Island Way, Pedro Miguel Boat Club, Panama Canal, Panama. 17 November 2001
Dear Everyone
This is our final Caribbean instalment. We are now two miles from the Pacific coast of Panama, on the edge of a fresh (though rather muddy!) water lake less than 100 yards from the Pedro Miguel locks in the Panama Canal, from where we plan to move on into the Pacific in about a month’s time.
When we left Cartagena at the beginning of September, we thought we had said farewell to Colombia. Apart, that is, from the couple of days which we had planned to spend in the Rosario islands about twenty miles away, where we had heard about an open-air sea aquarium with dolphins - and rumours that it was sometimes possible to swim with them. Finding the Oceanarium was not difficult - it's a major tourist attraction on the day-trip schedule from Cartagena, with over 100,000 visitors per year (sadly including very few non-Colombians now that Colombia is off most people's list of tourist destinations). We were able to anchor in a small lagoon behind the island and coral reef which are home to the Oceanarium. The Oceanarium’s open-air enclosures are formed by stretching strong plastic netting from the sea bed up to a series of walkways so that one can wander past turtles, tarpon, jewfish, sawfish, lemon sharks, hammerheads, friendly nurse sharks, rays and best of all six bottlenose dolphins, and watch them all at very close quarters (in depths of between 3-15 feet) in their almost-natural environment. There are several large glass-sided tanks as well, housing smaller tropical fish, seahorses and so on, plus a museum and research centre. We were lucky enough to make friends with the owner and his family and a lot of the staff working in the Oceanarium as well as several visiting naturalists who had been attending a wildlife/conservation conference in Cartagena. Our two days quickly became five, and we felt very privileged to be allowed in to the Oceanarium before and after hours (the tourist influx starts around 1000 and the last boatload is usually on its way by 1500). Once the tourists have gone, it all becomes very quiet again, and we were allowed to help feed the dolphins, to talk to and play with them from the walkway dividing their two enclosures, and, finally, to swim with them. Four of them, Tursi, Rosi, Bonni and Pescador, take part in the show which is put on several times each day for the visitors and Wallis, their trainer, gets them to do the most amazing things. The other two, Stefania and Luna, are both very friendly, but don't do tricks. Their fence is only a few inches above sea-level, so if they wanted to leave they could easily jump out (Tursi does from time to time, but comes straight back again), but they seem perfectly content to be where they are. They are an absolute delight to be with, and Stefania and Pescador in particular love to be stroked and talked to. We spent hours making friends with them, and it was hard to tear ourselves away. In fact, we were all set to depart on 12 September but the BBC news the night before - accompanied by, for once, clear pictures on our on-board TV, left us feeling so shocked that we decided to stay among friends while we absorbed the horror of it all. In the event we stayed for a whole additional week. Apart from the dolphins, we were able to swim in a large outer enclosure which contains all sorts of fish and turtles - grouper, jewfish, several varieties of jack, rays, tarpon etc, and a couple of times we were invited in while Rafael, the owner, was feeding them - very exciting. We were also invited into the enclosure with the nurse sharks - for a series of photographs to demonstrate how docile and harmless the fish are! We have some wonderful video and we feel that we've left an awful lot of friends - human and other - behind in Colombia!
Our next stop, 24 hours away, was Isla de Pinos, towards the eastern end of the San Blas, an island chain which stretches along the eastern part of Panama’s north coast. The first part of the trip was much slower than expected even though we were motoring quite quickly, as we had both wind and between one and two knots of current against us. By evening the wind had died altogether, with a lot of big thunderclouds gathering in the distance. By using the radar we were able to dodge the first of the squalls, but they eventually managed to encircle us, and we found ourselves in the middle of a big thunderstorm - quite strong winds for a few minutes; lots of heavy rain; and of course plenty of lightning and thunder far too close for comfort. We’ve heard far too many stories of boats being struck by lighting and the electrical catastrophe that results, and were relieved that Island Way did not become another such story! It all finally died away soon after dawn, and we had a very overcast, drizzly approach to the San Blas islands. Happily, soon after reaching our anchorage, the sun came out and although we had some rainy, thundery days, (very useful for topping up our water supply) most of the next month’s weather was wonderful.
