Panama – Adagio’s Voyage

Preparing for Ecuador

We’re back in Panama City, but our time in Panama is coming to a close. Our next port will be Puerto Lucia, Ecuador! The passage will be approximately 725 nautical miles (as the crow files), but all will depend on the wind and our actual course. Our guess right now is that the passage will take us 7-10 days, which will definitely be our longest non-stop passage so far.

The passage from Panama to Ecuador is not exactly an easy one. The prevailing winds pretty much the entire year are from the south-southwest. That is the exact direction we need to go. You can’t sail directly into the wind, and we do not carry enough fuel to motor the entire way to Ecuador! So, we need a plan.

We’ve been studying the pilot charts and reading up on Jimmy Cornell’s advice for taking this route. The pilot charts tell us the historical winds and currents for this time of year. On average, we should bet on SSW winds about 15 kts. At least the predicted calms are virtually zero, and there are no real weather patterns, just random squalls. Of course, as another boat recently said to us, “with climate change, can you really rely on that historical data?” Hmpf!

Here’s an example of a pilot chart from one of Jimmy Cornell’s books…

Right now our plan is going to be to depart Panama City and head over to Taboga Island, which is less than 10 miles away. We want to fill our water tanks before we depart (which is easier to do at anchor than underway). The anchorage here in Panama City is pretty dirty. Yesterday there was a ton of fuel that someone dumped just floating in the anchorage (pretty horrible). That kind of thing with ruin the membrane on our water maker. So, we’re going to head out to the island to fill up on water first.

From Taboga, we are going to head west toward Vista Mar to fill up on fuel. It is really the last place we can fuel up on our way out of Panama. We only carry 70 gallons of diesel (which won’t get us even half way to Ecuador), so we are going to have to use the motor judiciously on our passage. From Vista Mar we will head south to Punta Mala. When we rounded Punta Mala on our way into Panama, we had an adverse current. So, we are hoping this time we’ll get a favorable one.

After rounding Punta Mala, we plan to head west toward Isla Coiba. We want to head as far west as we can to get a better attack angle when we turn southeast toward Ecuador. After we make the turn, it will be all about following the wind. If the wind angle isn’t favorable, we’ll just have to tack back and forth and try and make as much southward progress as possible. It will definitely add some length to our trip.

In addition to planning our route, we have some other tasks to accomplish here. We will have to check out of Panama with the officials and get our zarpe. We also have to send our agent in Ecuador lots of documentation. Ecuador requires you to have an agent to enter the country by boat. And, it is not cheap! We’ve also been told by our agent that since we visited Panama, we have to have a certificate of yellow fever vaccination (which we don’t have). So, while in Panama City, we have got to find a way to get that vaccine.

This morning we already accomplished another important task which was to inspect and adjust our standing rigging. We made some adjustments back in January in La Cruz (Mexico), but we have come a lot of miles since then. We noticed that the forestay looked a little loose, so we dropped the jib and worked on getting it in better condition. We also took a look at our halyard to make sure there wasn’t any chaffing. It’s always good to have more confidence that the rig is going to hold up on a long passage.

Also on my “to do” list is to make sure we’ve got plenty of food aboard. Since we don’t know the exact length of the passage, we’re making a couple of provision runs to make sure we’re stocked up. We also don’t want to just eat cereal and sandwiches for 10 days, so we are making lots of meal preparations. We don’t know if we are going to have calm or rough sea conditions, and we want easy to prepare meals.

If it’s possible, we like to at least have a hot dinner. The best way to do that in most sea conditions is to make one-pot meals that have been cooked ahead of time and stored in the fridge or frozen so that they can be easily heated up underway. I have a pressure cooker with a locking lid and a gimbled stove, so we can make sure that a pot of something does not get dumped all over the interior of the boat while trying to make dinner!

So, I’m working on making batches of chili, pasta, chicken curry and taco meat that are all cooked ahead of time and can be easily frozen and reheated for several meals each. Everything will be in individual zip-lock bags. It is a lot of work (and cooking) to make a week’s worth of dinners!

There are a few other menial tasks we need to do aboard before we depart, but mostly we are just working on getting our heads around being at sea for so long. We’re excited about it. It will be a great challenge for us, and it moves us to another continent! South America, here we come!

