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April 2006 |
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28 April - Portobelo & Isla Linton
11 April - Through the Panama Canal
08 April - Now in Panama
28 April - Portobelo & Isla Linton
The day we arrived back to Portobelo was the day of the Black Christ. Each year they bring out the statue of the Black Christ which is said to have arrived mysteriously in a black box from the ocean. Not knowing what to do with it the people of Portobelo sent it back into the ocean, not long after this a fatal plague hit the town killing many. Strangely the Christ then reappeared and with it a miracle, the plague disappeared. The people decided to keep the Christ to represent their faith and here it stands to this day.
Click here to see pictures of the parade of the Black Christ and other pictures of Portobelo.
Since coming back to Portobelo, we have ordered a new toilet for the boat (as ours is a bit horrid!) and have checked out the rest of the forts and the history of the place. The history is very interesting and filled with treasure and pirates. Click here if you are interested in finding out more about Portobelos history.
Stuart and I took another trip to Panama City to get our HAM radio opened up so we can now communicate on the SSB channels. This is very helpful as most of the cruising nets operate on SSB. This means that you can sign in with the others cruisers when you are underway so if anything bad happens you always have some form of communication.
We moved on from Portobelo to Isla Linton, only 8 miles down the road and spent a few days here. There really isn't much at all in town here, although we did find a bar. It was generally empty and you were served by a very helpful barman of about 5 years old! Fantastic prices, 4 beers for $1.35 and 4 meals of fresh fish, salad and plantains came to a grand total of $8
Click here to see the pictures of Isla Linton and Isla Grande
We took Jack and Suzie's dingy over to Isla Grande which is full of resorts for local Panamanians. This is a very nice place mainly just small hotels and bars. The town opposite back on the mainland did offer a small Chinese Supermarket but again not too much to do here.
Jack and Suzie left us in Isla Linton as they need to get back to the US fairly soon, they have to be all safely hauled out in Cartagena before they leave. It was very sad to see them go and it feels a little lonely without them. We did feel very sorry for them though, as the day they chose to go it decided to tip down with rain all day and all night. We have never seen so much rain and at some points it was difficult to see the end of your own boat through the rain! Managed to fill all the tanks and get a load of washing done though and we could have had a nice cold bath in the dingy if we wished as that was full to the brim with water too!
After Jack and Suzie left we headed back to Portobelo for a bit more life, and here we will wait until our new toilet turns up. This is due on 4th May, as soon as we have that we plan to hit the San Blas. I get the impression that we won't be seeing any internet for a while, so it may be a while before the site gets updated again and if we don't answer you emails this is why!
11 April - Through the Panama Canal
We set out for the Colon Yacht Club on Sunday morning and met up with Richard and 'Owl Hoot', the captain and the boat we would be crewing on. After the boys put the dingy on board and picked up some provisions (also taking a sneaky pitcher of beer in the Yacht Club bar!) We took the boat over to anchor in the Flats to await our advisor who would be taking us through the first set of 3 locks. We were told to be in place by 3.30pm, where we waited and waited and our advisor eventually turned up at around 9.00pm! It looks as though Panama lives in the same manana time zone as Central America!
From here we went and moored up outside the locks to wait for the big ships to go in so we could pop in after. There was only one other sail boat going through with us, we both went into the first lock together and we tied up to a large tug boat then the French sail boat tied up to us, no problems occurred and we were soon tied up safe and sound. Although we realised after we have finally secured the French boat to ours that the lock had already emptied of water! They don't give you much time, as soon as the last boat is in the lock, the doors close and it begins to fill up weather you are ready or not! This wasn't a problem though as we weren't tying up in the centre we have 2 people to help with each line, then there was the captain and the advisor so there were lots of ready hands to help if necessary.
We continued through the next 2 locks with the French boat still tied to us, in each lock we had to retie, then untie from the tug boat and all went smoothly. They used to keep the sail boats attached to the tug going from lock to lock until one sail boat going completely crushed! The worst point for us was in the last lock. We had a huge cargo boat in front of us through all the locks but in the final one he was much closer to us and started his engine at a greater speed. His propeller wash was so great it sent us banging together like crazy, we had a nasty sounding bash against the tug, which upon later inspection, luckily, hadn't caused any damage. By this point I think we were all glad that that was the last of the locks and we could all eventually go to sleep after mooring up in Lake Gatun at 1.30am.
The next morning we got up early to wait for the advisor that would take us through the canal and eventually through the last 3 locks on the other side. In true manana time we were told he would be there between 6 and 7, he turned up at 10 as we were just giving up hope and tucking into breakfast. Mind you at least we weren't as bad off as the French boat who our advisor told us would not be getting an advisor today as they couldn't find one! When we asked if they knew he just shrugged his shoulders and said "Don't think so". Poor guys probably had to spend another night on the lake (with no beer left!)
The first part of the day was the 30 mile motor through the canal to reach the final 3 locks. Not much to be done in this time apart from not bashing into the huge ships coming in the opposite direction. Our advisor for this day didn't seem quite as competent as our first one and when we came into the next set of locks was giving us such conflicting advise that we didn't know if we were coming or going. First of all he told us we would be going to the centre of the lock on our own, next he told us we would be tying up to a ferry on the right, finally we ended up tying onto a motor boat on the left!