The San Blas islands are inhabited by 30,000 Kuna Indians, a group who have chosen to stick to their traditional way of life and have rejected much, but not all of what the 21st century has to offer them. They have a very rigid social system and visitors to each inhabited island are expected pay their respects (and a visitor fee!) to the saila (chief). Once this is done, permission is usually given to walk through the village and around the island, though care has to be taken with photography. Many Kuna do not like having their picture taken and often a request to do so will be met with a disapproving shake of the head; though equally often the offer of a dollar is found to have magicical inhibition-releasing powers. We both feel fairly uncomfortable with such magic, and only succumbed once to the dollar demand - the rest of the time keeping the shutter firmly closed or taking pictures if permission was freely given. The women in particular are extremely photogenic, with their headscarves, mola blouses, nose paint (a black line from forehead to tip of nose), gold nose rings, and long strands of colourful, patterned beads wrapped round their calves and forearms. The molas are made from brightly coloured squares of cotton laid on top of one another. Cuts are then made through the layers, which are sewn in place, to form intricate designs which can range from a pair of pliers to mythical birds. Molas are for sale on every island, and must now form one of the mainstays of the Kuna economy (the principal one being coconuts, of which several million are produced each year) - they do make very attractive souvenirs. Most of the islands have some concrete- or brick-built buildings, but the majority of the houses are a traditional simple, oval structure made from vertical bamboo stakes laced together with twine, with a thick thatched overhanging palm roof - very effective at keeping out the frequent and plentiful rain. We found the Kuna to be very friendly and welcoming, with a ready smile and a wave whenever they sailed or paddled past in their dugout canoes (or motored, in the case of the more affluent, 15 horsepower Suzuki outboards being one of the trappings of civilisation that they have decided to embrace!). There are also many uninhabited islands and we found plenty of fabulous anchorages, some with wonderful snorkelling amongst the coral just a few yards from the boat. One month could easily have stretched into several, but the Panama Canal was beckoning and we wanted to move on before the ‘rush’, which begins early in the New Year (with boats heading from the East Caribbean to the Pacific).
And so to Colon, about which the Lonely Planet Guide (normally not over-lavish with its cautions) advises that ‘a white tourist walking out of a bank here will likely be mugged’ and ‘don’t walk further than you absolutely must’. Colon is at the northern (Caribbean end) of the Panama Canal, and is therefore a necessary stop en route for the Pacific. Fortunately the yacht anchorage area and the Panama Canal Yacht Club (marina), although both within walking distance of the town, do not share Colon’s fearsome reputation, and we felt perfectly safe within the confines of the marina. Taxis are very cheap (and safe) and there are some areas of town where muggings are less prevalent than others, so limited walking, provided that one maintains a heightened sense of one’s vulnerabilty and removes all watches or jewellery, is not totally out of the question. Colon is also home to the ‘Free Zone’ - a huge (well-policed) area of shops and warehouses selling all kinds of goods from motor cars to tea bags at duty-free prices. Happily, people visiting Panama by boat qualify for duty-free purchases, so we are now extremely well stocked up with beer, wine and rum - plus enough nylon line to satisfy the Panama Canal authorities and (later) to enable us to extend our anchor lines to accommodate the deep-water anchorages in the Pacific.
