Excitement in the Panama Canal

Rafted up going through the Panama Canal

Most people I know who have made the passage through the Panama Canal have done it on a cruise ship. We have had the rare experience of transiting in our own boat and it was quite an experience to remember. The process is long and it involves some interesting sailing skills. Of course, we don't actually sail through the canal, but rather motor while rafted (tied to other boats).

Keeping our eyes on things!

There are very strict regulations for making the passage which the World Cruising Club manages for us through their agent. You must have an agent to deal with the Panama Canal Authority. You are given an assigned date and time. If you miss it there is an $800 fine plus you must reschedule and pay all of your transit fees again. Prior to leaving the marina, an Admeasurer comes on board to measure your vessel and determine your tonnage so they can calculate your transit fees. He also checks to make sure you have the proper equipment and clean facilities for their Advisor who boards before the transit.

Approaching the Canal from The Flats in our "nest"

We learned that the Canal is a real boon to the Panamanian government as it gives the government around $2.5 billion USD a year. That is why there is so much building going on in Panama City. The number of ships anchored waiting to for their passage assignment was amazing. Our chart plotter was splattered with AIS targets on both sides of the Canal. And now they are building a new canal so wider ships can pass.

We left Shelter Bay Marina at 1530 to begin our passage. We waited in an area called The Flats for the our Canal Advisor, Victor, to board. Each boat has an Advisor on board to assist though the process as the line handling is quite challenging. The delivery boat comes up next to you and a guy steps from one boat to the other with great skill. The helmsman of the delivery boat was very good at easing his boat to ours without bumping us.

There are actually three stages to the transit. First you pass into the Gatun Locks on the east end. This lock has three chambers to raise you up to the level on the interior Gatun Lake - about 26 meters or 84 feet. Each chamber is 110 feet wide and 1000 feet long. The length of this lock set is over a mile long from the entrance to the exit into Gatun Lake.

We are required to serve hot meals to the Advisor

We left The Flats around 1630 and moved toward the approach area. As we were motoring, we came up to the starboard of Vivo, a large catamaran, and exchanged docking lines to hold us tight against the fenders between us.

Then another monohull, Avocet, did the same on the port side. We are now one unit or as they call it, nesting. It was an interesting test of the nerves having to come up against another yacht while underway. It sure tested my helmsman skills, but I was successful.

The WARC Fleet passing through the Panama Canal

All went well through the first chamber. Each yacht is thrown a pair of monkey fists (messenger lines) that are then attached to the handling lines we have on board. The Advisor gives instructions on tying the special knots that need to be tied to the lines from the linehandlers on the mainland who walk along the wall and carry their end of the line. For the big ships there are electric automotives that move along a track to maintain the correct pressure on the lines.

This is not the guy who mess up the lines!

After passing into the chamber and getting all 14 boats in the 1000 foot area, the huge steel lock doors close behind you and the water begins to rise. It takes 15-20 minutes to fill the chamber with water. The linehandlers on the yachts (our crew) have to constantly take up the slack in the lines as the boats float higher in the lock. Once the chamber is full of water, we were instructed to move forward into the next lock. The process was repeated again.

Then the excitement happened! The ACP linehandler on our stern line was asleep at the switch, as they say! As he was walking up the incline and paying out line, he failed to see that the messenger line became lodged in a concrete crevice. While he kept walking, the line was holding us back and turning our nest sideways. There was a lot of Spanish being thrown back and forth across the canal. I am guessing it was swearing! In fact, I am sure it was and it was very loud!

Here are the lock gates closing behind us. Next the area
will fill with water and we will all rise up to the top level.

Unfortunately, the linehandler did not realize he was the cause of the problem and kept walking and paying out line. Then our messenger line broke and we were loose on the stern. This caused Avocet to get too close to the wall on the other side. There was concern for their rigging as it was close to a light post and their bow was headed toward the concrete wall. It was a little scary for a while.

Mike on Vivo and Dennis had to maintain control
after the workers on land messed up.

In the meantime, our guys managed to retrieve the loose end of the messenger line and tie it to our bowline and send it back up to the mainland. We did not see the guy who screwed up again. I wonder where he is working now??? Once we got squared away, literally, we were on our way to the next chamber. Of course, the boats ahead of us and
behind us were wondering what was going on. Later we learned the rumor in the fleet was that the guys on Trillium messed up. Our entire "nest" will set that straight!

Excitement in the dark - again!

We made the passage through the third chamber without incident and went well into Gatun Lake in the dark. Under the direction of the Advisor, Victor, we docked on a huge bouy where four WARC boats rafted for the night. Then Victor was picked up by another boat and we all went to bed for a few hours until our Advisor for day two arrived.