I’ll do my best to update the blog, Facebook and Farkwar via the sat phone as soon as we depart and along the way, so those of you who want to can follow our progress all the way to Ecuador.

~katie

Whale? Or Shark?

After leaving Isla Pedro Gonzalez, we decided to head south around the tip of Isla Del Rey and make our way back up north. We stopped at Punta Cocos, Isla Canas and Isla Espiritu Santo for a night each. We found a really great snorkeling spot on the seaward side of Isla Espiritu Santo around some small islands. The visibility was marginal, but once you dove down twenty feet or so toward the bottom there was a lot of sea life. We saw huge schools of jacks, sierra mackerel, lots of snappers and all kinds of reef fish.

Here is our view coming into the channel next to Isla Canas…

As we headed around a shallower point at the end of one of the small islands with lots of rocks surrounding it, we saw our first lobster! We had seen the local fishermen with lobsters and knew they were around the Perlas, but after looking under what seems like hundreds of rocks and in cracks and crevasses around the islands, we hadn’t seen one. This little guy was too small, but we kept looking. Eventually we discovered about 5 or 6, but unfortunately none that we could keep.

We’ve tried to keep a very sustainable policy aboard Adagio when it comes to fishing. As much as we like fish and seafood our policy is generally: (1) We don’t take more fish than we can eat; (2) We don’t take large game fish (like marlin) that are not sustainable or fish that we know are overfished; and (3) We try not to take anything that is small or juvenile (the exception here would be if it is damaged from fishing gear and not going to survive.) When it comes to lobsters, we do not take the females (you can see the eggs) or small ones. So, no lobsters for us on this occasion.

We would have stayed longer at Espiritu Santo, but in the last three stops we have gotten eaten alive by mosquitos and no-see-ums. Despite having screens on our hatches and portlights, there are clearly some gaps or holes where these buggers found their way in. We woke up each morning with itchy bites all over. Ugh.

We headed out of Isla Espiritu Santo after breakfast. We still had some fish in the freezer, but Mike really wanted to see if we could catch a yellowfin tuna, so we put the trolling lines out. No yellowfin tuna, but the fishing that morning was crazy. We caught 5 sierra, 2 dorado (mahi mahi) and 2 jack crevalle. It was all catch and release, so those fish lived to see another day.

Just as Mike was about to put the lines back out after letting one of those fish go, he said to me, “I just saw a fin.” My response was, “What kind of fin? Shark?” Just as I was saying those words, I looked off to port and saw a couple of large fins coming out of the water. We both thought it must be a shark, but we pondered aloud what kind of shark was in these waters that was that big. None that we knew of.

As we started to get closer to the fins and were both peering over lifelines, we identified our culprit at the same time as we both shouted “whale shark!” Neither of us had any idea that whale sharks were even in Panama.

Despite their name, whale sharks are not related to whales. They are sharks and are the biggest sharks in the ocean. Our guides tell us that whale sharks can grow up to 60 feet long. That is one hell of a shark! These sharks were about 20-25 feet long, which is still a really big shark. Whale sharks are very docile and not dangerous. We’ve seen them one other time, in the Sea of Cortez last summer when we were able to jump in and swim with them. They are filter feeders with huge, wide mouths that open to filter all of the plankton and other small creatures in the water.
Not only were we shocked to see a whale shark in Panama, we were shocked to see the large number of them. Last year we encountered just 2-3 inside a small bay where we were anchored. This time, we were on a passage between islands and came across a school of at least 50 of them. Our books say that they are usually solitary, but this was a huge school of whale sharks.

They also were either curious about the boat or simply not bothered that we were there, because each one seemed to come right up to the hull or cross right in front of our bow. Some swam right next to us for several minutes. As soon as we came across that first whale shark, we reeled in the fishing lines and put the boat in neutral. There was a favorable current and we simply drifted through the school of whale sharks marveling at them for almost an hour. An incredible experience that made our day.

I really couldn’t get enough of these guys. Here are some photos of the experience. I’ll work on getting video up a little later when I have better wifi access…

Whether it is our sightings of the majestic humpbacks, the docile whale sharks, or all of the colorful reef fish, the experience of being closer to nature gives us the feeling of responsibility toward these creatures. One thing I’ve noticed here in Panama is all of the trash, particularly plastic in the ocean and washed up on the beaches on these beautiful islands. I can’t say that it is all Panama’s fault. If you look at the geography and the prevailing currents into the Gulf of Panama, you can see how this area could end up as a repository for all kinds of things floating in the ocean.

