January 20 – February 15, 2022

The relief we felt was palpable.

After twenty two months, we were still in Panama. Nevertheless, the forty mile journey just completed aboard Exit had delivered us through the doorway to a new world.

The Pacific Ocean.

Yet who stops at the doorway?

The appeal of seeing Panama City represented more of a visual (or visceral) confirmation of what we perceived as our incredibly massive accomplishment of transiting the Canal rather than the actual appeal of visiting the sprawling metropolis of Panama City.

We weren’t sure if we’d do some more provisioning once we reached Panama City, but we had stocked up adequately enough before our Canal transit to make it unnecessary.

Freshly baptized in the waters of the Pacific Ocean, Exit needed to keep going. Why lose momentum?

We were all too happy to trade the moving steel islands of commerce surrounding Panama City…

…for more natural tropical islands of solitude.

We had spent fourteen months in Bocas Del Toro. We had spent six months in San Blas. We had a friend say he grew tired of looking at tropical islands of sand and coconut trees.

We, apparently, had not.

Less than forty miles south of Panama City are a small group of islands. Still within the Gulf of Panama but far enough that they reside right at the edge of the Abyss…

La Archipielago De Las Perlas – The Pearl Islands of Panama.

Isla Pacheca

The first island we arrived at; privately owned though we saw no one there while we were at anchor. Technically, we could go ashore, but only as far as the high tide level on the beach.

Beautiful and unoccupied except for the population of birds.

An unbelievable number of birds. Frigates; boobies; pelicans; cormorants. Who knows how many. I have tried to count swimming fish during Reef Check surveys… a very scientifically subjective number. Flying birds? I’d guess a gazillion.

Our first stop at Isla Pacheca, the northernmost island of Las Perlas, turned out just what the doctor ordered.

Yet, despite the solitude and space, somehow we managed to be on the receiving end of our first hit and sit collision, when a local fishing boat at anchor up current from us dragged down onto us in the middle of the night.

As if our late night collision with the fishing boat didn’t give us enough of an adrenaline shot to tide us over for quite some time, the following day we upped the ante even further with an entire bottle of adrenaline and came very close to losing our drone Space X-it.

We had already launched the drone successfully from the deck of Exit oncewhile we were in San Blas so, in theory, it was not an outrageous endeavor.  However, this time things went far from smoothly. As we proceeded with the liftoff, for some reason the drone immediately begin backing just as it rose off the deck. It barely cleared the edge of the dodger, but the landing gear, equipped with floats, clipped the corner of the bimini sending the drone careening out of control backwards until it hung up on the solar panel structure attached to our arch. The rotors, still spinning wildly, began grinding against the edge of the panels, making a sickening noise as the drone got hung up underneath.

In a moment of pure panic, I put down the GoPro camera I had been taking video footage with, and darted to the other side. There were only seconds before the drone would cascade off the edge of the bimini and into the sea, where it would certainly suffer an instantaneous death.

Not even thinking, I reached up and grabbed the drone, fully aware that the horrible thwacking and whining sound meant the rotors were still trying to turn at full speed. Instantly free of the structure of the boat, they started spinning again; however, now against my fingers.

Somehow, I managed to keep ahold until Kris was able to shut Space X-it down. Miraculously, the drone was safe. Also miraculously, all my fingers were still attached, though bloodied and sore.

Taking one for the team.

It was no NASA accident, but I envisioned a CNN breaking story that seemed the equivalent.

Later we learned of an airstrip in the area. We may have breached some sort of proximity protocol for flying the drone and ended up with signal interference that caused the malfunction.

Oops.

Isla Bartolome

On the charts Isla Bartolome appeared as an insignificant speck. Barely above water. More of a hazard than a destination. Certainly no indication of an anchorage.

It would have been easy to pass by without a second glance.

Fortunately, we stopped.

Though we were hardly the first people to anchor at Bartolome, it felt like our own private discovery. With the exception of a few pangas arriving during the day for brief visits with day trippers, we had the entire island and bay to ourselves.

The lowest tides revealed a staggering range of formations and landscapes that seemed completely random and utterly unique from one another. Such a strange combination of long term geological events must have played out to result in so much variety in shapes and materials. It seemed even more unusual given the tiny size of Isla Bartolome.

What could be globally separated and unrelated examples from a geology text book actually reflect one location’s infinite possible outcomes when the unrelenting forces of an ocean are pitted against stone, given a billion years or so. Mo’ Nat’s artwork.

Despite its small size, Isla Bartolome ended up being our second favorite place to anchor in all of Las Perlas.

However, we may have done a triple take when we saw a small fishing boat anchor just up current from us – a boat looking remarkably like the one that had recently dragged down on top of us at Isla Pacheca.

Hmmm.

Other Islands

Isla Mogo Mogo; Isla Bayoneta; Isla Pedro Gonzalez – all stops along the way as we meandered throughout the archipelago.

Dinghy explorations; paddling on the SUP; relaxing.

And always birds; more birds. It became apparent to us that we were witnessing some sort of migration process unfolding. The numbers of birds were astounding. And they just continued to grow.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO…

January 22, 2022

Hit & run… okay.  Someone runs into something, panics, and flees the scene.

But when someone runs into something, parks right back where they were, and goes back to sleep — there’s gotta be a name for that…Hit & Sit? Mark & Park?

---

Having just completed our first, and probably our only, Panama Canal crossing, we were seriously motivated to do something other than pay to sit on a mooring ball at the edge of the Canal channel.

We could also spend more money in Panama City but we had already done a fair amount of provisioning before leaving Shelter Bay, so we really just needed to move.

Less than forty miles south of Panama City, the Archipelago of Las Perlas had caught our attention.

After arriving at Isla Pacheca, the the larger of the two northern most islands in Las Perlas, we had sat contently at anchor all by ourselves for two days.

The island, inhabited by zero people and thousands of frigates, pelicans, boobies, and cormorants, provided a stunning introduction to the west coast of the Americas.  Rocky bluffs, white sandy beaches, ripping current with a bit of swell, and twelve foot tidal exchanges were all part of the new norm.

Confused, choppy and rolling swell interspersed with completely benign conditions shifted back and forth every six hours or so, depending upon the interaction of tides and wind.

A number of local pangas, sport fishing boats, small ferries, and even a mega-twat or two had approached Pacheca, but only following the charted ferry path around nearby shoals.  They motored right past, rarely even coming close.  Two larger shrimp boats had anchored off the smaller island Pachequilla but that was nearly a mile away.

Late during the second afternoon we had our first neighbor – a steel boat that looked like some sort of small ferry – smaller than the shrimp boats but much bigger than the pangas; bigger than us.  It tied up to the only mooring float in view; just upwind from us.

A short time later Kris and I were sitting in the dinghy, which was currently sitting at anchor between Exit and the shore, enjoying happy hour.  We had strategically placed ourselves there to be in the middle of what we hoped would be a repeating sunset show — the day before we had seen numerous mobular rays leaping spectacularly out of the water.

As we sipped our gin and tonics, patiently waiting for the rays to reappear, a much smaller, more traditional wooden fishing boat, maybe thirty feet long with a half dozen locals aboard chugged by, a short distance away.  The guys on deck offered friendly waves as they passed.

Just as the sun was setting, the boat went by once again, passing between us and the sun in dramatic fashion, eventually stopping upwind of us, a thousand feet or so in front of Exit.  They looked to be pretty much right next to the larger ferry tied to the mooring.

Largely unsuccessful in our attempt to crash the leaping ray sunset show, which turned out not to be the regularly scheduled event we had hoped for, we eventually returned to Exit.

Hours later, though the sun had set long ago, the night’s darkness was still being kept at bay both by the illumination from a near full moon overhead as well as two piercing floodlights facing astern on the deck of the larger ferry boat sitting on the mooring in front of us.

There wasn’t more than ten knots of wind.  However, during the period of highest tidal exchange, we could see anywhere from one to two knots of current.

At 10pm, Kris was sound asleep and I was sitting at the laptop.  A particularly quiet night.  The only sound at all was a dull whir from the fan on the wall… specifically switched to the low setting to try to keep from waking up Kris.  With all the recent activities and drama, a sound night’s sleep had been hard to come by.  It seemed overdue.

No din of noise from a nearby city.  

No whining outboard engines from passing boat traffic.

No whistling wind whipping through the rigging.

No waves or swell slapping against the hull.

Just the constant whir of a small fan inside and steady hypnotic rhythmic background rumble of distant surf.

Without any warning, a thunderous, resounding BANG rang out.  It was not just nearby.  It was resonating through the hull of Exit.  We felt it almost as much as we heard it.

A fucking impact.  We had just hit something… hard

Kris bolted upright like a catapult, instantly awake and yelled out, “What the fuck?”

I scrambled from the settee reaching for our big torch, not so much answering her question as echoing the same three words, “What the fuck?”

Had we run aground?  It sure as hell sounded and felt like it.

The next few moments became mostly a blur.

Clamoring up into the cockpit, I looked to the left and saw what appeared to be a wooden boat alongside of us facing the same direction as us, but moving backwards.  

“What the fuck?”  I continued to asked frantically, trying to put the pieces together. 

Only a few feet away, I could make out more and more details as the boat alongside us slid further and further astern, almost sheering off the solar panel which extended horizontally from our stern railing as it drifted backwards.  I could only imagine what I was hearing from the other boat was the Spanish equivalent of “What the fuck?”

It quickly became apparent that my initial fear that we had either dragged or swung erratically into the nearby rocks was not quite accurate.

There had most certainly been an impact; only something had hit us.  

The other boat’s engine fired up with a cough, and its reverse momentum slowly stopped.   As it began to pull forward, about twenty feet off our starboard side, loud conversation continued among the crew.

I went forward to the bow and tried to make a quick damage assessment.  We still had absolutely no idea where we had been struck, exactly what had happened, or if we were damaged. 

As much as I looked, all I could see was what appeared to be a small scuff, not longer than six inches, approximately halfway between the bow roller and waterline, just slightly to starboard from dead on to our bow.  In fact, it looked more like a tiny spot where paint had been deposited on our aluminum hull rather than a scratch that actually took something off.

The boat next to us seemed to be the same smaller wooden fishing boat that had anchored in front of us earlier.  The faces aboard appeared just as startled, confused , and sleepy as ours.

There didn’t appear to be any sense of malice or anger.  Just an equal lack of comprehension. 

I still couldn’t locate any point on our boat that matched the intensity of the collision sound we heard inside Exit.  Even with a wooden boat on the other end, it would seem we should have more visible evidence of the impact we experienced. 

Certainly more than what amounted to a paint scuff.

Best I could guess at that point was that the brunt of the impact from the fishing boat must have been taken on our anchor chain hanging down, right under the bow roller.  It would help to explain why we could only find a tiny scuff on our hull.  Yet, my recollection was the sound of them hitting us seemed well more solid and resonated far more deeply than one would expect from an impact with our anchor chain.

Slowly, the wooden fishing boat crept forward, its outboard chugging away as it angled around in front of our bow.

Only one floodlight was now illuminated on the steel ferry still tied off to the mooring, but it was enough to confirm the boat lit up between us was definitely the same boat that had anchored a thousand feet in front of us just before sunset. 

The same flood light we could see them with should have made us easily visible to anyone else, as well.  That, and our mast light… and lights on inside the salon.  Unless they hadn’t been looking.  Which would be the case if they were all asleep.

Eventually it became apparent that the wooden fishing boat which had just collided with us was resetting their anchor in just about the same spot it had been before.  Pretty soon it shut off its engine and all was quiet again.

Whatever damage they had incurred, they didn’t seem to be sinking.

As far as we could tell, we were just the victims of a Hit and Sit accident [rim shot here].

With our heart rates eventually slowing and our adrenaline levels beginning to drop, amazingly after some time we were finally able to drift back to sleep.

By first light the steel ferry was gone.   The wooden fishing boat was gone as well.   They must have left just before sunrise.

The light of a new day allowed us a closer inspection of Exit, which revealed a previously unseen second point of impact on our hull – at the top edge of the toe rail, directly above the first mark we found.  However, it too was nothing more than a paint scuff.

Ultimately, we pieced together a storyline which seemed to represent the most likely sequence of events that took place the previous night.

During the wee hours of the morning with everyone on the wooden fishing boat sound asleep, a ripping current brought on by the changing tide probably caused them to start dragging, which nobody realized.  They would have drifted straight down onto us, more than likely broadside in the current.  Based upon the height and color of the scuffs on Exit, it must have been the prow of their boat that struck us, causing their boat to spin around and drift backward alongside us.  

The impact they felt on their boat must have been even more jarring than what we experienced.  What only later occurred to us, was that their perspective, as they first looked out still half asleep, would have been of us alongside them appearing to move forward instead of them drifting backwards.  They would have initially thought they were still stationary at anchor and had just been sideswiped by a moving boat – us.   After they had started their engine and were moving, the discussion we heard must actually have been them sorting that fact out amongst themselves.

It could have gone much worse.

In retrospect, the initial confusion on both sides may actually have helped to freeze the moment with mutual indecision, effectively defusing a situation that could have become quite volatile.

In the end, there appeared to be more confusion than damage.

No blood, no foul.