Discovering the Panamanian Coastline

We left the San Blas Islands and headed toward Colon and the Panama Canal. To break up the 80 mile trip, we stopped in the village of Portobello. This town had been a major player in the days of pirates and bounty! The Bay of Portobello was discovered in 1502 by Christopher Columbus! Representing the Spanish Crown, he chose Portobello as the Caribbean transshipment center.

Portobello has a magnificent harbor where they built four forts to protect the gold and silver that was being shipped back to Seville. The guide book said that between 1574 and 1702 forty-five galleons were set forth, none of which carried less than thirty million pesos of riches! The ruins of the fortifications and several old buildings remain today. We climbed among the ruins to see the cannons and structures.

It is also home to the Church of San Felipe de Portobello. This church is said to be the home of the Black Christ of Portobello, a wooden statue of Jesus of Nazareth. The statue has become holy and worshipped because of the many miracles attributed to it.

The famous pirate Henry Morgan attacked the area on numerous occasions to get the bounty of silver and gold. Today the town is a sleepy village with several small markets run by Vietnamese or some other Asian group. There are a couple of restaurants, but only one stood out for us so we ate there both evenings.

After a day of exploring, grocery shopping and relaxing and two nice dinners out, we raised the anchor to head on into Shelter Bay Marina, just inside the break wall at the entrance to the Panama Canal. The area was very busy with ships waiting for their transit time through the Canal to the Pacific Ocean. The water was fairly turbulent in that area as well. So it was a bit like dodge ball: Keep your eye on everyone and keep heading to your destination!

San Blas Islands – Back on Track

Molas are for sale everywhere. They are beautiful handmade
art objects. Some are more detailed and finer work than others.

The good news is when I turned on the chart plotter to do an anchor check before bed, up came all of the chart detail we had been missing earlier in the day! It seems that I needed to turn off the chart plot and power it up again after inserting the SD card with the new area. I am always afraid to turn off the chart plotter when underway in case I lose our track or position – or worse yet, it doesn’t come up at all! So, needless to say, I was happy to see it working. Although we still need to heed the warning from Noonsite regarding the error on the Navionics charts. Our charts are new and may have the correction, but we are not taking any chances as we move among these little islands.

This is where you check in with
Customs and Immigration.

The San Blas Islands are really around 400 cays (pronounced “keys”) as they are very small up croppings of low lying land surrounded by reefs.  This group of small cays lay off the coast of Panama on the Caribbean side. The sand is white and coconut palms provide some shade. Actually, coconuts are the main crop of the San Blas Islands, providing over 30,000,000 coconuts per year! However, I don’t think you can buy them as there are no stores here!

When did you last see these as
the major way to communicate?

This is the airport. It is a landing strip
with water at both ends!

Navigation is very challenging and it is wise to have someone on the foredeck watching for changes in the water color. When in the dinghy, we suddenly hit the bottom with the motor even though we were quite far off land. Many of the islands are uninhabited. Some offer good snorkeling. There are no services, provisioning or communications available here.

The restaurant where we lunched.

Once we figured out where we were and where we needed to go, we headed to Porvenir to check in with Immigration and Customs. On the way there, we saw the infamous Sail Rock which has claimed a few hulls over the years! It is a nasty place to kiss the reef!

Once on Porvenir, we met our WARC team and crossed the runway to the government offices. All went well until they discovered that Dennis and my passports had not been stamped in St. Lucia.  I guess we will be more watchful when checking in and out of these countries. They finally let us complete the paperwork and leave. This island has a police station, a bank and pay telephones, all of which are not available on the other islands.

We found an interesting place for lunch. It is one of the two restaurants on the island. There was no menu. We were told they were serving fish, rice, and vegetables. All was fresh and very tasty. I was a little taken back when I was served first and the fish had its head, tail and fins all intact and cooked in a tasty curry batter. I really don’t like to see my food looking back at me!  But it was really good and I managed to eat the proper parts.

The beach here is lovely and looks as I would expect the islands to be complete with the thatched huts and beautiful white sand. Since the sun is so hot and the air humid, it is nice to cool off in the water from time to time. It is interesting to see the local people wearing jeans or layers of their native dress when we are sweating in shorts and tank tops! I hope I adjust to the heat soon as it is difficult to sleep at night. And my hair is wet most of the time just from perspiration.