We recently watched a couple of documentaries that another boat gave us about the environment and climate change that were educating but really just reinforced what we already knew – that each of us is responsible for our contributions on this planet. When you see beautiful creatures such as the whale sharks and then see the plastic bottles they have to swim through, you feel sad that humanity is not doing its part. So, my plea to anyone reading this is to take the small, simple steps in your everyday lives to protect our oceans and our planets. And, I encourage everyone to get out there and enjoy nature and its many wonderful creatures. It will change your life!

~katie

Fish and Bananas

We ended up staying at Isla Contadora a lot longer than we originally anticipated. We left Panama City with a decent amount of provisions and a couple hundred dollars in cash thinking that we would go out to the Perlas Islands for a week or so and then return to Panama City (only a day sail away) to replenish. But, we liked Isla Contadora so much that we ended up staying for over three weeks!

The little island has some beautiful homes that are weekend/vacation houses for the wealthy in Panama City, but during the week the island is pretty sleepy. Some of the workers take pangas over from Isla Saboga next door to work in the few shops on the island. On the weekends, sportfishers and power yachts come in from the city, and private planes land at the small airstrip on the island to bring in the weekend crowds (which is really not that crowded.)

The anchorage on the north side of Isla Contadora is in a bay surrounded by Islas Saboga, Pacheca, Bartolome and several other small islands making it a pretty protected anchorage. As all of the islands are pretty close together, it gave us lots of places to go exploring in the dinghy. The island was also pretty convenient with a couple of stores that had basic provisions such as rice, butter, eggs and the occasional fruits and veggies brought in about once a week. There was also a gas pump at one of the stores where we could replenish the gas for our dinghy and the generator we use to run the watermaker.

The provisions at the stores were quite a bit more expensive than in Panama City, but that makes sense considering that they have to ferry them in. Gas was $6/gallon, more than twice what we paid in the city. As there are no banks or credit card machines on the island, we burned through our cash pretty quickly.

Even though we ran out of cash, we just weren’t ready to head back to the city yet and still had more islands to explore in the Perlas. We have lots of dried and canned goods on the boat as well as some frozen meat in the freezer. So, we figured we could make do for a while before we have to leave the islands and head back to Panama City to load up the boat for the trip to Ecuador.

One reason we thought we could keep going without heading back to provision was all of the fresh fish that we have been catching. Trolling through the islands we have picked up several really good size sierra (my favorite). And, Mike has gotten really good at spearfishing. He’s been able to pick up lots of really good size snappers, which always make a nice meal.

Mike has been teasing me that I need to try out his speargun and get a fish. But, I just don’t think I have the hunter instinct in me. I LOVE to eat fish, and I don’t mind cooking it at all, but I get a bit squeamish when it comes to killing the fish. Especially the snappers. They have these big eyes that just stare at you when you pull them out of the water. I can’t help but look at them and wonder what they are thinking. Mike usually gives them a “sorry, buddy” and then dispatches them quickly by putting a knife in the top of their head. I usually have to look away. I feel a bit sorry for the fish…until it ends up on my plate.

With no cash left, we weren’t going to be able to buy any fresh fruits and veggies (if we could even find them) to go with our fish. But, another boat told us that they found wild bananas on a little island called Isla Bartolome. Mike really wanted to go find the bananas. So, we took off in the dinghy with a machete and went in search of bananas.

After hacking through quite a bit of vegetation, nearly circling the island, and being careful not to disturb the brown boobies who were sitting on nests on the ground all over the island, Mike finally found some wild banana trees. It’s a good thing he is tall, because he had to jump up with the machete to hack off the bunch of bananas. He was pretty excited about our lovely little bunch.

The bananas were tiny and green. We hung them up in the cockpit wondering and hoping that they would ripen. After a few days the bananas slowly started to turn yellow and we tentatively took a bite. These tiny bananas were so sweet and just perfect! As the bunch started to ripen more, we ended up eating bananas all day long. They were so good that we actually went back and got another bunch.