The guy in charge of setting the anchor on the fishing boat would probably be getting shit for quite some time.

Big noise.  No damage.

Aluminum boat (aluminium… sorry).

Thanks Garcia.

January 19, 2022

Following a fitful and rather unsettled night’s sleep tied up to one of the big mooring balls in Gatun Lake, we were ready to depart as soon as Victor and the other boats’ advisors arrived on the pilot boat.

Not only had we been tied alongside the mooring instead of swinging from a line attached to it, we had also shared the ball with the catamaran S/V Second Set.  For some reason, the combination had resulted in us orienting beam on to the upwind side and being pushed against the mooring ball all night while chop generated from the wind slapped loudly against the side of the hull.  Not very conducive to a good night sleep.

After sorting through the near disaster of losing half our required line handlers only hours before our scheduled commencement of the crossing, day one of our Panama Canal transit had gone without a hitch once we were actually out of Shelter Bay Marina.  Gatun Lake was only ten miles into the forty four mile journey, less than a quarter of the total distance we had to travel to reach the Pacific Ocean, but we now had the experience and understood the process of rafting up the boats together as well as the procedures for actually going through the locks.

Today would bring us all the way to the other side of the continent and the shores of a new ocean.

Our first time in the Pacific aboard Exit.  Her first time in the Pacific, ever.

The three chambers of Gatun Locks which we had passed through on day one had raised the boats eighty four feet from the elevation of the Atlantic to Gatun Lake.  The lake, created during the Panama Canal’s original construction by damming the Chagres River, is huge, although only a thousand foot wide marked channel cutting through it is used by all the vessels transiting the Canal. 

The schedule on day two required motoring four to five hours to reach the other locks.  The expanse of Gatun Lake would slowly begin to constrict until both directions of boat traffic would be passing through a section of the Canal not more than six to seven hundred feet wide.

Technically, the passage is still part of the Rio Chagres,  In places along the Canal, the banks look similar to the same uninhabited and pristine river we had anchored in previously.  Other areas along the way look more like the shore of an industrial canal you would expect.

Upon reaching Pedro Miguel Lock, we would once again have to raft up with the other two sailboats and proceed through the single lock.  However, on this side, we would be positioned in front of the cargo ship sharing the chamber with us which made it imperative that we arrive ahead of the cargo ship… they would not wait.  Once through the lock, the three boats would remain rafted together during the one mile stretch separating Pedro Miguel Lock from the two chambers of Miraflores Locks, which lower the boats back down to sea level.  

Once through the final pair of locks at Miraflores, only a couple of miles remain before passing under the Bridge of the Americas, a suspension bridge which, for us, will serve as an impressive landmark heralding the prodigious achievement of having arrived at the Pacific Ocean. 

---

Strangely, a quite different achievement of note occurred right at the onset of our second day in the Panama Canal. It came and went completely unnoticed… eleven thousand nautical miles travelled aboard S/V Exit.

With so much going on just before we left Shelter Bay Marina, especially the chaos on the morning of our departure, I had failed to notice we were starting our transit only seventeen miles shy of the 11K milestone.

The morning sun was just starting to peak over the trees as we got underway shortly after 6am on day two.  We were motoring at about 500 rpms higher than we typically run our Perkins engine.  With around thirty miles to Pedro Miguel Lock, we needed to make good time to assure we arrived well before the ship that would be directly behind us inside the lock.  Once we got there, we would need enough time to get the three sailboats rafted together again as well.

We had the benefit of one knot of current in our favor, so after an hour we were happy to have made good on over seven miles.  All was good.  The engine temperature gauge was indicating we were running just a little bit hot, but everything seemed fine.

Though it didn’t register at the time, it must have been almost that exact moment that we surpassed eleven thousand nautical miles.

However, no bells and party whistles sounded to commemorate the event.  

Instead, it was the grating and panic inducing sound of a harsh, loud buzzer.  It pierced through the droning noise of the diesel engine, causing everyone to freeze and look questioningly at the helms person… me.

Fuck.

An alarm.

One of the alarms on the Perkins instrument panel.

Fuck.

Kris looked at the panel and indicated it was the oil pressure alarm.

Fuck.

As Kris scrambled behind the wheel, I climbed below and removed the companionway steps, exposing the engine.  We shut the engine off to make sure it didn’t burn up completely if there was, in fact, no oil pressure.  A cursory inspection revealed that no engine oil appeared to be leaking and the level on the dipstick read full.  

Good, but confusing.

We didn’t even have a spare oil pump aboard – which on one hand made sense because that would be a pretty unlikely part to fail; yet, on the other hand, made me nervous because it seems to almost always be the part you don’t have a spare for that does fail.

Regardless, something needed to be done now.

We were still barely drifting forward under momentum; any slower and we would lose steering control.  We were also still in the channel.  There were not a lot of options.

Panama Canal Authority regulations absolutely prohibit using sails while underway, under threat of heavy fines.  Given an emergency situation, that might be arguable.  However, it was a moot point since, at the moment, there was no wind at all.  

We needed to get to the nearest marker buoy, which we could temporarily tie up to, so a next step could be determined.  It was less than a thousand feet away, but we would never coast that far and the current which had previously assisted us now appeared to be gone as well.  Getting the dinghy down off the davit to help tow us would take too long.

There seemed like only one option.

I started the Perkins.  The oil pressure light lit up and the alarm buzzer immediately began whining.

Kris carefully eased Exit into gear and started us moving forward at just over idle speed.  We arrived at the marker buoy in less than two minutes and shut down the engine as soon as we were tied on.  The damn alarm buzzer went silent with the turn of the key.

Where we sat now, the outlook was grim.

If we could not get underway, the entire rest of the crossing would be cancelled and we’d be screwed.  The advisor and line handlers would be picked up by a pilot boat, probably at no small expense.  Exit would have to be towed out, probably at no small expense.  And we wouldn’t be towed the remaining thirty miles to the Pacific side of the Canal; it would be the shorter route back to Colon, right where we started.  There could be fines imposed for our infractions.  We’d have to start the whole transit process over.  Certainly another two grand.  Not to mention, back in the marina… again.  Sorting another repair.

Fuck.

A total calamity.

After about ten minutes, I still couldn’t find anything out of sorts anywhere on the engine.  The temperature gauge was reading hot by about twenty degrees Fahrenheit and the expansion tank for the coolant was full but that was it.  Nothing at all that I could see would be triggering an oil pressure alarm.  I had also noticed that, even after we restarted the engine and motored for the short period, there were no noises coming from the engine that would hint at any lubrication problems.   Nothing at all.

Even with my limited diesel mechanic experience, I felt certain the alarm had been sounding long enough that, had there truly been no oil pressure, I would have noticed some kind of change in sound with the engine running.  I couldn’t be sure, but it started to feel more like a sensor issue to me, possibly triggered by the higher operating temperature.

If we stopped here and it turned out only to be a bad sensor, it will have cost us thousands of dollars.  If I was wrong and we kept going, the engine would burn up and eventually seize completely, end of story.  Add at least ten thousand dollars more onto the previous equation.

Victor heard me out and then politely reminded me of the distinction in title between “Captain”versus “Advisor”. 

Your boat, your decision.

I took a deep breath, clenched my teeth, turned the key and pushed the start button.  The Perkins fired right up.  

The oil pressure buzzer was silent.

The oil pressure light remained off.

The temperature gauge indicated a drop of ten degrees.

I monitored the engine for a few minutes more and nothing changed.  The temperature was returning to normal.  Everything was running just fine.  Five more minutes and I started to feel more confident.  

We untied from the marker buoy, and started moving again.  Towards the Pacific.

Ten minutes later it was as though the alarm had never triggered at all.  We maintained five knots while running the engine at no higher than two thousand rpms, just to be sure.  During the rest of our transit, thankfully the Perkins ran perfectly. 

This was now our second near emergency barely avoided in Gatun Lake in only twenty four hours… holy shit.

As we continued our forward progress and persisting thoughts of recurring Perkins problems slowly drifted further and further into the back recesses of my mind, the expanse of Gatun Lake gradually gave way to scattered mangrove islets which slowly closed in around us.  Eventually the network of mangroves surrounding the channel gave way to more solid land.   The green and red marker buoys, which to this point had appeared to plot a rather arbitrary route through an open waterway with a fairly consistent thousand foot width, now bottlenecked into a channel only five hundred to seven hundred feet wide.  

On more than one occasion we had to stop and wait for a mega-sized super ship to pass in the opposite direction because it needed the entire width of the channel to navigate around a bend.  

Looking beyond the banks on either side of the channel we were in, I was perplexed at times by what I saw.  I had expected it to be a very gritty looking variation on a typical port construction of concrete and steel.  Noisy and busy.  While our surroundings varied considerably, often they were a landscape indistinguishable from some of the more remote and isolated rivers we’ve been on.  Most of the developed areas occupied by buildings of any sort looked more like small communities, certainly not the global hub of shipping traffic.  Only the locks themselves had any real industrial flavor. 

It often made the gargantuan cargo ships and tankers seem entirely out of place… surreal.

---

We had been motoring nearly five hours when we saw the Centennial Bridge appear on the horizon, signaling the approach of San Pedro Lock just beyond  The Perkins engine soldiered on indifferently, seeming to have long forgotten about any previous oil pressure alarms, once again happy to spin the propeller indefinitely, as long as it was being fed copious amounts of diesel.

As we prepared to pass under the Centennial Bridge, we noticed a large crocodile sunning itself on a big rock along the nearby shore.  It didn’t move the entire time we were  passing by.  More than once, we had been told crocodiles are the only ones that don’t have to pay to use the Panama Canal.  Apparently they are also the only ones not on a tight schedule going through the Canal.

With the Centennial Bridge behind us, Exit, Second Set, and Swiss Lady all slowed and converged to repeat the complex sequence of choreographed maneuvers required to perform the intricate, and intimate, rafting dance we had learned the day before.  

A bit of wind again.  A bit of current again.  Nothing obnoxious.  

Most importantly, twenty one people on all three boats all paying attention and all helping to do what was needed.  

While an uncontrollable mishap inside the locks, like the nightmare situation our advisor had witnessed one week earlier, certainly had the potential to be the most cataclysmic in scope, the rafting process again appeared to me to be one of the most risky aspects of the transit for a potential calamity of epic proportions.  

Fortunately, the three boat dance resulted in no stepped on toes nor crushed hulls and, in short order, we were once again rafted together with all lines secured motoring into the entrance of San Pedro Lock.

Less than ten years ago, the Canal Authority completed construction on a bigger set of locks that was added to accommodate the newer generation of cargo ships so large they couldn’t physically fit into the original locks. The new locks require so much water, they had to engineer a recycling method for the water used into the design. Only the largest of the biggest ships are allowed to even use those locks.

For everyone else, there are two locks side by side that operate independently of each other, separated by a very narrow wall. Obviously, it is of the utmost importance that boats enter the correct lock.

With the volume of shipping traffic and the size of the ships involved, it would be natural to assume there must be a relatively failsafe system in place to assure that vessels actually get into the correct lock they have been assigned.

Natural to assume… but incorrect.

For us, it was the source of quite an extended laugh. We joked that it looked more like a cardboard cutout pointing to a garage sale. At night, lit up, probably more likely to remind you of something to be found alongside a dark highway directing drivers to a cheap motel or greasy diner.

Fortunately, we opted for the correct lock entrance. Our temporarily tri-masted raft of sailboats carefully proceeded down the corridor and entered Pedro Miguel Lock.

Just like the day before, lock workers cast lines tied off with hefty monkey fists over to the boats which, in turn, were tied to our own lines and then hauled back to the lock walls. After being “walked” by the lock workers into position inside the lock chamber the lines were secured.

The one hundred ten foot wide by a thousand foot long chamber still had a lot of space in it… for now.

Almost everything went exactly as it did before, procedurally. Like a well-oiled hundred year old machine. Except today we were first in the chamber with the ship behind us. I never got a clarification why, but assumed it had something to do with the difference of going up versus down in the lock and how that tied in with safety.

A minor detail as far as front or back position. However, also a very intimidating detail. Pulling up behind a six hundred foot tanker which looms over you is menacing enough. Watching one pull up behind you can be absolutely terrifying.

In position and secure, we awaited the arrival of the ship that would consume the entire rest of the chamber. Watching it approach, a number of things occurred to me.

It’s hard to capture just how small and insignificant we seemed compared to the massive ship creeping up behind us. It’s even harder to capture how small and insignificant that ship seemed compared to the even bigger one in the lock so close beside us.

Seeing the ships actually under the control of the small railcars was in some ways reassuring while simultaneously being more than a bit disconcerting.

Before long, the ship behind us was in place and our attention shifted from behind us to all around us.

As the water inside the lock is released and the lock level begins to drop, it is critical for the line handlers aboard the boats to monitor and adjust the tension on the lines. Not enough tension and the boats can drift into the cement walls. Even worse, if the line tension is not released, the raft of boats starts listing from the hung up line which then has to be cut. Ugly. Dangerous.

Surprisingly easy to have happen I would suspect, given how difficult it is to perceive the changing water level. If you actually watch the waterline, you can follow the vertical movement along the surface of the lock walls. If you get distracted, it doesn’t take long to be startled by how tall the walls have gotten.