The museum was very interesting in the way it showed the Kuna Indian way of life. It is a very simple lifestyle, but they must work at gathering their basic foods. Their personal economy depends on the sale of molas so every woman and some men make and sell them. Apparently, no one owns the land, but they all own the coconuts. It is advised that you do not pick one. Here are some photos from the museum:

Seeing the Kuna Indian Village

Molas are everywhere!

Since we did not know exactly where we were among the numerous cays, we chose to anchor near several other World ARC boats. It was sort of the blind leading the blind as we soon discovered. We didn’t realize we were off the coast of Palm Island, which was a residential area. I called the Rally office on the VHF to confirm where to find them. Davide and I both agreed that we should come to the pink and green building and walk toward the airport landing strip. Not a problem!

Walking through the neighborhood.

We went ashore looking for the WARC Rally office only to discover it was three islands away. We knew it was on the island with the airport. When we asked the Kuna Indians for the airport, they all pointed in the same direction. After locking the dinghy to a concrete dock, Dennis, Peter and Ron assisted some Kuna Indian men in pulling a large water taxi up onto the shore. They were using PVC pipe as rollers. The extra muscle power of our guys made the last few yards easier for all. Fortunately, one on the older men understood some English and directed us through the village to the airport.

Children playing in their "yard."

So we continued to walk through their village until we got to the other side of the island. That is when we discovered that we were several islands away from the airport. It was still a wonderful experience as we saw there “city” streets of sand and their thatched roof dwellings. Upon glancing into one of the open doors, it appears to be a large room with a sand floor and little else. The stick and thatch dwelling must be much cooler than sitting in the sun all day. The houses are very close together and the ladies were sitting in chairs in the paths between the huts sewing their molas.

Ladies sewing and girls playing in the "side street."

Homes are constructed out of sticks and palm leaves.

When I asked if I could take photos of them and their work, the women said “one dollar.” But the little children wanted their pictures taken, so I did! The villagers checked us out but were cautiously friendly. I am guessing that not that many people visit this “residential” island. Seeing their village and way of life in a natural setting was most interesting.

Anytime you ask if you may take a photo of someone, they say, "One dollar." When they asked for a cookie for a child in a dugout canoe, I replied, "One dollar." At first the mother looked at me strangely and then she started laughing. So we all laughed together and I took the photo!

The structure at the end of the dock is the toilet.
They bathe in another area of the sea.

The islands were very clean and did not smell of garbage or human waste. We learned about their “public works” system. The community toilets are small huts on stilts that are out over the water. That means don’t swim off your boat in that area! They bath in another area of the beach away from the toilet. Drinking water is collected from the rain and the guide books advise against consuming it.

The San Blas Islands – Losing Our Way

Kuna Indian women coming to sell their molas

We crossed the finish line outside of the San Blas Islands at 0718 on January 18^th. Unfortunately for us, our chart plotter was not showing the details of the area. Initially I thought I had failed to purchase the correct chip. I recalled looking at the coverage area on the South America and Brazil chart chip and seeing the Panama Canal. When it did not show details, I concluded that I should have purchased the Central America chip. 

As a result, we used the iPad Navionics app and old fashion paper charts to guide us through the islands to an anchorage. At times it was tense as we were not sure where we were going and what obstacles were in our way. We desperately wanted to avoid Sail Rock which has taken out many a sail boat!

And beads. At  least they don't haggle with you!

Without the detailed Navionics electronic charts (which Noonsite claims are inaccurate by 100-200 yards – a big issue!), we actually anchored a long way from the island we were trying to reach. We needed to check in at Porvenier but discovered later that we were anchored in front of Palm Island (actually there are many islands there named Palm!).

Before we were even anchored, the Kuna Indian ladies arrived in their dugout canoes filled with handmade items for sale. They were selling lovely molas and strings of beads that they wrap around their arms and legs like bracelets. Their native dress was very colorful and accessorized with beading. One of them wanted to board the boat, but Vicky and I decided we might have trouble getting her to leave so we declined her offer to bring the goods on board!

Then the young men come by selling fish and lobsters. These two only had two lobsters so we bought them for a grand total of $10 USD. I sauteed them and managed to feed five people! 

The dugouts were most interesting. First they were very large and looked to be extremely heavy. They are truly dug out trees and the sides are several inches thick. Everyone seems to have a canoe of some type. Even young boys will paddle up in a smaller one.

As for the ladies, one woman paddles in the front and one at the back, usually with a small child in the middle with the wares. I think the child’s presence is two-fold: 1) you can’t leave her home alone and 2) sailors have a hard time resisting the cute shy smiles of the little ones. After our purchases, we gave them some Jolly Rancher candies. The little girl did not waste any time trying it.