We arrived in Colon via Portobelo, a small town at the head of a long, narrow bay, surrounded by hills on which the remains of Spanish castles and fortifications are still to be found. Portobelo is normally a sleepy little town, but on 21 October each year it undergoes a transformation when the Festival of the Black Christ is held. The Black Christ in question is a beautifully carved dark wood statue which is housed in Portobelo’s church. Many legends surround its presence there, one of which is that it was found floating in a box after a series of storms some time in the 17th century. It has since been imbued with divine powers, including the ending of a cholera epidemic. On the anniversary of its discovery, thousands of people from all over Panama descend on Portobelo for the festival, which involves parading the statue round the town on a candle-lit platform carried by thirty or forty people. The slow-moving procession includes dozens of penitents, many dressed in purple robes, who crawl or drag themselves along the ground ahead of the statue; a brass band playing slightly sombre music; and the majority of the people who have come for the festival, most carrying at least one candle. From the nearby ruined fort, at the height of the procession, there is a spectacular fireworks display. After the procession, the fiesta begins (continues, really, as it has already begun a couple of days before), with music, dancing, fairground-style stalls and a lot of drinking. We felt we'd had enough after the procession, and returned to the boat before things got too riotous. A very interesting and colourful evening!
Our plan after Portobelo was to spend a couple of days in Colon restocking with fresh food before heading for the Rio Chagres a few miles west, where we hoped to spend a week or more. However, friends we’d met in Cartagena and later in the San Blas Islands turned up unexpectedly, and we also had an opportunity to line-handle for a boat going through the Canal (a good practice-run for Island Way’s transit), so our time in Colon got extended, and the Chagres trip was shortened to three days. The Chagres is navigable for about seven miles, at which point further progress is halted by the dam which was built at the beginning of the last century, during the building of the Panama Canal . It’s a beautiful, wide, deep, slow-flowing river (except when they occasionally release water down the spillway to lower the level of the lake above, when it quickly becomes wider, deeper and much faster-flowing - with due warning being given well in advance!). The thick rainforest on either side is home to numerous varieties of birds, butterflies, bats, monkeys, frogs, lizards, crocodiles, snakes, sloths, anteaters and so on - most of which it is frustratingly difficult ever to see. However, one long jungle walk did reward us with a prolonged verbal confrontation with a pair of howler monkeys, who sat in their tree about thirty feet above us, hurling loud abuse while we howled back! Our anchorage, at a wide bend in the river, was spectacularly beautiful and peaceful (apart from the constant background of jungly noises), and we hope that we’ll find other rivers to explore on the Pacific side of Central America.
Our line-handling run through the Canal provided a wonderful experience, and a much better understanding of what to expect when we took Island Way through. The Canal itself consists of three pairs of locks at each end, separated by Gatun Lake (which was created by the damming of the Rio Chagres) and the 8-mile Gaillard Cut, a deep channel which had to be carved through the highest part of the continental divide. Gatun Lake, at 86 feet above sea level, is kept topped up by the year-round heavy rainfall in the Panama isthmus and provides the head of water necessary to fill the locks, flushing out into the sea as the locks empty on their ‘down’ cycle. Alongside the Chagres dam’s spillway is a hydro-electric plant which provides the power for the whole Canal operation. The engineering simplicity of the whole operation is quite awesome - though the surmounting of the obstacles which had to be overcome to create the Canal in the first place is even more staggering. ‘The Path Between the Seas’, by David McCullough, provides a fascinating account of the building of the Canal, and we were very glad that we had read it before we got here - it brings the whole project much more into perspective.