Ever so slowly, the water level continued to drop, until eventually it stopped. Only slightly more perceivable, the lock’s enormous gate, which our position the day before had only allowed us to view closing, began to open in front of us.

A tiny gap in the center grew wider and wider, until eventually the two halves split completely apart and stopped flush into recessed spaces on opposite walls.

Revealed on the other side was Miraflores Lake, a small body of water separating the single lock of Pedro Miguel from the two final locks at Miraflores.

Panama Canal Authority time lapse camera footage at Pedro Manuel Lock:

Given how much effort is involved in rafting the three sailboats together, it made sense that we would not separate to travel the one mile distance between Pedro Miguel Lock and Miraflores Locks.

Approaching Miraflores Locks, the corridor looked almost identical.

The line handlers on the lock walls went through exactly same process as each lock before.

We crept forward until the gates were directly before us. With the lock full of water, we could barely peer over the top. Only a glimpse of the world that awaited just beyond.

To the right was a large white building with the words Miraflores Locks painted on the outside. Possibly a control station. The building to the left initially appeared more like a car parking structure; eventually I realized I must be looking at a tourist center of some sort.

What gave it away most were probably all the tourists.

By the look of the large crowd, there was going to be an epic show of some sort.

Apparently, us.

Center stage.

After a brief chance for the crowd to properly idolize and offer adulation to those taking the stage (or maybe it was just awaiting the ship behind us getting into position), it was showtime.

In an epic finale of dramatic flourish, our Panama Canal transit reached its stupendous climax in front of throngs of onlookers. With a feeling of electricity in the air and a sea of expectant faces watching from above – someone in an unseen room threw a switch.

And nothing happened.

Except somewhere below us, water began to slowly drain from lock, and at a nearly imperceivable rate we were lowered.

We were expecting it. We already knew how it would play out. After all, we had done this before. Experienced salts, eh?

For those in the nose bleed section above, probably more used to watching reality tv show dramas unfold, one can only imagine it would have held all the interest of watching paint dry.

Panama Canal Authority time lapse camera footage at Miraflores Locks:

For us, it was incredibly exciting.

Due to the extreme tidal variations of the Pacific Ocean (twelve feet at Panama City compared to one foot at Colon on the Atlantic side), the gates of the Miraflores Lock are the Canal’s tallest and the lower chamber is the highest in the system.

Once the double gates opened fully, we were looking into the final lock separating us from the Pacific.

We entered the last lock.

Inside the lock, it was one last case of deja vu.

With the second lock at Miraflores having completed its task of lowering us to sea level, we watched once again as the colossal gate silently and slowly opened.

However, this time looking out, we were looking at the West Coast of the Americas.

The scope of everything was still sinking in.

Emerging from the final lock of the Panama Canal, the three sailboats slowed, stopped, and separated from each other.

Freed from the cumbersome and awkward raft of other boats, Exit once again could begin making forward progress.

The homestretch.

Only two nautical miles remain before we reach the long awaited landmark that heralds our arrival to the Pacific Ocean – the Bridge of the Americas.

Approaching the bridge, there is plenty of time to smile; but it will take far longer for everything to fully sink in.

Moments later the Bridge of the Americas passes a thousand feet above our heads.

Considering the natural high of the moment, I found myself floating enough I might have needed to duck my head had the bridge been any lower.

Immediately beyond the bridge, just outside the Canal markers, lies the mooring field for the Balboa Yacht Club, where we dropped off Victor, our most competent and laid back advisor as well our outstanding line handlers Mario, Jamir, Jorge, and Julia.

We stayed on the mooring for a night.

The following morning we woke up on the Pacific Ocean.

Panama Canal Transit – Day 2

January 18, 2022

…three cleats were torn out of the boat and one of the lines actually snapped. The monohull was slammed into the cement wall of the Canal lock after careening off the catamaran it was rafted up with.

Not the kind of story you want to hear just before commencing on your first Panama Canal transit aboard your own sailboat.

I remember in elementary school, just prior to walking onstage with the rest of my class to sing in our dreaded Christmas concert, being warned by the teacher not to lock your knees while you stand on the bleachers as it can cause you to pass out. At the time, this seemed like the words of a wise and concerned person. Throughout the concert I consciously reminded myself to keep my knees slightly bent.

I also remember, later in high school, just prior to giving a speech in front of all my classmates, being warned by a classmate that it was possible to become so nervous that you could actually puke right in front of everyone, mid sentence. At the time, this seemed like the words of a complete asshole. Throughout the speech I subconsciously reminded myself I might throw up at any moment.

Now, as I walk down E Dock of the well familiar Shelter Bay Marina towards slip number forty-eight in which Exit sits quietly, I struggle to decide two things: 1] whether or not to pass on to Kris the ridiculous story I have just been told and, 2] whether or not the person I just spoke with qualifies more as wise and concerned or a complete asshole.

We are only days away from our own first transit of the Panama Canal and one of the other people on E Dock has just stopped me and asked if I heard about the accident concerning two boats transiting the Canal? No.

A Shelter Bay staff had just relayed a story to him concerning two sailboats which had departed from Shelter Bay Marina a week ago transiting the Panama Canal, one a catamaran and one a monohull. The two sailboats were rafted together inside one of the Canal locks with lines running up to the top of the lock walls, when apparently the massive cargo ship just in front of them gunned its engines too hard as it began to move forward out of the lock, sending a fifteen knot wave of prop wash into the tiny sailboats. The resulting maelstrom actually snapped one of the four lines and ripped three cleats completely out of one of the boats, sending the monohull careening first into the catamaran and then ultimately smashing it up against the cement wall of the lock.

Thanks for that… good to know.

---

The Panama Canal had become somewhat of a nemesis for us. It was the last thing still separating Exit from an entirely new world, and seemingly endless possibilities… the Pacific Ocean.

We had been in the Canal’s proximity approaching two years now, yet we hadn’t been able to utilize the forty five mile passage connecting the two oceans.

Pandemic…

Repairs…

Parts…

Weather…

There always seemed to be something standing between us and a clear passage.

Not to mention the ever-present population of massive cargo ships and intimidating lock systems occupying the Canal itself… factors that would typically warrant our absolute avoidance.

Now, after all of the experiences aboard Exit – nearly five years and eleven thousand nautical miles – we finally found ourselves poised to transit the Panama Canal and reach the Pacific Ocean.

Having committed to the final process of physically measuring the boat and being assessed by the Panama Canal Authority, as well as having paid over two thousand dollars in fees, we were given a sixty day authorization to schedule the actual transit date.

Still, the one absolute nearly five years and eleven thousand miles aboard Exit had taught us was that schedules set in stone are the most fragile.

Despite our deadline, we had decided we were not willing to cross to the Pacific without our genoa furler in working order, and that ended up taking longer than two months to sort out. Fortunately, we didn’t incur extra costs (or get bumped altogether) when we exceeded the sixty day limit set forth by the Canal Authority policy.

Finally, the stars aligned and the date was set. January 17 departing Shelter Bay Marina; arriving in Panama City January 18. The transit would last two days.

The Panama Canal is blah…blah…blah. Way too much to go into. For background…

Google? Alexa? Hit it.

Otherwise read on. [And now, back to our pre-recorded show…]

---

It was now only days before our scheduled departure.

Exit was ready. She was fully provisioned. Diesel tanks full. Petrol tanks full. Propane tanks full. Water tanks full. We had just learned we were scheduled to transit with another monohull currently in the marina – S/V Swiss Lady. We hadn’t met them.

Despite everything being in place, we couldn’t escape the anxiety. Excitement and fear… an old friendship.

Kris’ stress levels were also through the roof regarding our culinary requirements. Never before had we even had five other people aboard Exit at once, much less had to feed them. During a passage. Through the Panama Canal. Amongst gigantic cargo ships. What’s to stress about?

Now, as I’m walking along the dock back to the boat, one of the other boat owners has stopped me and told me this crazy story of mayhem and chaos in the Canal. No advice, like you would expect from a wise or concerned person. Just stirring things up… like you might expect from more of an asshole.

Perhaps foolishly, I choose to tell Kris the story. She’s not impressed.

At least we know our cleats won’t pull out.

Of the four line handlers required to be aboard during our transit through the Canal, two are being provided by the agent we have been using to arrange all the transit logistics. We are providing the other two.

Juan, a Colombian we had befriended living on his own sailboat in the marina back in June, had already offered to assist us. He had experience transiting many times so we took him up on his offer. When we decided to get a fourth outside line handler to further take some of the workload off us, instead of me filling that role, Juan recommended one of his friends who also had experience.

Three days before our scheduled transit date, Juan indicated casually that his stomach was bothering him a bit.

A day later, he indicated he had started taking some pills.

On the day before we were to depart, we saw him outside his boat. He said he was starting to feel much better… no problem.

Everything was a go.

We couldn’t have been more nervous.

Then, a message from the agent.

The Panama Canal Authority has just informed us that the time of your scheduled transit has been changed. Due to a shortage of Canal Advisors, your transit is being delayed by one day.

Now not only a Tuesday departure; also the two monohulls, Exit and Swiss Lady were being teamed up with the catamaran – Second Set. We had only briefly met the couple aboard Swiss Lady. We already knew Second Set well. This would definitely simplify things for us. A cat between the two “leaners” would make maneuvering much easier… though Second Set might have other thoughts on the matter. Their job just got much more difficult.

Regarding the one day delay… come on… of course. It’s a boat. Really, there is no such thing as a delay of one day. In the rare event things actually go according to schedule, it should be referred to as ahead of schedule by at least a day.

As it turned out, the delay was a blessing in disguise. What were becoming debilitating knots in our stomachs now had a twenty four hour opportunity to unwind. The last few things we didn’t get around to could now be sorted out the following day. We could actually enjoy a pool day with some relaxing beverages.

We didn’t see Juan at all during the course of the entire day.

Unfortunately, as we felt the knots in our stomachs loosening, Juan was feeling his tighten.

By Tuesday morning, January 18, we were rearing to get moving. Now, any extra time would only make for antsy jitters and unproductive nervousness.

However, during a walk down the dock, Kris spotted Juan in the distance leaning up against a wall, appearing as though he was about to keel over. When we both returned, Juan was emerging from his boat, barely able to stand. He looked to be in excruciating pain.

Clutching his stomach, he said through a grimace he had to get to a hospital. His friend said he needed to go along but he’d be back. One of the marina staff took Juan by the arm and nearly carried him to one of the parked cars.

We felt horrible for Juan. He looked absolutely miserable. He was not going to be doing anything anytime soon. We certainly couldn’t blame Juan’s friend for accompanying him to the hospital. However, we also couldn’t count on his return before noon.

Suddenly, just like that, with less than three hours remaining before we needed to cast off the dock lines and depart the marina in order to follow a tight schedule dictated by the Panama Canal authorities, we were short two line handlers.

Technically, we were only short one. I could fill one of the roles. But one person short was enough to derail everything. To be permitted to transit, each of the three vessels was required to have an outside advisor, full time helms person, and four line handlers. Without those, we would not be allowed to proceed. There was no negotiating.

A quick text message exchange determined that it was too late for our agent to secure any additional line handlers…he said we were shit out of luck.

A frantic trip to the marina office attracted the attention of the marina manager, Juan Jo, who immediately sent out word via Facebook, Messenger, and VHF. He started making phone calls.

Then, projecting all the theatric flourish of a magician performing his final trick, Juan Jo pulled two rabbits out of a Panama hat. With less than two hours remaining until our deadline, on what seemed like a whim, he walked us from his office to the end of D Dock and knocked on the hull of a sailboat tied off to the “T” on the end of the dock. After a short pause, a deck hatch towards the bow lifted and two bleary eyed people poked their heads out.

Jorge, originally from Chile, and Julia, originally from Poland, had just arrived on Jorge’s father’s sailboat from an offshore passage the day before and were still quite disoriented. We had obviously just woken them up.

Juan Jo quickly explained the situation to them in rapid fire Spanish.

Amazingly, they asked for ten minutes to talk it over.

We returned to Exit still dazed and confused. This seemed like a long shot. There was no way they’d want to leap headlong into this with such short notice. Too much going on…

After ten minutes they walked up to Exit.

They had planned to transit the Canal themselves in short order. This would be a great experience. They loved the idea of spending time aboard a Garcia sailboat. They wanted to help out. They could be ready and aboard in one hour.

Huh?

Suddenly, just like that, with the clock ticking down to its final moments, we were back in business.

Kris had painstakingly and brilliantly researched, stocked, and sorted all of the complicated and logistically difficult food requirements for our transit. The morning crisis had all but imploded many of her final food preparations; but, hey… at least we still needed the food. No choice. We’d simply have to roll with it.

There were only minutes remaining before we cast off our lines when learned that Juan was currently in emergency surgery.

His appendix.

Shit.

Had we actually left on schedule the day before, we would have ended up with a potentially life threatening medical emergency aboard Exit while on Gatun Lake mid-transit through the Panama Canal. An emergency evacuation would have been an absolute nightmare. The whole situation unfolding in that semi-remote location overnight would have been unimaginably fucked up and stressful.