We’re still in the islands now. We moved down farther south to Isla Pedro Gonzales. We were going to go down to the next island called Isla San Jose. But, we heard from another boat anchored here that the military was doing something down on that island for the next month and they were actually escorted away from the island. So, we think our plan is going to head down around the tip of Isla Del Rey, the biggest island in the Perlas, sometime in the next couple of days. We may not have any cash to continue our island adventure, but we know that we will at least have fish and bananas to eat!

~katie

Humpback Whales!

We finally left Panama City for the Las Perlas Islands, which are a group of islands in the Gulf of Panama. If you look at a map, Panama City is in the middle of the arch shape that makes up the country of Panama, and the Las Perlas Islands are directly south. They are a group of islands fairly close together. Some are inhabited with small villages or vacation homes for wealthy Panamanians, but others are uninhabited and wild. We were excited to get away from the city and hopefully get some time in the water. So far, we have not been disappointed.

Right away our day started out great as we hooked two sierra while trolling out toward the islands. We took this as a good sign that there were going to be more fish in our future in the islands.

Our first stop was Isla Pacheca, a small island that is privately owned. As we were approaching the island, we spotted blows from a pod of whales not too far in the distance. A quick look through the binoculars confirmed our suspicions that we had found humpback whales! The humpbacks have a very distinctive white pattern on their tales (or flukes). So, if you are lucky enough to spot one, you will recognize the humpbacks.

We dropped anchor in about 30 feet of water, recognizing that it was close to high tide. The tides in Panama can be 10-15 feet or more, so you really have to watch your depth and the tide charts when anchoring, or you could end up with your boat on the sand at low tide! We were delighted when we looked over the side of the boat and could see our anchor chain on the bottom. I’ll take 30 feet of visibility any day. After getting everything situated on the boat before the sun started to fade, we could still see and hear the whales off in the distance. Awesome.

We stayed at Pacheca for two nights, but after some squalls came through during the night making it a quite uncomfortable anchorage, we decided to move over to Isla Contadora just a couple of miles away. Contadora is one of the few islands that is inhabited, and although small even has a runway for small planes to land.

There were a couple other sailboats anchored at Contadora, and later that afternoon we were greeted by Tassio and Isabelle from the sailboat Yoyo. Tassio had been out spearfishing and brought us a huge piece of Amberjack. THAT is a great way to make new friends!

The next morning we got a call on the radio from Yoyo just as we were finishing breakfast that two humpback whales were right by our boat. We quickly ran outside with the video camera to catch a mama and her calf slowly drifting by us with the current. The baby was having some fun rolling around and slapping his fins on the water. Tassio and Isabelle rowed over and jumped in with their masks and snorkels to try and get a better look, but the whales soon decided to move on.

Later that day we invited our new friends on Yoyo to join us in some snorkeling and free diving. As we were crossing the bay to one of the other islands, we came across the mama and calf whales again. We got about as close as you would want to get to them, as the adults can be 40-50 feet in length. Our little 10 foot dinghy would be no match for the whales.

We got a few more free diving trips in the next few days and Mike tried his hand at spearfishing. Although he didn’t spear anything, we had a great time checking out the large schools of fish. We also saw some dolphins, a turtle and a huge ray.

But, all was not lost on the fishing front as our new best friend and expert spearfisherman Tassio kept us fed in fish for days! He speared a red snapper, white sea bass (corvina) and sierra, not to mention the amberjack. We were very grateful for all the fish!

We’re now looking forward to moving on to some of the other islands here in the Perlas, and hopefully will have some more fun with the diving and fishing. It’s nice to be back in the water.

~katie

Through the Canal – Part Deux

After our last trip through the Panama Canal on Kya, our other crew mates Rob and Becky from the sailboat Manatee asked us if we would help crew on their boat to go through the canal as well. They didn’t have any crew yet and were hesitant to hire some local people that they didn’t know. We were happy to help.

When we arrived in the Las Brisas anchorage in Panama City we immediately spotted another boat we knew – Wahkuna! We hadn’t seen Robert and Dephine (and their dog Guero) since Nicaragua back in April. We thought for sure that they were already through the canal and on their way back to Ireland. Well, like most boats, plans change. They were still planning to go through the canal and then decided to ship their boat to Ireland from the USVI next spring.

We knew Rob and Becky needed two more crew, so we introduced them to Robert and Delphine on Wahkuna. Everyone hit it off immediately and Wahkuna agreed to help crew on Manatee through the canal.

