter PVC tube that has a really thick 5mm wall and fitted tightly into the hose. I reckon that this is a better solution than using stainless steel again – the PVC won’t corrode and the inlet pipe doesn't get hot at all. An hour later, I had it fitted – another job off the list.
It was around ten o’clock by the time that I’d finished and the weather was horrible with low clouds and rain, so we decided to stay here for another day. It’s forty miles to Las Perlas and we’d rather leave early in the morning.
I had a go at fixing our media player, which is not reading one of our 2TB hard disk drives and refuses to output a video signal through the HDMI connector. Despite taking it all to bits and cleaning it with alcohol and WD40, it still refuses to play ball. I even defragmented the hard disk drive to no avail. I guess that I’ll have to buy another one – they only cost a $100, but how do I get my hands on one now?
Glenys found a leak in the toilet – the holding tank was half full and the contents were leaking out and flowing down behind the toilet. After ten minutes of investigation, I think that there is a leaking weld in the stainless steel tank. The stinking effluent has been dribbling down the tank down a pipe into the locker behind the heads. There’s nothing I can do about it until we get to Ecuador, so I emptied and flushed out the holding tank and put it out of commission. Glenys then took on the lovely job of cleaning up the mess.
While Glenys was cleaning the front heads, she found that the front heads shower pump wasn't draining the shower tray, so I had to look at that. I found that the pump works quite well but it wasn't priming properly. I got it working, but I’ll have to keep an eye on it.
In the evening, we watched the James Bond film “Quantum of Solace” which was filmed in Colon - the action-packed boat chase was actually filmed in Shelter Bay Marina.
10 October 2013 Las Brisas to Isla Chapera, Panama
We were up at the crack of dawn and pottered about getting ready to sail to Las Perlas. When we pulled up the anchor chain, the last ten metres and the anchor was covered in thick black mud, which took ten minutes to wash off with our sea water deck pump, so didn't actually leave until ten to seven.
The wind was very light and from behind us, but the sea was very calm, so I dragged out our asymmetrical spinnaker. The wind was very variable and kept veering around, so I had to keep adjusting the spinnaker, which kept collapsing. After gybing it once, I had a flash of inspiration and set the sails up with the main out to port and the spinnaker out to starboard. It worked very well even without a spinnaker pole.
We had a good day’s fishing, although I lost two lures which were attached to my bird train – 60lb wire snapped straight off. I changed the line on the lure to 120lb mono filament and landed two Dorado (one 8lb and a smaller 4lb). Both fish were hooked on a squid towed behind the bird train - they ignored the surface lure on my fishing rod. There are certainly more fish in the Pacific than in the Caribbean – we actually saw a Dorado in the water streaking towards us, which we’ve never seen before.
As we sailed past the northern islands of Las Perlas, a cheeky Pelican kept trying to hitch a ride. It tried several times to land on the foredeck, but kept mistiming it and landing in the water. It was finally successful at landing on our solar panels, a nice, flat, 5ft * 5ft platform. I had to use a boat hook to “persuade” it to go away. We've had small birds land on deck before, but never a bloody huge pelican.
The wind picked up as we sailed down the eastern side of the islands, so we dropped the spinnaker and sailed on a nice reach up to the approach to the anchorage. We anchored off a beach on Isla Chapera near one other boat called “Armagh”. It’s a pleasant anchorage in a channel between two islands and the holding is very good in the sandy bottom. It’s sheltered from winds from the west, but exposed to winds from the east.
“Grace” arrived a couple of hours after us and we all ended up on “Armagh” having drinks with Steve & Patti. They’ve been cruising with “Grace” since they left the Sea of Cortez in Mexico six months ago.
11 October 2013 Isla Chapera to Isla Espiritu Santo, Panama
It was a bouncy night with winds coming in from the south-east. We were hoping that the wind would change, but it just got stronger. By half past ten, we had 2 to 3 foot waves pushing us towards the beach and some nasty looking black clouds upwind. It was time to go.
I had a look at the chart and decided that the nearest well-protected anchorage was Isla Espiritu Santo about 15 miles away. Unfortunately, it was directly upwind, but we had to get out. It took us ten minutes to tidy up and tell “Grace” and “Armagh” that we were leaving. I got drenched as I stood on the fore deck pulling up the anchor because the waves were now causing us to pitch heavily. Glenys made sure that she used plenty of engine power as we motored away from the nasty looking waves pounding the lee-shore.
We were now motoring directly into a 20 knot wind from the south-east. The big waves were stopping us as we crashed into them, reducing our forward speed to three knots, so we put up our sails and headed into deeper water on starboard tack. It’s amazing how much better the motion and speed is when we sail - we were soon doing six knots under sail (albeit in the wrong direction.)
The weather system hit us with driving rain, so we hunkered down and continued heading out to sea. Fifteen minutes later, the wind started to veer, so we tacked and headed more easterly towards Espiritu Santo. For the next three hours, we had lots of rain and the wind gradually died down as the weather system went over us – so we ended up motoring most of the way.
I saw a large number of Boobies diving into the water, so I put out a lure on my fishing rod. Fifteen minutes later, the reel screamed and I had a great battle for ten minutes to land a 20lb Horse Eye Jack. Glenys rustled up Fish Tortillas for lunch using some of the Dorado that we caught yesterday.
The weather was calm when we entered the anchorage at Isla Espiritu Santo. It’s a lovely place in a channel between two islands and very well protected from all directions – just what we wanted after our earlier adventures. We anchored in eight metres on a sandy bottom with very good holding.