Shit.

Most of the time I find Murphy’s Law reigns supreme. This was one of those instances when things really seemed to happen for a reason.

Call it luck or fate… sometimes you simply have to smile when it goes your way.

In this instance, the Canal Authority’s scheduling delay was the best thing that could have happened to us. Knowing a bad situation could have been far worse, all we could do now was hope Juan’s surgery went well.

---

Shortly past noon, with five people standing on deck in addition to the two marina staff standing on the dock, Exit backed out of the slip, reversing her direction one hundred eighty degrees in a spring line maneuver that we had performed flawlessly six months prior with only one person on deck and two on the dock.

This time… we can only hope the clusterfuck that ensued was not caught on video. We eventually ended up in the right direction where we needed to be; but by no means was it textbook, or even slightly pretty. With five more knots of wind, it could have been a catastrophic disaster.

Yikes. A bit of an embarrassing start. Unforced errors would not bode well inside the Canal.

Moments later we had set our anchor just outside Shelter Bay Marina in an area known as The Flats. Shortly after that, a pilot boat raced toward us, carrying our advisor. With brutally intimidating aggression and flawless precision, the pilot boat captain roared in, briefly stopped less than a foot from our boat in quite choppy seas, allowing the advisor to deftly step from the bow of the pilot boat onto our deck, then backed quickly away, before I could fully process how disastrous, that too, could have been with less skilled people.

We currently had more people on Exit than had ever been since we first climbed aboard. The official Panama Canal Authority advisor, Victor (a required presence responsible only for giving advice – not piloting the vessel); the two line handlers provided by the agent, Mario and Jamir; the two volunteers who had saved our asses, Jorge and Julia; as well as Kris and myself.

Our initial task was getting under the Atlantic Bridge as expeditiously as possible so all three boats could rendezvous just before the first set of locks. The clouds above threatened to unleash a deluge which would have made keeping seven people dry an impossible task. Thankfully, the threats never amounted to more than a few brief sprinkles.

At this point we were only an hour into the adventure and already we would have to accomplish what would seem to us to be the most complicated, stressful, and risky undertaking of the entire transit. It was the task we, on one hand, had the most control over and yet, at the same time, relied the most on everyone aboard all three boats to coordinate as an overall effort without fucking anything up. If there was an issue, it would not be because of a cargo ship or a lock worker.

While still freely adrift in the channel, all three boats had to raft up together, securely enough to be able to move as a single unit into and out of each of the locks.

With a bit of discussion and practice, it seemed possible to coordinate the procedures, communications, and assignments necessary to try to attempt this without a high risk of causing damage or injury to any of the three vessels or twenty one people involved.

Except… there would be no practicing and very little discussion:

Second Set would approach Exit which would be facing into the wind idling in neutral. Helm commands for all boats would be issued by the cat’s advisor and relayed through the other vessels’ respective advisors. With Second Set alongside Exit, fenders in place, bow and stern lines secure, and spring lines run and secured – Swiss Lady would approach the two rafted boats and repeat the process. Once the boats were nested together, primary control of navigation would be the catamaran’s responsibility with the other boats providing supplemental propeller thrust.

Oh, ya… and we’ll also have to take into account the one to two knots of surface current… and the fifteen knots of wind… and don’t forget to keep an eye out for any other potential boat traffic.

Piece of cake.

The advisors knew exactly what was going on. They did this for a living. Half the line handlers knew exactly what was going on. They did this for a living. For everyone else, it was imperative to pay attention and not screw anything up. A mistake could result not only in a very expensive collision, but also potentially an amputation or drowning.

To everyone’s credit, the entire process went remarkably smoothly. In particular, the individual advisors and helms people did an amazing job of executing an extremely difficult series of maneuvers in far less than perfect conditions. Hats off to Kris on that one.

Personally, I felt the number of moments of sheer terror were kept to a very reasonable minimum. Well done.

With both monohulls nested securely on either side of the catamaran, the now unwieldy flotilla resumed its course, carefully maneuvering toward the first set of locks.

Entering Gatun Locks, line handlers on both sides of the cement walls throw lines weighted on the end with heavy knots called monkey fists to the boats.

With a fore and aft line on either side of the lock, four in all, the lock line handlers begin walking the rafted boats into the lock chamber.

As we approach the first of three chambers that make up Gatun Locks, the unforgiving-looking cement walls on either side begin to tower upward. Railroad tracks can be seen running parallel along the wall that carry the small rail cars which cable themselves to the large cargo ships and actually tow them into the lock chambers.

Directly in front of us, at first looking deceptively small only because of the sheer size of the canal lock surrounding it, quietly awaits “Ensemble”. In actuality, it is a massive six hundred foot long chemical/oil tanker ship that will be sharing the lock with us, sitting just in front of us.

Behind the prop of a cargo ship is not a comfortable place to be, period. Ever.

Less than an hour ago, as we were approaching the Atlantic Bridge, Jorge had asked our advisor about the horror story I had been told in the marina.

To our dismay, Victor confirmed that the story was actually true!

Not only that; he went on to reveal that, in fact, he was the very advisor aboard the catamaran that day.

It was a shit show, according to the man that was there. However, Victor also pointed out two important contributing factors were 1) the monohull rafted up to the cat was in horrible condition and 2) the cargo ship in front had just changed pilots, and the new pilot had been given an incomplete update which failed to include any information regarding other vessels sharing the lock chamber.

Disconcerting when you are now sitting behind a cargo ship in the lock. You hope the pilot in front of you has been well briefed.

Surreal is an understatement.

As we enter the first chamber of Gatun Locks, the line handlers standing on the lock walls cast light lines meant to be attached to the heavier lines we have aboard which are then pulled back across the water. The line handlers on the walls “walk” the rafted boats through the chamber and secure the lines to huge bollards along the lock walls once the boats are in place. Heavy knots known as monkey fists give the light lines enough weight to be thrown the distance. You do not want to be hit by one of these. In fact, we were warned in advance to cover solar panels and hatches accordingly.

Some stories had gone so far as to imply instances in which lock workers throwing lines actually appeared to make an effort to target solar panels. This seemed far fetched, though still a bit unsettling.

The giant lock gates can be seen, flush against the lock walls where they rest while in open position.

Tracks for a small railcar system that helps guide, tow, and physically control the big ships via steel cables can be seen running alongside the lock walls. Our raft of boats, by comparison, had to carefully maneuver itself from chamber to chamber.

With the three rafted sailboats finally in place directly behind the behemoth tanker ship towering menacingly above our bows, and all the lines properly secured, the medieval looking gates behind us slowly start closing. Despite the fact that they are enormous in scale, meant to withstand the force of millions of gallons of water, they move deceptively smoothly and in absolute silence. Without watching them, it is hard to notice they are even moving.

With an exquisite delicacy of mechanical balance, the two massive gates pivot inwards, silently arcing towards each other in a perfectly mirrored symmetry. The gap between them grows smaller and smaller at an almost imperceivable rate. Finally, the last sliver of light separating the two gates disappears as they close completely.

Nearly as subtle as the gate movement, the level of water in the lock begins to rise.

It can’t be felt.. only seen as the waterline creeps vertically up the walls of the lock chamber.

Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of all was exactly how quiet the entire process was. No massive noises from the ship in front of us. No massive noises from the lock itself. I expected the industrial din of a port and heard almost nothing.

Also surprising was the lack of any sense of motion inside the locks with the water exchange. Crazy whirlpools or washing machine effects from the ridiculous amount of water entering the lock never materialized. Turbulent eddies and roiling, churning currents caused by wash from the colossal prop on the ship in front of us never happened. It felt more like a filling bathtub without the turbulence from a faucet.

One of the critical jobs of the line handlers aboard the boats as the lock fills with water is to take up slack in the lines as the distance changes between the boat cleats below and the lock bollards above. A stray line caught in a prop is a really, really bad thing to have happen here.

Monitoring the line tension becomes even more critical at the other side when the water levels in the locks are lowering the boats. An unmonitored line can tension up quickly, resulting in the entire boat’s weight hanging on it, leaving no option but to cut the line, causing potential catastrophic damage and/or injury.

The lock workers were solid. Our line handlers were solid.

It all went like clockwork.

Slowly we moved through Gatun Locks.

We repeated portions of the process two additional times as the three locks raised us us a total of eighty four feet.

As the third chamber finished filling, we received a fist pump of support from one of the many anonymous lock workers who helped us that day. Any previous held trepidations regarding potential ill intentions of lock workers who might feel motivated to damage our solar panels or hatches dried up completely and blew away.

Nearly twenty five million gallons of freshwater had passed under us to complete the task of raising us to the elevation of Gatun Lake. A somewhat sobering thought to realize that volume equates to more fresh water than everyone currently inside the lock combined will drink in a lifetime.

The final gate of Gatun Lock opens and the oil tanker in front of us quietly begins to pull forward. The disturbance on the water’s surface from the immense ship’s prop wash is noticeable, but only barely… the pilot obviously has received a thorough briefing and for that we are grateful.

As the outline of Ensemble shrinks into the distance, we are left with an open channel leading into Gatun lake.

Once clear of the locks, all of the lines are released and the floating raft splits apart, separating back into three individual sailboats.

It’s now only a short run in Lake Gatun to reach the mooring buoy we will spend the night on.

A big ball, to be sure.

Still, given the option, I’d prefer to keep my balls to myself.

Though the line handlers were all spending the night aboard, the advisors were immediately picked up by a pilot boat. We would see them again at first light. We hoped Victor would be reassigned to us…

Getting to this point had been no small feat.

That was not lost on us.

Currently, the only unresolved issue of the day seemed to be whether or not we were going to have ice cold beers, even though we had completed only half of our Panama Canal transit. For some reason, this had been in question.

However, with the unmistakable phssst sound of an opening can, that question was definitively answered.

Now we just had to get through tomorrow.

Panama Canal Transit – Day 1

November 9, 2021 – January 4, 2022

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise.  

In fact, it fit two criteria for being an absolute.

RULE #1:  Setting a deadline is one of the most effective ways to prevent something from getting done, especially on a boat.

It had been twenty months since our arrival into Panama with the ultimate intention of getting to the Pacific Ocean.  A lot had happened during that time.  For nearly six months we had been lurking right on the doorstep of the Panama Canal, poised but seemingly unable or at times even unwilling to cross the threshold.  Only fifty miles.  We could have walked by now.  

Finally, after all this time, we had committed to a Panama Canal crossing which included paying over two thousand dollars in fees.  It allowed for sixty days to schedule a transit date.  A deadline sometimes can’t be avoided.

RULE #2:  One of the most successful strategies to avoid having to fix something is to have a spare; the parts you will need are almost always the ones you don’t have.

Having just returned from a visit to the U.S., we had brought back to Exit a substantial number, and even more substantial weight, of spare parts to add to our already substantial onboard inventory.  Furler parts were no where among those.  

Anticipating the obvious question of why not just have spares for everything, I would have to point out we’d literarily be buying and traveling with an extra boat.

******

While we were in the States for six weeks, poor Exit sat tied to a dock without moving at all.  Once we got back, she really needed to get out.

After finally making the big leap of completing the process to register for our Canal transit, we decided to return to San Blas.  We were in agreement that we hadn’t explored the spectacular area nearly enough.  We had sixty days and this was most likely our last chance to make a return visit.  Once the Canal gates closed behind us, it would be far too expensive to open them again.  At that point we’d be looking forward anyway, not back.

Our time in Panama had not been a stellar example of frequent sailing.  It wasn’t just that we weren’t moving.  Even when we were, it seemed there was always something stepping in the way of being able to get out the big, white floppy things.

Departing Shelter Bay Marina, we were ecstatic to see fifteen knots of wind on the beam… a perfect day for sailing.   Not typical.  The running joke aboard Exit is we usually know we’re going in the right direction because the wind is on our nose.

Once the mainsail was up, we went to unfurl the genoa.

It wouldn’t budge.

Kris reminded me to release the clutch.  

It already was.

For us, there’s always a funny moment here or there after being off the boat for a period of time when you find yourself saying “Now how did that work?” with something that normally would be very second nature.

This was one of those moments.   

When it doesn’t work, I have to walk my self through every step; even the obvious.   Especially the obvious. 

If it still doesn’t work, Kris has to walk me through every step; even the obvious.  Especially the obvious.

If it still doesn’t work, Kris experiences both the satisfaction and annoyance of showing me what should be obvious;  especially the obvious.

In the rare case it STILL doesn’t work, we either start laughing or swearing.

Everything was as it should be.  The genoa just didn’t budge.  We started laughing.  After a few more minutes of verifying we weren’t crazy, it was determined the drum of the furler itself was completely seized up.  Possibly the bearings inside.  We started swearing.

Two options.  Turn around or keep going.  We had already spent a total of twelve weeks in Shelter Bay Marina during 2021.  We had literally just gotten out of there.  Better to keep going to San Blas, try to better assess what the problem was and what the options were.

Agreed.

******

San Blas was a much more pleasant and much less expensive place to be for the subsequent weeks spent assessing and researching.  