We all spent the night on Manatee the night before we were to go through the canal. We were supposed to meet the pilot boat to get our advisor at 5:30 a.m., so we were all up at 4:30 to pull up anchor and arrive at the designated spot. Leaving the Las Brisas anchorage in the dark was our first interesting task. There are so many sailboats, fishing boats, dredges, tug boats, mooring balls, and other hazards in the anchorage and many are not lit. At one point I was at the helm with two people on the bow as lookouts yelling at me to maneuver to port or starboard to avoid an unlit boat.

After arriving at the meeting spot, we contacted Flamenco station and dropped anchor. Although we were supposed to start at 5:30, we were told it would be 7:30, then 9:45. I think it was actually almost 11:00 by the time the advisor finally arrived. As the time got pushed back further, we realized pretty quickly that we were not going to go through the canal in one day. This was going to be a two day affair.

We didn’t see any other yachts waiting to transit, so we kept speculating on how we were actually going to go through – center chamber? rafted? side tied? Then word came down that we were going to tie up to a tug boat who would be tied along side the wall of the lock. We weren’t going to have to man any of the lines while inside the lock. We would just have to tie and untie to the tug through each lock.

Rob had the hardest job of all at the helm. We had a large ship that would go in first through the “up” locks, then we would let the tug boat tie to the wall and finally we would come along side the tug and tie up. The most difficult part was going from lock to lock as there was substantial prop wash from both the ship and the tug. The locks are narrow and you have to go slow. If you’ve ever helmed a sailboat with no bow thruster, you know that you do not have much steerage without speed, and the prop wash, current and wind will blow you all over the place. Rob did a fantastic job though, and I just kept telling myself how happy I was NOT to be the one at the helm.

We got though the three up locks and into Lake Gatun. By this time it was already mid-afternoon and the skies were starting to look ominous. We had 29 miles to go to get across the lake to where we would moor for the night. On a good day, that is a five hour motor for a sailboat. Then the rain came. And the lightening. Having been up since 4:30, several of us went down below to get some rest. We didn’t get much rest though when we heard the thunder literally shake the boat. There was almost no visibility through the rain and there were several bolts of lightening that hit the water just a couple hundred yards away. It was pretty frightening.

Finally we arrived where the moorings were at the other end of the lake. It was pitch black and raining. Finding those moorings with a spotlight was pretty difficult. At one point Mike & I were on the bow with the light searching for them. I still couldn’t see them until a bolt of lightening lit up the sky and we both screamed, “we see them!” We tied up to the mooring and all crashed for the night.

Our advisor told us that we would get our new advisor at 6:00 a.m. the next morning to go through the three DOWN locks. It didn’t make much sense to any of us, including the advisor, as these locks usually go northbound in the afternoon. Well, someone somewhere obviously made a mistake. It was 1:30 in the afternoon before our advisor arrived the next day.

There was no tug this time, but we ended up rafting up to a 50 ft sportfishing boat, and had essentially the same procedure as the day before. Luckily, the DOWN locks were uneventful and we finally made it out again into the Atlantic!

Manatee tied up to the fuel dock at Shelter Bay Marina. We all said our goodbyes as we piled into the car to take us back across to the Pacific. We had another fascinating experience crossing the canal. But, we are going to miss Rob and Becky. We’ve had some great times with them here in Panama. I just hope our paths cross again someday. Sigh.

~katie

Boat Killer?

A friend recently left a comment that Panama was a “boat killer.” I don’t think I would go quite that far, but it definitely has been an “electronics killer” for us. I’m not specifically blaming Panama, but it has been a rough month for our electronics!

When we first arrived in Panama and were preparing to leave the boat to fly back to the States, we pulled out our power cord to plug into shore power. We hadn’t been in a marina to get shore power in quite some time. But, in the event that there was no sun or wind to keep our batteries charged while we were gone, we thought the safest thing was to plug in while we were away. Well, that plan shortly went out the window when we discovered the day before we were to leave that we weren’t getting any AC power in.