Apart from me fluffing up my lines a bit on the first lock and another bit of a bash with the ferry we tied onto in the second lock, we came out of the canal relatively unscathed! Richard moored up to a buoy in the Balboa Yacht club and after giving us a load of charts that he had no use for anymore we set off into Panama City to find a hotel for the night. Wow, hotel for the night what a luxury! The first real shower in months, with cable TV and free internet for only $27 for the night (Montreal Hotel on Via Espania). I think I would have been happy staying in the room the whole time! The next day we spent around Panama City buying bits that we so far haven't had. We actually brought a cool box, so now can have cold beers on the boat (not sure that's such a good idea for us!)
Oh yes and mustn't forget that Jack and Stuart almost got put in prison for the night for drinking beer in the park! The police said they could go to jail for the night and pay a $50 fine or could just cough up $20 there and then and they would forget about it!! Sounds like a bit of a scam to me, so Stuart and Jack ended up $20 lighter vowing never to drink in a park again! (Definitely not in Panama City, thats for sure!)
8 April - Now in Panama
We left Providencia on 1st April, signing out was very easy and the cost was confirmed when sailing Vessel 'Double Nickel' left a day before us. All the paperwork was handled by the 'Bush Agency' so was all very simple although when we asked on signing in what the fee was, we were told not to worry you pay at the end and no price was given. There have been instances here in the past where he was charging up to $100 to leave (depending on how rich you look!) He tried to charge 'Double Nickel' $40 although they had been informed by the Port Captain that the only fee for the harbour was $1 per boat for the upkeep of the channel buoys and that Mr Bush was only allowed to charge a fee of $30. Anyhow after trying to get more money than was required from these guys they took it to the Port Captain where Mr Bush got a sound ticking off!
Upon leaving they made a number of announcements on the VHF to all the other boaters "On Mr Bushes request I would like to inform all boaters that the leaving charge is only $30". I don't think Mr Bush was a happy bunny but when we signed out we just handed him 60 000 pesos, which at the exchange rate of 2400 pesos to the dollar we managed to get away with paying him only $25 to which he didn't bat an eyelid! Mind you we did get money out from him when we first got here and he gave us only 2000 pesos to the $ and charged us a huge fee, so it made us feel a little better to get one over on him! Having said that he was a very nice man!
We brought a funny little dog harness for the cat which he wasn't too thrilled about and spent the first 2 days acting as though we have chopped his legs off. He dragged himself all round the boat on his belly and head refusing to use his legs at all! By the time we set off he was used to it and back to normal again. This helped us greatly to keep him under control whilst we were underway.
It was a 250 mile journey from Providencia to Portobelo (Panama) they swell was coming from a different direction and was a fair size. I had my first full night of seasickness which wasn't too funny. We were out for 2½ days 2 nights. I was feeling much better by the final day as the swell had dropped a lot. Unluckily it wasn't long enough for me to lose any weight!
We did have some fishing luck this time though and managed to land a Dolphin fish, a really pretty fish, bright blue and yellow with a crazy huge forehead. It was just big enough for 2 meals for 2. Stuart had to do all the gutting as I was certainly not up to it this time then we put it on ice and ate it when we got into Portobelo.
It is very pretty here in the anchorage and we never expected there to be quite so many boats. There are around 50 here at the moment, it reminds me a little of the Rio Dulce, lots of jungle scenery and in the mornings and evenings you can hear the Howler monkeys shouting out and all the birds and jungle noises occurring. It seems that things are just getting cheaper and cheaper as we move along. You can get a beer in the super market here for 50c and the bars aren't that much more. Its quite nice as the currency here is dollars so you don't have to mess about with the exchange rate stuff so much.
The who place is very historic, the harbour is surrounded by 4 or five forts to protect the town. They used to keep all the Spanish gold here at one point so was a huge target for Pirates. Drake is said to be buried here just outside the harbour in a lead coffin.
We have taken a couple of trips into Colon since we have been here, it is said to be one of the most dangerous city's going so we have made sure we get taxis everywhere as soon as we get off the bus, so far with out incident. It is strange as everyone we met there was so nice and friendly, the taxis don't try to rip you off and they don't hassle you to go other places with them.
We hired an agent from the Colon Yacht club to help us with immigration and the boat papers for the fee of $20. We are very glad we did as there is no way we would have found all those different places on our own. There was so much paperwork to go through with so many different people, visas to get, Port Captains etc etc. We got that all done and dusted in 3 hours having to pay another $22 per person for the visa and $69 for the sailing permit.
We went back to the Yacht Club and signed up to do some line handling through the Panama Canal. We went back in yesterday and Me, Stuart, Jack and Suzie have all got a spot together on a single hander's (Richard) boat and we head for the Canal this Sunday. It should be a good experience.
We took a cab into the Zona Libra, this is a safe part of the city open only to distributors and foreigners. It is the second biggest duty free zone in the world after Hong Kong, but as with a lot of duty free places it actually appears that prices where more expensive!! Its mainly whole sale stuff and if you do buy bulk you have to pay a $50 exit fee to get it out of the Zone. We managed to get a couple of little bits and smuggled them out without being caught but nothing much.