As far as we could tell, the Profurl N52 furler currently on Exit was the original, which made it nearly thirty years old… quite long in the tooth for a piece of equipment sitting exposed on the bow to all the elements.  A failed seal had allowed those elements inside the drum itself, eventually causing corrosion of the bearings which had finally seized completely. 

Any hope of sorting things out in San Blas slowly disintegrated once it was determined that the bearings weren’t the only thing seized on the furler.   Dissimilar metals, an aluminum drum with stainless steel bolts holding the assembly together, had completely corroded in place as well, which implied this was going to, at a minimum, require an impact wrench and possibly need drilling out of the bolts and re-tapping the holes.  This was quickly gravitating away from the prospect of a do-it-yourself project.

The fortunate convenience of modern internet connections and cell phone coverage even in some of the most remote locations on the planet allowed all of the necessary access needed for referencing resources, researching options, and ordering parts from right in the middle of nowhere.

As we have repeatedly learned, the overbuilt approach strategy implemented during Exit’s construction often resulted in exceptionally heavy duty and nearly failsafe systems that inevitably are now more expensive when replacement becomes necessary.  This was currently the situation.

With the diameter of our forestay and size of the genoa, we were looking at seven thousand dollars for a complete replacement of the furler itself… ouch.  And, of course, newer components were in no way compatible with the older generation.  It wouldn’t work to integrate a new drum on the existing system.  The entire foil would have to be replaced as well.  Of course.

Attempting to repair the drum was looking like the only real option.  Luckily, replacement bearings were still available from Profurl.  Unfortunately, they were incredibly proud of those parts.  Five hundred dollars seemed ludicrous for a replacement bearing set;  but not as ridiculous as two hundred dollars more for fasteners.  However, when all additional research proved a dead end for outsourcing the very specific and obscurely sized parts, the end decision was that seven hundred dollars for a rebuild was only one tenth as ludicrous as seven thousand dollars for a replacement. 

Sometimes it’s all about perspective.

With parts ordered but weeks away, it turned out a blessing to be in San Blas where we could enjoy the wait.  We just needed to sit tight.  All attempts to disassemble the furler had been completely thwarted by the seized bolts.  While we were in San Blas, there was very little that could be done, but we also didn’t see the logic of paying for a slip at Shelter Bay Marina while we were waiting for parts to arrive.  

It later became more fully apparent, as everything on the furler slowly came apart, exactly how fortunate it was that I didn’t get any further in San Blas.  The furler drum couldn’t come off without disconnecting the forestay from the deck.  Early assumptions that it could come apart without actually removing the entire forestay from the mast were sorely mistaken.  Once the forestay was disconnected at the deck the whole thing would have become an absolute bitch to deal with.  Fifty feet long and heavy.  By the time I would have figured out it was all going to have to come down entirely anyway, it would have been partially taken apart and I would have simultaneously figured out there was no way this could be done on the deck.    Plus, all this at anchor in thirty feet of water… right.

Which all would have culminated in a situation of us having to return to Shelter Bay Marina anyway, only now having to travel nearly a hundred miles in what would more than likely be sloppy conditions, with our forestay partially disassembled.  Offshore with compromised rigging… the perfect scenario for having the entire mast come down.  Almost an invitation of challenge to the powers that be.  Not smart.

Instead, it became time to step back for a humble moment of realization – better to not overextend; sometimes it is very possible to fuck things up well worse than they already are.

One of the many benefits of meeting so many experienced sailors over the years is having a bottomless well of knowledge and advice to draw from when you find yourself beyond the scope of comfort and in desperate need of assistance.  Even in remote San Blas, we were able to correspond with friends all over the world who provided invaluable insight and expertise.  Without their help we would have found ourselves repeatedly at a loss.

Conversely, one of the many challenges of always being on the move is trying to determine who to place your trust in when it comes to recruiting hands-on support.  Opinions are one thing, but when you are paying by the hour to have someone fix things for you, oftentimes involving following recommendations which may have far-reaching safety and/or monetary implications and then letting them hammer, drill, or cut your home, it becomes even more critical to trust that person is making sound decisions and has both the resources and skill set to justify what they are asking to be paid.  Not to mention a good chance of success with the task at hand. 

After wrestling with the furler continuously with no progress, we had arranged to have such a person meet us when we returned for the replacement bearing kit currently being shipped to Shelter Bay Marina.  Numerous messages went back and forth between San Blas and Panama City.  He knew we had parts coming and needed an impact wrench to get any further with the frozen bolts.  We knew he was gonna to be available for fifty bucks an hour plus thirty more for gas.  We just had to let him know when we got back to Colon and the parts arrived.  No problem.

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An unanticipated silver lining with the situation while we sorting out the genoa – unless we were willing to burn unlimited amounts of diesel, we needed to finally get out our solent sail, which we hadn’t used in four years.  Being hanked on, it had always made for a much less convenient option than simply partially furling the genoa, which was currently not an option.  We had used our stay sail, also hanked on, a number of times but its substantially smaller size made it easier to deal with in terms of getting it out, moving it around, storing on deck, and working with in general.  

We now had a legitimate excuse to justify the extra effort required to deal with the solent sail, which likewise meant we had the opportunity to better understand the benefits of utilizing such a sail.  Another tool in the box, as they say.  Silly to try to drive in a nail with a wrench or a screwdriver only because your hammer is inconvenient to get at.  Why approach sails any differently?  The solent sail, though inconvenient, perfectly bridged the gap between the limited horsepower of the smaller stay sail versus the unwieldy size of a 130% genoa.

Of course, almost as soon as you start realizing the incredible benefit of one thing, you feel a tap on the shoulder.  It’s reality reminding you not to get too distracted.

Killing time in paradise?  But the clock is ticking.

When we first received word from our parts supplier that some of our order would be delayed by back orders, we took notice.  When the ocean freight was subsequently postponed by another week, we started getting nervous.  When they screwed up the order, the ticking clock became deafening.  We were running out of time regarding the sixty day window we were allowed by the Panama Canal Authority to complete our transit.

After a great deal of nail biting and a number of terse exchanges with the supplier, we received word that the order was correct, complete, and en route.  It looked unlikely that we’d be able to get the repair completely sorted out before our Canal deadline passed; however, our Canal agent indicated the situation should not end up costing more than an extra hundred or so dollars.

With our parts not more than a few days away, we bid farewell to beautiful San Blas and returned to the same slip we had occupied when we first arrived at Shelter Bay Marina in May 2021.

Despite the relative blessing of an uneventful return to Colon and the opportunity to sail more than half the distance there, we could only be so happy about our return.  There was shit to fix and deadlines to keep.

We knew we were returning to Shelter Bay Marina and the dirty reality of civilization when we had traded the postcard photo images of uninhabited tropical islands on the horizon for those of cargo ships.

Our rigger arrived at Dock E on time the following day.   Unfortunately, as he limped along, he spoke to just about every single person he saw on the dock.  Forty minutes later he stood in front of Exit.  He offered his left hand to shake and an explanation… the pins holding his right arm together from a motorcycle accident years ago were falling out.

He obviously would not be going up the mast if it became necessary.

He also had no tools with him… zero.

But he did have a lot of advice….

And even more stories…

And even more opinions… about Covid health policies; about the marina’s business choices; about motorcycle gang ethics.

Three hours later we were no further along with the repair.   

He concluded the bolts were frozen and we needed an impact wrench which he did not have.  Exactly what I had told him two weeks ago.  He suggested we leave the marina, get through the Panama Canal and anchor nearer to him in Panama City which would give him easier access to us.  He was planning on leaving Panama, which is why he had no tools; but if that happened he could put us in touch with a “colleague” at anchor who had a lot of experience as well.  He’d need twenty bucks for gas each way, but wasn’t going to charge us at all for his time that day.  

Not only did he cost us forty bucks and a couple of beers, we had to cough up another fifteen dollars after learning that he had stiffed the marina office for their fifteen dollar contractor fee.

Fucker.

If this was a fictional story, I’d have killed off his character at this point.

As it was, the best I could do was never contact him again.

Now, with the parts in hand but literally dead in the water, we opted to put our tails between our legs and introduce ourselves to Steve – a gregarious South African with a shaggy white beard dyed bright fluorescent pink living on his sailboat, also currently on E Dock, working part time as a rigging contractor for Shelter Bay Marina. 

We should have started with him, but we didn’t have any contact with him while we were in San Blas.  It would have saved a painfully infuriating step.

Turned out, as offbeat as Steve looked and cantankerous as he could be, he really knew his shit when it came to rigging.

He offered advice, explained his thinking of the process, and wanted to know we agreed before going on.  He had tools.  He showed what he was doing and welcomed help.  It was worth the sixty bucks an hour to be done right… and we were learning.

Originally, I hoped we would be able to remove the furler drum, rebuilt it, and replace it; all without having to remove the forestay and foil assembly that surrounds it.   Which could have been possible if the bolts securing the drum to the forestay had not been corroded and frozen.  

In the end, removing the forestay required South Africa Steve at the top of the mast as well as four people walking the entire fifty foot long foil assembly down the dock.  It was big, awkward, and heavy as hell.  Trying to have done this all at anchor would have been an absolute disaster.  Once the foil assembly was laying on the dock, we could concentrate on getting out the bolts.

There were four bolts and they were all completely frozen.  No amount of WD-40 or PB Blaster had made a bit of difference over the past month.  Two, it turned out, didn’t actually need to come out.  We could work around them.  That left two; and, one way or another, they both had to come out in order to get access to the bearings.  There was no way around that.

The impact wrench didn’t break them free initially; but we didn’t strip them either.  Which left options.  Heat.

After applying generous amounts of heat with a small propane blow-torch borrowed from another boat owner, miraculously one of the bolts broke free and began to slowly turn.  Woohoo!  The second one never budged.  Eventually, the walls of the large 8mm hex shaped hole gave way and in an instant all that was left was a still stuck bolt with a now round hole in the center.

Stripped.  Which meant it had to be drilled out completely.

Shit. 

Just like that, it turned into a whole lot more work.  

We were actually quite lucky and managed to successfully drill and grind the bolt out cleanly without, in turn, damaging the threaded hole in the drum at all.  Having to re-tap the threads as well would have added even more work and made things far more complicated.  

The stripped bolt caused extra headaches, no doubt.  But with the whole furling system physically off the boat and lying on the dock, instead of hanging precariously from the top of the mast, we had the luxury of a much better space to work.  Again and again, it became undeniably apparent the decision not to try to undertake all this with the furler still attached on a boat at anchor had been a very wise choice.

Both luxuries of the marina and a competent rigger came at no small price; but the job was getting done.

Finally, with a great deal of effort and fenaggling, we had managed to get the furler drum disassembled enough to commence with the main event – replacing the steel bearings and seals.

A failed seal had, over time, allowed the bearings continued exposure to salt water and the harsh elements.  The corrosion had become so rampant that, when left unused for a couple of months, the bearings rusted into a completely seized state.  It was a good thing we had gotten the replacement kit.  These were not going to be resuscitated.

Keeping close track of the order things came apart, we disassembled the remaining components.  

After cleaning and inspecting everything, the new bearings were slathered with grease and the extremely messy combination of bearings, spacers, and circ-clips had to be reassembled.  Without the luxury of a machine shop or hydraulic press, this meant driving the bearings and seals in carefully by hand.  The only real nightmare occurred with the massive and unbelievably strong circ-clips which were so heavy we were unable to compress them enough to get them positioned back into their groove deep inside the drum, even with the special pliers purchased for this exact job. 

After a frustrated and curse-filled hour, a desperate MacGyver maneuver involving holding the circ-clip in closed position tied with heavy wire welding rod and then snipping the wire with side cutters after the clip had been carefully slid into its groove proved to be the only way to prevent Steve from throwing the clip into the water… either Steve.

From that point on, things seemed to go impressively smoothly and suspiciously quickly.  

By the end of day two, the forestay and foil had been reattached to the mast with the rebuilt drum assembly, the backstay had been re-tensioned, and the furler seemed to work perfectly.  

We just needed to wait for a wind free day to reattach our genoa , which had just come back from its own minor repairs at the marina sail loft.  

When all was said and done, paying five hundred dollars for the bearing kit that revived our furler from the dead was painful, though well worth it.  On the other hand, what was a ball-breaker was finding out we couldn’t use any of the four bolts that had cost us nearly an additional two hundred dollars.  They were the wrong size.  Two didn’t even have to come out.  One we got out.  The one that had to be drilled out was replaced with a generic bolt that we already had in our bolt inventory and had cost us less than a dollar at a hardware store.

Shit.

It required more effort and certainly more money than we would have liked.  But, most importantly, our genoa was once again functional.

And… it turned out not only was South African Steve a damn good rigger, he was also a great guitar player and singer with a fine Martin acoustic. 

Bonus jam.

Pickin’ and drinkin’… always preferable to swearing and repairing!

June 26 – August 23; November 10 – December 26, 2021

At last, after completing our haul out, we were freed from Shelter Bay Marina.

We shot the gauntlet of ships entering and exiting the Panama Canal and headed out beyond the breakwater.

Over the course of the next six months, more than half of the time was spent exploring and enjoying the remote and entirely unique Panamanian archipelago of San Blas, or Guna Yala if you use the traditional indigenous name.

It fit well.  It seemed long overdue.