After some trouble shooting, we determined that it wasn’t the power cord but it seemed that the battery charger itself had decided to die on us. I’ll back up here and explain a bit about how we get power…

We have a bank of batteries that power all of our electronic equipment, from lights and fans to our chart plotter and autopilot. There are quite a few ways that we keep our batteries charged up. First, we have solar panels and a wind generator. In sunny Mexico, we relied almost exclusively on the solar panels. But, if there is no sun or wind, we still have to be able to charge the batteries. If we are running our diesel engine motoring from one place to the next, the alternator will charge the batteries. But, if we don’t want to run the engine, we have a portable gas powered Honda generator. (We mainly use the Honda just to run our water maker.) And, finally, if we are in a marina, we can plug into shore power directly.

I’ll save you a boring diatribe about AC power versus DC power and how we have to use an inverter to convert from one to the other. But, our battery charger also acts as an inverter to allow us to plug in regular electronics, such as a computer to the wall sockets (AC power). When the battery charger went kaput, it prevented the AC in from the shore power and the Honda generator, but we could still charge from solar, wind and the alternator. Luckily, we had friends watching the boat while we were away who could run the diesel engine if necessary to keep the batteries charged if there were a few cloudy days in a row (very possible during rainy season here.)

After returning to Panama, we went on a hunt for a new battery charger/inverter. We found a guy in Panama City who could order us a new one. Of course, this was a $1,200 expense that wasn’t originally in our budget, but that’s what happens on a boat! A week later we had the battery charger and Mike spent the better part of a day dripping sweat in the heat and squeezed into a tiny compartment to get the new charger installed. Whew!

The next electronic mishap was all my fault. It was a gloomy afternoon when we saw the dark clouds coming our way in the anchorage. After the rain started, the lightening soon followed. As I’ve mentioned before, lightening on a boat is not our friend. There were some strikes pretty close, so we put our portable electronics, such as our computers, tablets, etc. in the oven, which we hope would act as a Faraday cage in the event of a lightening strike. After the storm passed over, we started to get ready for a quiet evening. I went to make us some dinner and pulled the computers, etc. out of the oven since I was going to roast some vegetables to have with our chicken.

After a few minutes, we started to get some weird smoke in the galley. I knew it wasn’t the chicken and went to check the vegetables in the oven. I looked in the back of the oven and discovered I had missed pulling out our Iridium Go satellite phone that was in the back of the oven. Ugh! I grabbed a hot pad and yanked it out as melted black plastic was dripping off of it. There were many obscenities being yelled by me. Of all of the electronics we had put in the oven to stay “safe” this was by far the most expensive one.

Mike very nicely told me to calm down and not freak out. He waited some time for the Iridium Go to cool down and decided to see if it still worked. Unbelievably, it still works! I have no idea how, as the front of it is completely melted and mangled. But, I guess they make these things pretty tough. So, it may look funny, but at least it works!

After the last two electronic issues, I was really not happy to find out we had a third problem. We pulled up anchor to move the boat while we helped our friends on Manatee go through the canal and discovered that our B&G system with our depth sounder and wind indicator wasn’t working. It was getting power to the system but no data. We really can’t go anywhere without the depth sounder.

So, Mike got to work trying to troubleshoot this issue. I’ll spare you the details of how the network works and why you have to have terminals on each end, blah blah blah. It gave me a headache to have it explained to me. Anyway, after disconnecting and reconnecting every connection and a climb up the mast, Mike was able to get the depth sounder working. BUT, the wind indicator at the top of the mast, which has a 60 foot cable running down inside the mast to the network was not functioning. Ugh. It’s nice to have a wind indicator that gives us wind speed and direction, but technically we can live without it. At least we have the depth again! We’re looking into getting the new anemometer, which will have to be installed on the top of the mast and a new cable run inside (no idea how Mike plans to do that), but it will be another $500 unexpectedly added to the budget.

We’re not sure why the wind indicator decided to fail on us. Another boat suggested that it is possible one of those close lightening strikes in the anchorage put off enough of a charge to kill it. I guess anything is possible. Maybe Panama really is a boat killer… We’re hoping our boat karma changes soon as we prepare to head out to the Las Perlas islands!

~katie

Though the Canal

Our friends Mike & Katie on Kya were leaving Vista Mar before us and headed into the city to get ready to transit the Panama Canal from Pacific to Atlantic. Before their departure, they asked us and Rob and Becky on Manatee if we would be interested in being line handlers for them through the canal. We jumped at the chance.