Once settled, Glenys tidied up after our drenching while I started working on the huge Jack that I’d caught. Unfortunately, when I cut it open and started to fillet it, I found that the flesh was very, very red and laced with thick white fibres. It didn't look good to me, and I’m paranoid about ciguatera, so regrettably I decided that we shouldn't eat it. Instead, I had a fun five minutes feeding pieces to a couple of Pelicans and a Frigate Bird.
“Grace” and “Armagh” arrived half an hour after us and we invited them over for evening drinks.
12 October 2013 Isla Espiritu Santo, Panama
What a lovely peaceful night. This is a fabulous anchorage. In the morning, Chris from “Grace” spotted some whales feeding at the entrance to the anchorage, so we jumped into the dinghy to go and have a look. We found them slowly surfacing and swimming along at the other side of Isla Espiritu Santo. I think that it was a couple of big Humpback Whales, but couldn't be sure. I took loads of photos of dark blurry humps in the water from 50 metres away – they were so bad that I deleted the lot.
While we were out we had a motor around looking for a place to snorkel, but the visibility underwater is only about 6 feet and the bottom appeared to be just rock. However, it was a pleasant enough dinghy ride and we circumnavigating the small island - there are some stunning beaches on the sea-ward side of Isla Espiritu Santo.
In the afternoon, we worked out an itinerary for going across to the Darien region. It’s forty miles away and the tides seem to be right for us to arrive there tomorrow afternoon. Many of the rivers have shallow bars and shoaling areas, so we want to make sure that we are moving up rivers when the tide is rising. If we go aground, then the rising, four metre tide will soon lift us off. Low tide is at 1640 tomorrow, but the Rio Cucunati, where we want to go first, looks wide and at least 5 metres deep at low tide. Our plan is to leave at dawn and hopefully we’ll be at anchor late afternoon.
Andrew and Ann on “Windsong” (a couple of Brits) arrived in the anchorage and we met them on “Grace” for happy hour. They’ve been cruising in company with “Grace” for three years and are also going out to the Darien region tomorrow with “Grace”. We won’t be going to the same places as them, but will no doubt bump into them along the way somewhere. They have a small net that runs on the SSB radio at six o’clock every evening, so we should be able to keep in touch - if I can remember to turn my radio on at the correct time.
For the past four months, I've been putting up with a very painful little lump on the bottom joint of one of my fingers. It’s about the size of a grain of barley and seems to be attached to one of the tendons in my finger. When I was in the UK, I asked the doctor about it and he shrugged it off saying that it was just a little cyst and will go away. Well, the bloody little thing was getting more and more painful.
I’d heard about things called “Bible Bumps”, which are so called because they can be removed by hitting them with a bible. The weight of the bible apparently squishes the little lump. Having drunk a few beers and a couple of glasses of wine, I was feeling particularly brave this evening and decided to have a go at squishing my damn lump. Hitting it with a heavy book didn't seem very practical, so I took a big breath and squeezed it very, very hard with my fingers. It hurt like hell for about three seconds and then with a very satisfying “Phuttt!” it disappeared – magic!
13 October 2013 Isla Espiritu Santo to Rio Cucunati, Panama
We left at dawn. The sea was very calm with no wind, but our course set us heading directly into a very dark weather system. I put up the main with one reef and we motor sailed at five knots. We spotted a few slowly swimming whales a few miles from the anchorage – Humpback Whales again I guess.
This is a very productive area for fishing. By half past seven, I’d caught a nice little Tuna and a Dorado. Interestingly, both fish hit the blue & pink surface lure on my rod whereas the two Dorado that I caught the other day hit a squid lure towed behind the birds, perhaps it’s because it’s overcast today. An hour later, I caught another Tuna on my rod and discovered that the squid lure behind the birds had been snapped off again – this time with 120lb monofilament line. That’s three lures lost - I’m going to stop putting a lure on the birds until I get some strong, 200lb stainless steel wire.
We've started to pour rum into the gills of the fish, which seems to be a much cleaner way of killing fish than bashing them on the head. Both of the tuna died quietly and cleanly, but I’d gaffed the Dorado in its stomach and it caused total mayhem on the aft deck by flailing around, scattering blood and gore everywhere – it took me ages to clean it all up.
A small weather system passed over us mid-morning giving us heavy rain, but no wind – at least we had a nice refreshing shower stood on the aft deck. Just after lunch, as we approached the Golfo de San Miguel, we started to get some wind, so we gratefully turned off the engine and let out the sails. We arrived close to Isla Iguana at around two o’clock, which was a little too early to start going up the Rio Cucunati because of the tides, so we sailed over to Isla Iguana to have a look at the anchorage – it looks okay, but is very exposed to north winds.
We headed back towards the Rio Cucunati and were able to sail all the way into the river entrance before we lost the wind and had to turn the engine on again. By half past four (at low tide), we were pottering about looking for somewhere to anchor. The water depth at the first bend of the river is very deep at 10 to 20 metres and shallows very rapidly, so we gave up trying to anchor there. As we continued up the river, the depths levelled out at 5-6 metres and we were able to anchor comfortably in 4.5 metres, albeit a long way from the shore.
As we came up the river, we were invaded by hundreds of 1cm long, green flying insects with freaky red eyes, which settled down on any surface on the boat (and us). We immediately closed all the hatches and put up the mosquito screen in the companionway. As soon as we anchored, Glenys brought out the mosquito net for the cockpit and we went into full jungle mode. We had a nice peaceful evening.