When we set sail from Grand Cayman on Friday the thirteenth all the way back in March 2020, San Blas was our destination.  It had taken four hundred sixty nine days, but we had finally arrived.

Sailors will tell you its bad luck to depart on a Friday. Friday the thirteenth? Duh. It’s also said to be bad luck to have women as well as bananas aboard your boat. I recall joking that by this end of this voyage we’d either be quite cavalier or pretty fucking superstitious.

Fifteen months later, in a Twilight Zone-esque blend of circumstances, some of which were completely outside of our control and some the result of very deliberate decisions, we found ourselves still living at anchor in Panama.  

It had taken us over thirteen months just to venture outside of Bocas del Toro.  Free to move about Panama, but still wary of changing policies based upon constantly evolving COVID updates globally, we really needed a change of scenery without committing to a change of country.

People had been in and out of San Blas since we had arrived in Panama but officially it never had re-opened.  No access to towns and stores.  We had heard the only resources for supplies were occasional random veggie boats or local fisherman.  It would be a bit of an experiment, but a month or two without provisioning would be no problem.  We had essentially been isolating since our arrival in Panama.  After all this time, we decided to give it a go.

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Of the over three hundred islands that comprise the Guna Yala territory, most are uninhabited.  Those that are occupied often have no more than one or two families and a handful of structures.

Many islands are small enough that it was not uncommon to have already sailed passed the island before deciphering the correct pronunciation for its traditional name.

The tiny islands, almost all with tongue-twisting names such as Waisaladup or Ukupsuit or Ogoppukibdup were in some ways quite similar to each other; but in even more ways they were each very unique places.

During our explorations of San Blas, we moved around three dozen times between a dozen or so different anchorages; really, a surprisingly small area of the overall territory.  But, as is often the case, once we locate a spot we really like, we find it easy to return… or sometimes even easier to just stay.

The Kuna people…

Slight of build and mostly dark skinned with dark hair. Quiet, polite, friendly, peaceful, traditional, hard working. Our exchanges revealed some of the most pleasant people we have visited in all our travels.

That having been said, all of our interactions with the indigenous people of Guna Yala, who call themselves Kuna, were limited to the people that visited our boat. We never went ashore on any inhabited islands. It was benign; simply much less complicated that way… COVID times. 

Apart from a couple more “modern” towns and communities packed within the confines of islands right against the coast, none of the people living on Guna Yala islands off the mainland have access to any outside power or water. Everything has to come by boat. The final specks of earth above water before open ocean.

The main towns were still officially closed to outsiders, as far as we were aware. We carried on at anchor, still effectively isolated — waves and smiles, intermittent conversations, occasional transactions with locals passing by in their cayucas.

In six months, only two local people actually came aboard Exit.

Apio (one of the rougher around the edges supply guys who stopped by Exit every now and then to see if we needed anything) once opted for a nap in our cockpit waiting out a squall…

The other was an older guy who lived on Orduptarboat, one of the two tiny islands making up the west side of Cocos Bandero Cays (and our pick for healthiest reef in all of San Blas). While fishing in his cayuca near Exit one day, he randomly asked for a jewelers screwdriver to try to repair his wrist watch. Incidentally, after his unsuccessful attempt to fix it, he proceeded to ask for a hammer which he then used to smash the already broken watch to pieces… quite an odd situation. He ended up paddling away with one of our ziplock bags, which held the pulverized remains of his watch and one of my spare sets of reading glasses he rather fancied during his earlier repair/demolition demonstration. Very friendly… certainly one of the stranger encounters.

For a time, while we were anchored just off of the uninhabited island next to Orduptarboat, the same guy’s son would paddle up to Exit nearly every day and ask us to charge his phone while he was out fishing. On the first day, he brought a big reef crab in exchange… wow! That certainly had to qualify for one of my top three favorable transactions of all time. After that, the barter became fresh reef fish. Eventually, with a smile I told him not to bother; no payment was necessary. He sure still liked getting that phone charged though.

On the other hand, exchanges with mola makers who occasionally stopped by were always bound to be lengthy and animated visits. The hand stitching and design intricacy of each mola varied considerably and the mola maker would inevitably want to show you every one of the molas that had been brought with them… often numbering in the hundreds.  You’ll want to check each one twice, for sure.

Incredibly colorful, intricate hand stitching. Each image and pattern highlights extraordinary creativity and attention to detail. Combined with the matching very colorful personalities of the artists, we found it hard to resist buying far too many. It was good to support local artists; still, it was also good they generally only stopped by when you first arrived.

And once the display process started, you were hooked. What are you gonna do after fifteen minutes of being shown hundreds of molas… say you’ll think about it? You now find you have a tiny boat of people tied up to your home quietly waiting for you to finish thinking about it… awkward.

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While some of the small local boats are made of fiberglass and are equipped with outboard engines, the more typical modes of transport seen, usually with one or two Kunas paddling, are the traditional hand crafted dugout cayucas – simple but amazingly functional.

The rigging systems set up on some of the cayucas allow an impressive range of sailing options, especially considering the very limited available materials and lack of a keel on the boats. They use their paddle as a rudder and are able to both set up and break down the whole system in a few seconds, depending on changing conditions.

We watched Kuna fishermen paddling and sailing in conditions we would not want to take the dinghy out in. 

Fishing techniques varied from one guy alone with a hand line (the most common method we NEVER saw bring up a fish); to a couple of guys free diving with masks, fins, and either a snare for catching live lobster and crab or spear for fishing; to a group of half dozen guys fishing the surface with a larger net.  Never a fishing pole.  No scuba gear.

Mito, Antoni, Amil – Local Fishermen:

OTHER KUNA SAILORS:

COVID restrictions still prevent outsiders from going to any of the towns for supplies, but that’s not to say that supplies aren’t available.

Local Kuna fishermen are always nearby with fresh fish, live lobster and crab. In spite of the ridiculous amount of work required to eat, crabs of the Caribbean go down in my book as number one on the menu!

Yes, fish are our friends… but sometimes shit happens.

With a heavy heart of shame for my personal selfish indulgence, I name the following photo collage…

Git’N M’Belly

For some of the biggest crab claws, I had to give up on fancy and sophisticated crab and lobster shell cracking tools and bring out the big guns… twelve inch channel lock pliers.

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We learned gasoline, diesel, or water can be arranged to be delivered by jug for those desperately in need. And being in the right place when a veggie boat passes by always signals a streak of good fortune. Sometimes what was available could be quite meager; but more often it was a floating jackpot of fresh vegetables, fruit, even eggs, chicken, wine, beer, and milk.  More expensive, absolutely; but delivered to your boat.  Limited supplies, sure.  Yet ironically easy for provisioning a boat in such a remote location.

Once, when we didn’t have the exact amount of money for a lobster, we received our change the following day in the form of a giant bundle of bananas… just how many can be eaten in a day coincides largely with how ripe they are.

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It took the furler for our genoa sail seizing up for us to finally get out our solent sail and use it after four years of sitting in a locker. Turns out we should have tried it a long, long time ago… go figure. Also turns out, a furler is a massive ball ache to repair… but that’s a different story.

WIDE RANGE OF APPEAL:

Different islands and anchorages held different appeals.  Sometimes the obvious beauty of a location brings with it the high price of popularity.  But out of the way, less conspicuous, and largely unknown spots can reveal their own treasures… especially with a bit of exploration.

Amongst the easternmost group of islands on Cayos Cocos Bandero was the first place we spent a significant amount of time upon our arrival in San Blas.  The cover photo for Eric Bauhaus’ Panama cruisers book (by far the most popular Panama boater reference book) is an aerial shot that shows three boats at anchor in a beautiful spot that seemed tight for one boat when we actually tried to anchor there.  Fortunately, once we got set, there were only a few wind directions that really caused us to hold our breath.  It was as photogenic a setting as you could ask for.

While visiting Guna Yala, we always looked forward to purchasing fresh bread.  Some tasted quite like it came from a regular bakery; but some local Kuna bread traditionally baked on a fire is a truly unique flavor of Guna Yala.  Undoubtedly the best Kuna bread we experienced was at Cocos Bandero. The fabulously pungent smokiness lingered in the cabin long after the bread was sealed up in ziplock bags. Both the smell and taste, were absolutely unmatched. A bit greasy; somewhere between a donut and roll. Eight of ’em…? Two bucks. Didn’t even need anything on them. But with a bit of precious Nutella spread on top… get the fuck outta here!

When we returned to San Blas months later, it was clear tourism had begun to open back up in the area. Good for the local economy. The sense of isolated privacy that COVID had brought to anchorages had, in places, begun to give way to both an uptick in day traffic as well as more visiting boats sitting at anchor.

One of the most popular anchorages proved to us too popular to stay.  When the day charters started tying up stern to the shore right next to us —- dangerous for us in the event of any shift of wind which, of course, we had to deal with — it was time to move on. 

…which saddened us a bit. Not only was the location beautiful, we had also discovered a family of eagle rays would come to visit us every night, swimming back and forth in the channel around Exit.  One of those “holy shit” moments. Amazing.

After the sport fishing boat incident, we never went back to the eastern islands of Cocos Bandero.  I still miss that bread… and our friends.

Less than five miles away, the westernmost two islands of Cayos Cocos Bandero (where the guy who smashed his watch lived) proved to offer a more spacious and isolated anchorage.

Green Island, also less than five miles away, is one of the larger islands and can be one of the more populated anchorages, but we generally lucked out.  

On the other hand, Waisaladup is such a small island that it occupies less space than the three hundred sixty degree diameter of Exit’s anchor swing.  It always amazed us when five or six boats would try to cram in around it.  We counted ourselves lucky to not be among them. If it was quiet, it was phenomenal.

Even on a short five mile hop between islands, dolphins may stop by for a brief visit to ride the bow wake. They quickly get bored with slow sailboats but the encounters are always magical.

Anchored alone in another perfectly protected bay next to an uninhabited island called Esnasdup, while on a SUP excursion Kris discovered a shallow area between the mangroves at the shoreline and the open water where baby sharks were congregating. 

It probably occurred only rarely, but she happened to be there at the perfect moment to catch it.  They look like juvenile black tips, but we concluded they must be baby nurse sharks (which we commonly see when snorkeling the reefs)… quite special.  We found the name “Baby Shark Bay” seemed to roll off the tongue much easier than Esnasdup.

It appeared that they hung out in the mangroves on one side of the island, venturing out to the sandy shallows, reef, and eventually deeper water as both their size, curiosity, and boldness increased.

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Mother Nature must have a vacation home in San Blas, because she obviously spends a lot of extra time here.

Stunning sunsets can be awe inspiring anywhere.  Here, there seems to be a picturesque tropical island silhouetted in front of almost every one of them. 

Yet, the other side of the swinging pendulum when it comes to San Blas skies are what seem like an ever present threat of nuclear scale thunder storms and squalls.  When ominous dark bands of really angry looking clouds start stacking up on the horizon, one has to take notice.  Sometimes they loom for hours in the distance; sometimes they give little warning.  They may be short lived when they strike, but they can be vicious as well.  A twenty to forty knot change of wind direction does not bode well for the ill-prepared or unaware.  

Not to mention the shit ton of rain that gets dumped down as well.  You’d better be collecting rainwater, or you may just get depressed.

A waterspout… always an attention getting moment.

San Blas lightning is the stuff of legends.  Intense.  Loud.  If you’re tucked next to trees or other boats, it’s scary.  Exposed in the open, it can be TERRIFYING.  Supposedly, Exit’s aluminum hull creates a natural faraday cage of protection inside the entire boat, but that would not the case on deck.  Ultimately, we don’t want to directly test any electrical strike theories or hypotheses.  Nearby lightning strikes may have fried electronic chips in our wind speed indicator (located at the top of the mast) as well as a chip in the autopilot at one point, but we can’t be sure.  Fortunately, so far we seem to have dodged any direct hits (knock on aluminum).

Turns out, we later met a couple that had been in San Blas at nearly the same time and had also lost their own autopilot and wind speed indicator under the exact same circumstances… go figure. Also turns out, an autopilot is a massive ball ache to troubleshoot… but that’s a different story.

The following images, actually from Portobelo and outside Shelter Bay Marina during our vaccination adventure between two of our visits to San Blas, were the only times we captured anything even close to representative. They were the best we could get. To be fair, no one was willing to go on deck when things got really shitty.

It’s impossible to adequately express the intensity from inside the cockpit.

From close… to closer… to right above us… and damn near ground zero…

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Underwater, San Blas represents the best we have seen in Panama.  While overfishing is always the inevitable black stain (there are never many big fish anywhere anymore), the health of some of the reefs we visited in San Blas were phenomenal.  Varieties, coverage, and maturity of hard and soft corals, sponges, etc. could be really impressive.  Seeing large animals like dolphins, nurse sharks, eagle rays and stingrays, and barracuda is always a good sign.  

One of San Blas’ biggest problems may not exist underwater but, rather, above water.  With the rate of global oceans rising, there may be very little time before the islands of Guna Yala disappear entirely.  It seemed rare to have more than a foot of dry land above the shoreline.

