Your own island!

The so dreaded crossing from Bonaire to Panama was actually very nice and uneventful. The weather can get very rough specially entering the Colombian Basin and approaching the continental shelf near San Blas. We were ready for the rough, but that never came. When approaching the continental shelf, the wind died down and we had to use the engine for the last 24hrs of the journey. We were quite bored when we arrived in San Blas... After 5 days at sea we were rewarded with one of the most wonderful scenery that we seen during this trip. San Blas  has hundreds of islands, some uninhabited, surrounded by low lying reefs, others with small Indian settlements. 

We anchored at Porvenir, which is the main island with customs, immigration and the "airport". Very quickly we had Kuna Indians approaching the boat selling molas and asking for magazines. The whole "Comarca" belong to the Kunas, one of the strongest nations among indigenous Americans. They survived violent inroads from outsiders and today they have developed a sociopolitical system equal to any of developed western  countries, yet they still live a simple life. The airport, has a runway the size of the whole island and a hut which is the boarding lounge. The airplanes that land here are really small, taking maximum of 20 passengers.  Here is were we met Herbert the following day,  he will be joining us until New Zealand. The next 5 days we spent exploring several of the islands. Chichime Cays has an intricate entrance from the south side, as all of the islands are surrounded by  reefs. But we only found this out when we were safely anchored, after  eye balling through the reefs and getting so shallow that got our hearts  beating fast. Then we went to the island of Waisaladup, with one  Indian settlement of 4 huts on the eastern side of the island. The snorkeling is fabulous, with lots of rays, some as long as 1 metres and dolphins swimming near the shore. The last island was Mamitupu. Judit got talking with Antonio, one of the Kunas, who invited all of us to visit his "hut" . We all jumped into his ula( a Kuna canoe carved from tree) and he took us to introduce his family. Wife, children and grandchildren were living all together ( making a total of around 15 people). The main hut was their living room and kitchen and they had separate huts for sleeping. The children, pride and joy of the family, got very exited with new visitors. They followed us around the village, showing their parrot and monkey pets and delighted to pose for pics. The Kunas view each new arrival as a financial Godsend, so we ended up buying far more molas  and plantains that we wanted!!! Nevertheless they are very curious about visitors and happy to show their way of life.

Party at Gatun Lake, on sailing boat Nadezhda. Happy Birthday, G!!!Left to right: Bolivar, the Panamanian fun loving line handler, G, Felicity and Pete. 

Colon

After a 40 miles sail we stopped at Isla Grande for a night only. As our water tanks were really low, we were rushing to get to Colon, also more boat repairs waited for us!! Colon in commonly know amongst yachties as the urban jungle. The town is notorious by the high criminal rate and daylight mugging mostly done by armed children! The only safe place for gringos is the yacht club. That is where all the yachties get together and swap information about paperwork for the transit. There is a real friendly community atmosphere where everybody helps each other. As Judit speaks Spanish we opted to sort the paperwork for the canal ourselves without a help of an agent. At the beginning it looked very complicated as different people from the yacht club said different things, but again with the help of our fellow yachties we got pointed in the right direction. It turned out to be very straight forward. Two days after our arrival we got the admeasure on board. Our was Antonio, he was  most helpful and friendly, he explained the procedure, measured the boat and told us about the transit. 

Then we had our troubles to sort out concerning the engine. Apart from the engine cutting out  from time to time, it was also loosing revs and now it was barely making 5 knots at full power. It took us a while to figure it out that the lift pump has  broken, but it was even more difficult to find out why we were loosing power. It turned out to be as simple as a dirty hull. Then we were ready to pay the transit fees and get a date. The waiting time for yachts increased to 2 weeks since we arrived, not impressed. Graham and Herbert volunteered to be line handlers for "Frajola" to get first hand knowledge about the transit. The next day Graham and Judit, volunteered to help another boat, "Nadezhda" this boat belongs to Peter and Felicity, we first met them in Canaries over 5 months ago. It was great fun the whole crossing and as we anchored in Gatun Lake the party for Graham's birthday started.  

Herbert decided to help Aron by being one of his line handlers. Aron's boat is only 19 foot long, so 5 crew and an advisor is quite a tight fit. All the yachties at the anchorage  were so happy when finally Aron left... After 3 weeks of waiting, being canceled a day before the transit, all the engine problems, including an engine breakdown in Gatun Lake, against all the odds finally Carina made it into the Pacific. Well done and good luck to Aron.

The Transit

20th April

George, our adviser arrived at 18pm. By then the anchor was up and we were ready  for the last hour. Instead of 4 we had 5 line handlers. Apart from Bolivar, me, Herbert and John, we had Zane who wanted to experience the transit before going back to New Zealand. He sold his boat in Colon and now was heading home. We were rafted next to a catamaran and another monohull on the other side. We all locked up before entering the chamber. The two outside boats got lines that hold the pack in the centre of the chamber. When we heard the bell the massive walls shut and water started to fill up from the bottom. It looked like the water was boiling. We had a bit of turbulence, but not much of a concern. The water level went up 8 metres in each of the 3 chambers of Gatun Lock. Once we got to the Gatun Lake we separated from the catamaran .George made sure we got to the buoy as quick as possible so he could finally go home. That night we all crashed early after dinner. 

Nomad Life entering the Miraflores Lock

Rafting next to Islamorada-a tourist boat-in Miraflores.

 Meet the crew: Top left to bottom right:

John, G, Zane, Felipe, Ju, Herby, Bolivar

The wake up call in the following morning was the amazing noise from the howling monkeys. As one monkey started the whole forest came alive with their  noise. John was a brave man and had a swim on waters known  to be full of alligators. Later we found out that they are becoming rare around the canal due to the intense boat traffic. Time for a quick coffee and Felipe boarded, he was our adviser for the second day. He took us through the Banana Cut, and that was a taste of the jungle. The Smithsonian Institute has a research centre there to study the "jungle life". Bolivar and G got the bucket out and had a shower (not together) as it was getting hotter by the hour, also no wind. Even on those hot conditions , Herbert adventured down to the kitchen and knocked up a pasta salad and sausages for lunch. In the meantime Felipe was amusing us with his personal stories and also giving lots of information about the Canal. We arrived at the last 3 locks just before midday. We asked Felipe if he could ring the guys who look after the web cam for Panama canal web site and focus the web cam on us. After all we had Brazil and England watching the transit on web! At Miraflores we rafted next to Islamorada, a tourist boat full of yanks. They come usually with cruise liners and jump in a boat to experience the last lock. Many of the tourists couldn't believe that we were sailing to New Zealand on such a "small" boat. In front of us was another tourist boat, with a band on board. We didn't hear about the band until we reached the last lock, when the guys spotted the Brasilian flag on our mast the carnival started. At that time the doors were opening and the Pacific slowly came to view, Zane and Herbert popped the bottles of champagne. It was amazing!!!!