The day before Kya was scheduled to go through the canal, Rob, Becky, Mike & I got a ride over to La Playita Marina to spend the night on Kya. Kya is a 68 foot Nordhavn motor yacht. She is beautiful, and a completely different experience from our modest 41 ft sailboat! It was a fun change of pace to hang out on a boat with all of the amenities of home, such as air conditioning, couches, a dining room table, a full size refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave and washer/dryer! We came bearing bags of food and drinks and immediately made ourselves at home in the galley.

Upon arrival we were introduced to Mike & Katie’s friend Andrew who had arrived from Australia to also help go through the canal. We all went out to lunch and started discussing what was going to happen the next day as we prepared to go through the canal. We had all planned on making it an early night knowing we had to get up in the morning, but we collectively blew that plan after a few cocktails and glasses of wine. Good friends make good company and not always the best decisions…

So, when the alarm went off at 4 am the next day, we all rushed for coffee. Despite the impromptu party the day before, the excitement of the canal crossing got us up and running around like busy bees. Kya was off the dock by 5 am with lines being placed in the right spots and the tire-fenders being strung on the sides of the boat. We motored in place outside the canal entrance as the sun began to rise over the high rise skyline of Panama City. We met the pilot boat to pick up the canal pilot who was required to be on board for the transit.

We finally got the go ahead to start making our way under the Bridge of Americas toward the first lock. We had been told that we were going to go “center chamber” which means that we would not be rafted to other boats and would have four lines (two bow, two stern) holding us in place in the lock. Suddenly word came down that we would be rafted to a catamaran and sportfisher that were already rafted together, and we quickly started pulling out more fenders and dock lines scrambling around the boat. No one was happy about being rafted up. Apparently the pilot argued with the canal authorities and got them to agree to let us not raft up and just to tie up to the port side. (Apparently, the canal did not have enough line handlers to let us center chamber on the first two locks.)

So, plans changed again and we prepared to tie up to the port side. Mike (captain) didn’t want to tie directly to the concrete wall (understandably), and did his best to use his bow and stern thrusters to keep us off the wall as the water in the locks came rushing in. What a job he did, because Kya came through those first two locks without a scratch. By the time we got to the third lock, apparently there were now enough canal workers to let us center chamber our way through the rest of the canal.

Basically, what happens in each lock is that a canal worker throws a thin line down to each of the four line handlers on the boat. Each line handler ties the thin line onto a much thicker dockline on the boat. The canal worker then pulls the thin line up in order to hook the thick dockline around a cleat at the top of the lock. As the water starts to fill in the lock (or come out of the lock, on the way down), each line handler on the boat either has to let out or take in the dockline to keep the boat steady in the lock. You need gloves, a decent grip, and to know how to lock a line around a cleat. Luckily, all of us line handlers on Kya had plenty of experience handling lines on boats that we made it look easy! Not all boats are so lucky, as we watched the catamaran/sportfisher raft-up lose a line coming into one of the locks, get turned sideways and end up along the concrete wall. We hope they didn’t have any damage!

After making it through the first three UP locks, we arrived at Lake Gatun. It was time for us line handlers, who had been out in the sun for a few hours, to have some lunch and rest up in the air conditioning. I think the five of us all passed out for at least an hour of the two hour transit through the lake.

Once we were all rested, it was time to get back to work. Mike (captain) had been making some great time through the lake to get us to the final three DOWN locks. This is where some sailboats run into trouble. If you can’t get through the lake fast enough to the second set of locks, you will be required to spend the night in the lake and wait until the next morning. Kya had some speed through that lake, and we made it in time to do the whole transit in one day.

After making it through the last three locks, the final doors opened and we sped off into the Atlantic. What an experience to cross between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in the same day! Kya made her way to her slip in Shelter Bay Marina just as the sun was setting, and Mike (Adagio) got to work in the galley making his special sausage bolognese sauce. After a long day of hard work, we all enjoyed a big pasta dinner and crashed for the night.

Everyone slept in the next morning and Katie made us a wonderful lunch as we prepared to say goodbye to Mike, Katie and Andrew. We hired a car to drive the four of us the three hour trip back to Vista Mar. By the time we made it back to Adagio, we were pooped! But, we chatted about how much fun the experience had been with Manatee. They were still working on getting a date themselves to go through the canal. We must have been decent line handlers, because Rob and Becky asked us if we would help take Manatee through the canal as well. How could we say no? They still don’t have a date yet, but we’re hoping it will work out for us to go through on Manatee.