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RANDOM MOMENTS:

At some point during our earlier haul out at Shelter Bay Marina we had a visitor arrive on Exit; our first resident gekko lizard. We adopted the name Lizzy… obvious, if not very creative. Every now and then we would see Lizzy out and about, stalking insects here or there, and then she’d go dark again. Eventually we didn’t see Lizzy for quite some time. And then we saw a Gekko that looked kind of like Lizzy but we couldn’t be sure… hence the new name Issy (as in is he Lizzy or not). Eventually Izzy was discovered in a not so alive state. Then, to our delight, a new tiny gekko showed up shortly afterward. As this little guy was so small, and we now seemed to be much leaner in the insect department, we dubbed the wee lad Busy, because he would have to stay busy hunting constantly just to avoid starving. Alas, it has been weeks since Busy was last seen…

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Our final destination in San Blas became Cayos Holandes.  It was nice, but the actual appearance was night and day different from what we expected, given the exotic looking aerial footage in the Bauhaus book.  We found some places to explore, and even got to spend time with our friend Craig (before on S/V Samba Pa Ti  and now the proud owner and captain of S/V Russula).  After first meeting Craig in Guanaja of the Bay Islands, Honduras, we got to celebrate his birthday with him in Rio Dulce , Guatemala in 2019 and now strangely enough another birthday reunion two years later in Panama!

Our last week in San Blas, including Christmas, was spent at anchor in an isolated area in the center of Cayos Holandes known as Los Bajos Lagoon.

Stunning would be an understatement.

Except to those with local knowledge, the area was no man’s land until it was actually charted by Eric Bauhaus for his book fairly recently. Surrounded by reefs, rocks and shoals, the interior area of Los Bajos Lagoon is accessible to sailboats through only two channels (one which is still unmarked on charts). Once through the cut, a labyrinth of more rocks, reefs, and shoals hide numerous spots where it is possible to anchor. Good light, minimal winds, and a bit of a swagger are required to venture inside.

On the Navionics chart, the beige areas are land above water, or the nearest islands. Everything in green is charted as rock, reef, or shoaling or not charted at all and the darker blue is too shallow to go into. That leaves the white bits as deepest depths and lighter blue in between… and watch out for uncharted random rocks and reefs that can be interspersed in there as well.

A literal hazardous maze of rock to navigate through, almost no cell reception, no dry sandy beaches to lay on — not the easiest sell for families, buddy boats, and snugglers… perfect.

On the far end we eventually found an unbelievable patch of white sand that created surreal shades of blue water, the likes of which we hadn’t seen since the Bahamas, or Cayman Islands, or French Polynesia… we had found our anchorage.

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SPACE X-IT

Trapped somewhere between the concepts of having an exceptionally hard time saying no to a sure bet fun time and the odd decision that, at the end of our Shelter Bay haul out in June we somehow had not been hemorrhaging quite enough money, we came to the conclusion that it was time to start up a space program aboard Exit… ok, more of a sky program.  Currently the SPACE X-IT fleet consists of a single Mavik 2 drone.

It had been at Cayos Cocos Banderos that we first got to really try out the drone. 

There is so much to keep track of, initially it’s all about sorting out the basic controls.

Esnasdup, or “Baby Shark Bay” to us, provided the second opportunity for launching the drone. Kris has proven to be the much quicker learner when it comes to piloting the drone… surprise, huh? As the controls become more familiar, stretching out to focus on images becomes more feasible.

However, it was launching and landing the drone from the deck of Exit while we swung at anchor in Los Bajos Lagoon that instantly raised the bar for excitement… as well as risk, I suppose.  Good thing we are able to equip the drone with foam tubes that act as landing gear in the case of an accidental water landing… yikes!  

We learned quickly that safely landing the drone on the deck of Exit provided numerous extra challenges. These included the boat’s rigging, extending up sixty two feet above the waterline, that the drone’s proximity sensors did not particularly like; as well as the fact that Exit, actually moving in the water while swinging at anchor, provided a rather small and unstable landing platform.

Erratic alarms and alerts also seemed to indicate that the drone’s GPS systems were particularly unhappy that the ‘Return Home’ coordinates continually changed even while the drone sat at rest on the swinging boat. It occurred to us that we didn’t want the drone attempting to execute an automated landing to a ‘home coordinate’ that Exit’s deck no longer occupied.

The solution required an unanticipated bit of improvised team technique to complete a successful landing — namely, having Kris steady the drone in a hover position directly in front of me while I stood on deck, allowing me to grab it hopefully without falling into the water. Lucky for us, we mastered the technique on the first try.

In retrospect, a high velocity wind alarm that had sounded earlier on the controller while the drone was two hundred feet in the air turned out to be much more stress inducing than the air grab landing maneuver.

Ultimately, we discovered what unique perspectives photo and video from two or three hundred feet in the air can provide; like another visual dimension.  It certainly helps one to truly appreciate how spectacular the area of Guna Yala really is.  

Los Bajos Lagoon went from stunning to otherworldly.

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Having a blue Christmas is not necessarily a bad thing.

And while a holiday spent in the tropics may not prove to be very conducive for Christmas trees, it can be exactly the right place to enjoy Christmas tree worms…

As often seems to be the case for us, the realization that it is past time to move on can be a feeling that sets in very slowly. Sometimes slowly enough that it’s almost impossible to recognize it is even there. But eventually we do.

We lifted anchor at dawn, the morning after Christmas, making for Shelter Bay knowing that we had visited a truly magical place.

As we prepared to raise the sails, in the distance you could see a boat of local fishermen arguing with a squadron of pelicans over who had first rights of fish ownership.

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It would be easy to get stuck here for indefinite periods that never seem to reach an end.  However, we aren’t prepared to stop moving… yet.

And being at the doorstep of the Panama Canal means we are literally one and a half days from passing through the doorstep to a different world… the Pacific Ocean.

We’ll just hang onto the flag. Who knows? We may be back…

POST SCRIPT: Upon leaving San Blas we discovered we had stowaways. Exit scooting along at over seven knots in confused and messy following seas had created quite a lot of seawater water washing up on the transom. This, in turn, had created a tidal pool of sorts, in one of the corners. A dozen or so very small fish had either surfed up onto the transom or been washed up there. Now they were caught in a virtual washing machine – an unbelievably agile and synchronized group of hitchhikers swimming as one, in what appeared a very risky endeavor…

Persistence In The Pface Of Pfrustration – Part Two Shot Two

August 6 – September 7, 2021

The guideline for a second Pfizer vaccination dose, as set by the manufacturer, was clearly three weeks. While the scientific community continued to analyze incoming data regarding mixing and matching of vaccines and the effectiveness of different time frames between shots, this had a lot to do with overall vaccine availability, or a lack thereof in almost every country outside of the U.S. or Europe.

We planned to return to the peaceful, chilled out beauty of San Blas to pass the three weeks between shots, and then come back to Portobelo to repeat the now familiar routine.

Logistically… not simple. It’s a damn boat. But a simple plan.

After nineteen days at San Blas, we picked up anchor. The plan was to get as far as Linton Bay on the first day, which would allow us an early enough arrival the following day at Portobelo to suss out things a day in advance again.

We made it to Portobelo without any problems.

Unfortunately, the vaccines did not.

For whatever reason, we learned at the clinic that the program had been discontinued in Portobelo. We would have to go to Colon.

Shit.

second attempt:

When it comes to tapping the virtual world for information, Kris is some kind of surreal internet bloodhound. I look to the web for answers and, more often than not, seem to locate either idiots with an opinion or assholes with a pitch. Kris has an uncanny way of mining relevant information much more efficiently… emphasis especially on the words relevant and efficiently.

She eventually uncovered a rumor that vaccines were available in Colon.

Back to the anchorage outside Shelter Bay Marina. The marina manager, Juan Jo, whom we had gotten to know quite well during Exit’s haul out, generously allowed us to dock our dinghy and use the marina facilities while we were still anchored outside.

A day or two later we utilized the marina’s free shuttle service into Colon. Ranger, the driver, assured us he knew where vaccinations were currently being offered and took us directly to the hospital where we found a long, long line of people. The line stretched from the entrance of a parking lot across the street from the hospital down the sidewalk, eventually disappearing around the corner. Inside the parking lot itself, which was surrounded by chain link fencing, a makeshift area of tables and sun covers had been set up.

Ranger told us to walk straight to the front of the line, and show the policeman both our U.S. passports and Panama vaccine cards… one of the rare cases when initiating a conversation with a cop seemed like a better idea than going to the back of the line.

The guy politely listened to us, and then called over someone we surmised was a hospital staff supervisor.

We handed her the official Panamanian vaccine cards we had received with our first Pfizer shots – printed card stock with handwritten entries for our first jab, which she casually looked at.

She then explained that second shots were available only after a minimum of thirty days following the first shot. Other locations may be different, but they could not give us the second shot there.

Shit.

We had heard of others receiving a second shot in Panama City after three weeks without a problem, so we concluded this must be a local decision, not a national policy.

third attempt:

Kris’ additional bloodhound research uncovered that vaccinations were currently being administered at the Colon airfield, which had never opened back up for air traffic after the initial COVID lockdowns. Drive through, get the jab, done.

It was about an hour from Shelter Bay Marina to the airport. Half the distance it would be all the way to Panama City, so it made more sense. Romero, an Uber driver who had been our go-to driver when provisioning requirements had taken us beyond the capabilities of the complimentary marina shuttle, picked us up around 9am. It was raining, which seemed to be a requirement for vaccine excursions.

We had no idea where we were going but our trusty and faithful driver Romero did.

We were confident. We were stoked. This was going to be the day.

As we approached the air strip we smiled. Banners confirmed that all of Kris’ research was spot on. This was the place. The long line of cars in front of us, as well as those pulling up behind us, added extra layers of confidence.

Ever so slowly, we moved forward. Waiting… waiting… waiting… move a little… more waiting. We couldn’t see the vaccination area yet. It was still around at least one more bend in the road.

Every now and then a car ahead of us jockeyed out of the line, turned around, and drove away in the opposite direction. We had been there nearly an hour; maybe other people had run out of time to wait…?

The every now and then slowly increased in frequency until it became a steady stream of cars mimicking the multi-point turnaround and departure. Eventually Romero stopped one of the cars. He was told they had run out of vaccines. Damn! We hadn’t gotten there early enough. It had started at seven a.m.

Dejected with the realization that we had come so close, we returned to Shelter Bay determined to try again the following day. Only this time we’d be getting up at 4:30am. Pickup time was five o’clock sharp, rain or shine.

fourth attempt:

We knew it was happening. We knew where to go. We knew what time. It was deja vu from the day before.

It was raining… of course. It had to be.

It was also still dark when we climbed into our dinghy and motored into the marina a little before 5am. Shutting off the outboard, we drifted silently for the final twenty yards to the dock, trying not to wake the occupants of the boats we were tying up next to.

We arrived at the airport just like the day before, only four hours earlier. This time there were only twenty or so cars ahead of us. We were already close enough to see the vaccination staging area. Though I was still half asleep, the math was pretty easy. They had to have brought more than a hundred doses of the vaccine. Hell… there couldn’t be that many people in front of us if every car was filled to capacity. We would definitely make it under the wire today.

Inching slowly forward, we watched two staff standing at the front of the line of cars. They were alternating from car to car, screening the passengers.

Four cars in front of us… three cars… then two… finally the car in front of was talking to one of the screening women. Then we rolled down our windows and the other staff spoke briefly with Romero.

We handed her our Panamanian vaccination cards.

She looked at them far too long. Then she started looking up at her eyebrows, lips slowly moving, while raising her fingers one at a time… counting to herself.

She fired off a high velocity round of words in Spanish I could only catch tidbits of. Fortunately, Romero was not only a great driver, but had a great Google translator app. Unfortunately, today Romero was also the bearer of much more definitive bad news.

Though Pfizer recommended three weeks between the first and second vaccine shots, reality forced Panama to consider different options. Obviously, a shortage of vaccines available to the country was forcing difficult decisions to be made – adhere to Pfizer’s “three weeks between shots” recommendation or get more people with at least one jab and delay the second shots.

Panama’s health minister had implemented a national policy to wait one calendar month between shots. The woman indicated that Panama’s digital vaccination registration system wouldn’t even allow health care workers access into the system to register a person for a second shot until at least that much time had passed.

Our first jab happened twenty one days ago.

It hadn’t been lost on us that, back in March 2020, we were extremely lucky to have been permitted to remain in Panama once the COVID-19 lockdowns cascaded. Many countries had banned and/or kicked out foreigners. Fast forward to August 2021, we were again lucky Panama was even willing to share their very limited number of vaccines with us.

It is what it is.

We resigned ourselves to the fact that, once again, we could do little more than roll with the punches. Instead of sitting at anchor depressed, watching cargo ships pass between the breakwater and the Panama Canal, or paying for a slip at Shelter Bay Marina, we opted to return to the enchanting Rio Chagres to try to make the most of the calendar countdown.

fifth attempt:

It had not been three weeks since our first jab. It had not been four weeks. It had been one calendar month… exactly. We were in Panama. We followed Panama’s policy.

Now we were back in business.

We knew the procedure. We knew where to go. We knew what time to be there. We knew this time we would not be turned away for being too early. Deja vu. Like fucking Groundhog Day.