The Canal can handle as many as 30 or so big ships per day, and there is a steady procession in each direction. Happily for small boats such as us, there is usually room in the locks behind or in front of the big ships, so it isn’t normally necessary to book your transit until a few days beforehand. The procedure starts with an Admeasurer, who comes to the boat to measure its overall length and beam and to fill in the numerous forms required by the Panama Canal Authority. He also checks that you have 4 lines at least 125 feet long, of sufficient strength, and that you have at least four line-handlers (presumed to be of sufficient strength!) organised to assist with the transit . The next step is payment of the $500 transit fee and $800 refundable deposit. Once that has been processed, the next step is to ask the Traffic Control unit for a date - usually 48 hours ahead. Once that is confirmed, a time is given for the Advisor (like a Pilot on a ship) to join the boat. Our Advisor was scheduled for 0500 on Thursday 8 November, the same time as another boat, Gypsy, which was transiting the same day. We expected to be tied alongside Gypsy and to go through ‘centre-lock’ (i.e. held by four line-handlers at the end of four long lines in the centre of the lock chamber, with the lines being constantly adjusted in unison as the locks fill or empty), but at 0530 we called up Pilot Control, to find that our Advisor had been rescheduled for 0830! Meanwhile Gypsy’s Advisor had turned up and, after some delay they were on their way. So we ended up going through the locks tied alongside a tug - with no requirement for our long lines, as the tug simply slides up or down the lock wall , not being too worried about the effect of rough concrete on its very rugged fenders! We were at the entrance to the first lock by 0930, just behind a huge tug-assisted barge, and two hours (and a torrential downpour) later emerged onto Gatun Lake. Despite our late start, our Advisor reckoned we could make it to Pedro Miguel, about 30 miles away, in time to lock down with a suitable southbound ship (small boats are not allowed to go through the locks with ships carrying hazardous cargo) so we motored at close to full speed across the lake and through the Gaillard Cut and finally caught up with the ship we were to go through the Pedro Miguel lock with. On our way past Gamboa at the start of the Gaillard Cut we saw Gypsy at anchor, who, frustratingly for them, had been told by their Advisor that they wouldn’t be able to make it through the next three locks before nightfall, in spite of their two-hour head start. We had to wonder if the fact that their Advisor lives in Colon and would be home six hours earlier by leaving them at Gamboa had more to do with his decision than the absence of suitable ships to down-lock with!! After tying alongside another tug for the lock at Pedro Miguel, we were through into Miraflores Lake, the small lake which connects Pedro Miguel with the final two locks at Miraflores. A few minutes later we were shown to our berth at the Pedro Miguel Boat Club, surely one of the most unusual marinas anywhere - there can’t be many in fresh water, sixty feet above sea-level, and fewer still ‘patrolled’ on three sides by an infra-red beam and on the fourth by geese and crocodiles! There is room for about twenty boats in the marina, plus plenty of hard-standing for boats which have been hauled out. From Island Way we have a grandstand view of the ships entering and leaving the locks - huge container ships, LPG carriers, grain carriers, slab-sided car transporters and even the occasional cruise ship, each with two or more tugs to assist with getting them lined up with the entrance to the lock itself, at which point the ‘mules’ (30-ton electrically-powered locomotives) take over. The mules work in pairs on tracks parallel to and on each side of the lock and their job, with steel cables stretched across to the ship, is to keep it away from the sides of the lock (sometimes a matter of inches on either side of the ship) and to help it to manoeuvre into and out of the lock prior to and after the filling or emptying of the lock. Considering the immense tonnage passing through the Canal daily, the whole operation is incredibly quiet, with only the occasional toot from a tug and the quiet throb of the ship’s own engine to remind one that anything is happening.
We plan to keep the boat at Pedro Miguel while we do some travelling in mainland Panama and Costa Rica. There are also the inevitable boat maintenance jobs to be done, including making new seats for our folding dinghy - the existing seats have just about fallen to pieces. Whether we’ll still be here for Christmas we are not sure, though current thinking is that we should move on in about four weeks’ time. We want to be at least half-way up Mexico’s west coast by April, which is when we plan to start our first really long passage across to Hawaii (with Hawaii to Vancouver planned for June/July next year).
The last part of our transit through the Panama Canal will actually feature on the Internet! There is a camera at the Miraflores locks which is trained on ships passing through. It takes a picture every five seconds, and we are told that if we speak to the cameraman nicely, he will zoom in on us so that we can wave to our Mums on the way through. Once we have a definite date for our departure, we’ll let you know, so that we can wave to you too! The website address is www.pancanal.com and, apart from the live photo, it has lots of other information about the Canal if you should want to know more about this 8th Wonder of the World. Until then, we hope you are all keeping well, and we very much look forward to hearing from you.
With love and best wishes from John and Barbara