~katie

Panama!

We left Golfito for the 300 mile trip to San Carlos, Panama. With no wind and an adverse current, we spent three days slogging our way to Panama. The trip was relatively uneventful other than having to dodge some squalls (always at night, always on my watch!) and a few fishing boats.

As we got closer to Panama City and the Canal, the clearly marked shipping channel on the charts began to look like a super highway out on the ocean. We stayed clear of the shipping lanes, choosing to stay on the shore side of the channel. As we were making 5-6 kts, decent given the conditions, the container ships and tankers were making 2-3 times that speed. The last thing we ever want to do is play chicken with the big boys! But, it was certainly fun to see them light up the horizon at night and create multiple AIS targets all over our chart plotter.

We rounded Punta Mala and headed north toward San Carlos on our last evening at sea. There had been some debris in the water earlier in the day, which was mostly logs and other plant debris clearly runoff from the rains. But, just as we sat down to have some dinner in the cockpit that night, we heard a big thud on the bow. We started looking around and grabbed the spotlight. What we saw floating in the water was some kind of big white, metal box. It wouldn’t be until we got into the marina in daylight that we saw the huge scrape in our paint on the starboard bow. Ugh. There are hazards in the ocean you can see and some you can’t. It’s the ones you can’t see that are most worrisome. We’re just glad it was only cosmetic damage and not something more serious.

We arrived the next morning at Vista Mar Marina in San Carlos, greeted by our friends on Kya and Manatee, who we hadn’t seen since El Salvador. A couple of months earlier, we had decided to travel back to the States to attend a family wedding and started searching for a safe, and reasonably priced place to leave the boat while we were out of town. I had emailed Katie on Kya, who I knew was already in Panama, to ask if she had any suggestions in Panama. She let me know that they were at a new marina in San Carlos called Vista Mar with Manatee and sent me the pricing info. The price was right, so we made a plan to head to Vista Mar.

We were happy to see our friends on arrival and started preparing the boat to leave for 10 days. Rob on Manatee was nice enough to volunteer to look after Adagio while we were gone. This was such a huge benefit to us, as the big tides in the area create a large surge into the marina. The dock lines have to be checked and adjusted daily to try and keep any chafing to a minimum. Also, given the humidity in the rainy season, we really needed someone to open the boat for a couple of hours each day to air it out and try and prevent any mold from growing.

We got everything situated and packed in two days and made our way two hours to Tocumen airport in Panama City. After a fabulous 10 days in New York, Connecticut and Vermont with family, we were ready to get back to Adagio.

Upon our return, we were introduced to a new group of friends that Becky on Manatee had made while we were gone. We met a great group of expats from the US, Canada, Mexico and Argentina who were living in the area and happy to show us around and throw a few parties. Vista Mar is a really nice marina with a golf course and beach club, but there is not much of a town that you can walk to if you want to get to a store or restaurant. As much as we loved the fun times and great company, I could not thank our friends enough for running errands for us like taking us to grocery stores and letting us do laundry at their house. Seriously, thanks again Aurora, Marcelo, Janet, Judie and David!

Golfing in Panama…

While in Vista Mar, we took a few trips into Panama City, played golf at the local golf course and rented a van to drive up to El Valle de Anton. El Valle is up in the mountains about 45 minutes from Vista Mar and a completely different climate. The city is actually in the caldera of an extinct volcano! After piling in the van, we stopped at a hiking trail that took us through the rain forest to a beautiful waterfall and natural swimming pool. Very cool!

After our hike, we stopped for lunch at a beautiful hotel and started looking for some other sight seeing activities. Janet had the driver stop at another little restaurant off the road while the rest of us waited in the van. She came back a few minutes later and told us all to follow her as she handed us each little bags of dried corn kernels.

We walked through the restaurant and across the street to a wooden fence. On the other side of the fence were ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys. As soon as they saw us with the bags of corn, the entire flock of birds came rushing towards us. It was hilarious. We all acted like kids throwing the corn at the birds who quacked, squawked, chirped and clucked at us. So funny.

We’d had a great time at Vista Mar, but it was time for us to move on. So, we said our goodbyes and assurances that we would keep in touch and left Vista Mar for the big city of Panama!

~katie