It was raining… of course. It had to be.

We had faced countless frustrations, but had persisted.

Four-thirty wake up again. Five o’clock pickup by Romero. Six o’clock arrival at the airport.

Still dark. Like last time.

We appeared to be one of the first cars there. Impressive.

Except… there were no banners to be seen.

Another curious detail that immediately stood out… there didn’t appear to be any medical personnel visible.

We slowly pulled up to the main building. There was a single security guard standing inside the glass door. As we stopped alongside the curb, he stepped out, casually holding an assault rifle.

The conversation, very brief in rapid Spanish, between the guard and Romero was translated. The first part confirmed what was already pretty obvious… there were no vaccinations happening here today. The second part renewed our hopes… according to the guy with the gun, a tiny school somewhere in the middle of Colon was supposed to be where vaccinations were taking place. Yes, he thought it was happening now.

sixth, seventh, and eighth ATtempt:

Outside the school, it sure as hell didn’t look to have the hustle and bustle of a pop-up vaccination site. It didn’t even look to have the hustle and bustle of a school. It looked all closed up. It was all closed up. Fuck. We pulled away.

Back to the hospital with the chain link fence outside… the one that surrounded the parking lot with the makeshift clinic… the one that we had first gone to when we returned to Shelter Bay. Only one person in the parking lot now. The guy who worked there parking cars. Fuck. We pulled away.

We stopped at one more clinic entrance to ask about any available vaccination information. Nothing. This was getting no where.

Back to the marina. Failure.

ninth attempt:

We were close to giving up… again.

The options were dwindling for further delays of any flight back to the States. We had shuffled flights already but that could only happen so many times. Maybe running the gauntlet to get the easy jab once back in Washington was the best bet…

Most indications to us were that the Panamanian government was now largely analyzing what had worked and not worked during its first vaccine rollout to reassess how and where to continue. Announcements regarding future vaccine schedules were expected shortly…

Not promising.

In our eyes, we had only one option left.

An even longer drive by car.

Panama City seemed to be the only place with any vaccination activity still happening. Ironically enough, it was not at a hospital but, rather, a shopping mall.

Okay. It’s really all been too strange for that to truly seem odd but… kinda strange.

Anyway…

Kris tenaciously Googled the specifics of the location.

A number of text exchanges verified that, not only was our invaluable driver Romero willing to transport us the extra distance, he was also available the following day.

An actual phone call to a clinic just outside the shopping mall provided the best confirmation we could hope for. No, the person speaking on the phone was not physically at the site; however, it was their staff which had been giving the shots in the mall. Yes, it was happening. Yes, it was Pfizer. Yes, second shots were available. Yes, it was available to anyone. Yes, it would still be happening tomorrow. Yes, they were pretty sure it would be raining. We knew this was it.

Another pre-dawn start.

All the way to Panama City. Almost two hours. Without doubt, Romero was having a good month. We joked that he was Panama’s most knowledgeable Uber driving COVID-19 vaccine specialist. 

As we pulled into the shopping mall parking lot things looked pretty bleak. The lot was nearly empty of cars. But most businesses must still be hours away from opening, so there was hope. After parking, we approached the mall entry doors, walking passed a single file row of plastic chairs conspicuously spaced six feet apart from each other. 

Every chair was empty.

Errrrrrrr.

We walked through the large glass doors that separated the parking lot from the shopping mall, and entered a rather empty atrium.

Errrrrrrr.

I was beginning to wince as Romero, who strode boldly in front of us, approached a security guard inside. Romero spoke rapidly. Instead of shaking his head, the guard nodded.

What?

Huh?

The vaccinations were indeed taking place. We simply needed to return to the line of chairs we had just walked by and await his return.

Great googly moogly! It was happening!

We returned to the parkade and excitedly took our places in chairs number one and number two, conspicuously spaced six feet apart alongside the cement wall. A few minutes later someone else came and sat down behind me in chair number three.

I couldn’t see the smile behind the mask, but the wrinkles around his eyes gave it away. I wondered how far he had traveled… how many attempts it had taken… had he commuted by boat… by bus… by car… by foot…like us? The guy said “hola.” 

I never asked further. Didn’t want to ruin the moment. He probably literally just stepped away from the Starbucks counter next door during his work break. The good news was that he was there also — rarely when a local was in line with us were we doing something really stupid.

After only a couple of minutes, we were signaled by the security guy to come back inside. He led us to a person in a medical smock standing in front of a doorway.

We handed her our passports and vaccine cards.

Then… she asked if we were residents.

Suddenly, nothing could be heard above the screeching sounds of steel wheels braking on the tracks as the vaccination train seemed poised to inevitably fly off the rails and over the cliff. We had heard a few rumors that only residents may be eligible for vaccines.

Accordingly, we answered we were living aboard our sailboat at the nearby marina.

Silence.

She seemed satisfied and subsequently led us into what looked more like a conference room than a clinic. A few rows of chairs, conspicuously spaced six feet apart, were occupied by other people. 

At the far side of the room hung a banner that read ‘BIENVENIDOS CENTRO DE VACUNACION COVID19’; behind the counter was a person writing down information; standing off to the side in blue hospital scrubs was another woman who looked to be preparing syringes; in the back corner of the room stood a very official looking crash cart. Everything seemed reassuring… maybe less the crash cart.

Once again, we were only seated for a short time before being called to the front counter. I handed over my vaccination document and held my breath. The moment of truth…

A quick glance was all it took…

“Vacunacion numero dos?” The woman shifted her gaze from the vaccine card to me.

In answer, I may have posed the word yes as a question… “Si?”

The pause was excruciating.

Her nod was subtle, but it held enough juice that, for just a moment, I was flying… Elon fucking Musk riding atop a Space X giant penis rocket through the sky… Houston, we are a go!

I had to quickly return to Earth when my name was called for the actual shot. The woman in blue scrubs, eye to eye with me while I was seated, gave me the jab. My manta got a freebie.

For ten minutes afterwards we sat in quiet bliss, confirming we wouldn’t be needing the electric paddles, heart monitor, or any other toys on the crash cart while another masked person sitting next to the front desk uploaded all of our information into Panama’s official vaccination database. 

By the time we stood up to depart, we could already see our updated vaccination status online and had loaded a scannable QR code onto Kris’ iPhone.

And just like that… it was done.

The final document looked ridiculously anticlimactic. 

The ride back to Shelter Bay marina was surprisingly quiet.  Romero genuinely seemed as excited as we were.  His family was due for their second shot in two weeks.  He would have no problem sorting this out.

It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes after we returned to Exit, still processing the fact that we had finally achieved the both mundane and monumental success of receiving our second COVID-19 vaccine, that huge and dark and ominous clouds started materializing above us.

Never fails…

it’s Panama.

The forecast is always the same…

threats of unpredictable drama with intermittent rainbows.

Persistence In The Pface Of Pfrustration – Part One Shot One

August 5, 2021

Why not just wait until you are back in the U.S. and get vaccinated there?

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After more than fifteen months in Panama, it seemed that our patience might finally pay off. But it had not been a walk in the park…

COVID-19 vaccines, now easy to come by in the States, had only begun to trickle into Central America. Operation Warp Speed created a stockpile of vaccines for Americans who were largely moving at one quarter impulse power, at best. As a result, the rest of the planet, who desperately wanted and needed the shots, simply had to wait.

Sailing from Bocas Del Toro in April, we had all but given up on the premise that COVID vaccines would be available in Panama anytime soon. The health authorities in Bocas had begun making lists of names to be contacted when the vaccines became available but there was no idea when that would be.

Yet, at what seemed like an excruciatingly slow pace, we began to hear of people receiving their first shot at sporadic locations throughout Panama.  Schedules were tentative; supplies were sketchy; information was not only sparse but also slow getting around and oftentimes completely contradictory.  

In remote San Blas, rumors had circulated that vaccines would be offered at a local clinic in November, but that was forever and a day away. Not to mention the conflicting feelings we were experiencing regarding the idea of jumping in line for very limited numbers of vaccines being distributed for a very vulnerable and high risk group of indigenous people.

As it began to appear more and more that the inevitable outcome was going to be not being able to get vaccinated until we got back to the States, we read and watched endless news updates indicating an out of control situation, both regarding COVID outbreaks and people’s behavior.

For us, the idea of having to return to the U.S. unvaccinated in order to get vaccinated carried the equivalent logic of… the equivalent logic of… fuck, I don’t even know. Maybe walking into a burning building to get access to fire extinguishers? It’s hard to find an analogy that seemed as ludicrous.

We were going to return to the States to visit family and friends. Still, we had unequivocally decided that, if we could get both our vaccinations before departing Panama, we would be far, far better off than any alternative option, even if that meant delaying our departure, changing flights, or even cancelling shit.

And then came word of the Delta variant.

Kris went on a relentless quest for information.  She tapped into internet forums, government websites, CDC and WHO updates, as well as endless texting and messaging between various friends, acquaintances, and people in the know.  Not only vaccination options and possibilities, but also constant updates of always changing travel guidelines, restrictions, and requirements.

Without all of Kris’ information reconnaissance, we would have been hopelessly screwed.

A friend of ours, currently on his boat at Shelter Bay Marina, confirmed firsthand that he had received his first vaccine shot in Panama City.  No hassles; no issues.  

It was reported there were a number of locations offering vaccinations throughout August, but only on Thursdays and Fridays. This became even more confusing and uncertain when subsequent posts by a person who had gone to one of the locations, Portobelo, indicated no vaccinations were not available on the first Thursday, but then were on the following day.

Then we heard San Blas could start to see vaccines in September.  Even if that turned out true, we were hard pressed to get in line for a very limited number of available vaccinations ahead of a population which had already been ninety percent decimated by selfish gringos over the past five centuries. Nor could we simply keep waiting. We had already changed our flights back to the States numerous times. We needed something more concrete.

Finally, the misty haze of a possible plan began to materialize.

August 1 – Not sure if the 40 knot squall we sat through was an omen or not…

August 2 – We depart Green Island bound for Cayos Chichime sixteen nautical miles to the west, at the edge of San Blas to use as a final staging for the jump to civilization and hopefully a vaccine.

August 3 – We depart San Blas making for Portobelo.  Our goal was to get to Portobelo in time to do a reconnaissance into town and visit the clinic a day in advance, trying to confirm that there would actually be shots available.

Turtle Cay Marina. Forty five miles to the west of San Blas. Twenty miles closer than Portobelo. After six and a half hours of solid motoring into shitty waves and more than twenty knots of wind on the nose, we realized there was no way we’d make Portobelo before nightfall. The community near Turtle Cay Marina was one of those rumored to be administering Pfizer vaccines on Thursday and Friday; however, we had never been able to confirm this was actually happening. We anchored outside the marina in a miserable and unforgiving swell.

With conditions too sketchy to leave the boat at anchor and even shittier to remain aboard, we recognized the futility of the situation. It was a long shot that the vaccinations would actually materialize here. If they didn’t, we will have burned valuable time which, in the end, could also derail the more likely Portobelo option.

So, on to Portobelo first thing in the morning. The safer bet.

It had been a long, long time since we had suffered through as uncomfortable a swell as that night. Damn western wind. But we felt that were in too tight to try any fancy swell bridles or stern anchoring for the short duration. All part of the cover charge for the party.

We were gone at first light.

In Portobelo, Google Maps on Kris’ iPhone lead us directly to the clinic, more or less. A policeman standing guard at the door attracted the attention of one of the doctors exiting the clinic who informed us that Pfizer vaccines were, in fact, being administered the following day here at the clinic… sweet! Show time: seven a.m.; best to be here at six.

As the sun set, we could see ominous black clouds approaching. That night, we were absolutely smashed by a howling storm that brought both buckets of rain and surreal amounts of lightning.

At 6am the following morning, as we climbed into the dinghy still bleary eyed from the sleep deprivation which often accompanies sitting at anchor overnight through a storm, thankfully all that remained of Mother Nature’s spectacle was a dreary grey sky and slow, intermittent drizzle.

We arrived at the clinic a good half hour ahead of the seven o’clock startup we had been informed of the day before, joining a group of about thirty locals standing casually on either side of street, presumably also there for COVID vaccinations.

Eventually, a staff member came outside leading a small entourage of people and began a long, long explanation which included who, what, where, how, and when… we assumed. It was entirely in Spanish, and she spoke freakishly fast. We digested about ten percent of what was said. I concluded we were either getting shot number one this morning or they were about to turn the gringos away.

When our names were called from a list we had been added to upon our arrival, we approached a folding table occupied by a woman in white wearing a blue hospital mask. She was filling out paperwork. This is where things always get dicey.

A foreign land. Very limited language. Trying to keep it simple, but having to go through the complicated motions of government and/or medical forms. Name, nationality, and passport info… easy. The word “sailboat” in any language exponentially complicates the ‘where do you live’ question.

On top of that, add the uncertainties of the whole COVID vaccine situation from the perspective of logistical procedures, local and world supplies, multiple vaccines, national political and health policies, international political and health policies, time frame between shots, records and registration, our status as foreigners… this was messy already.

The entire daunting vaccination process, which had seemed to be picking up momentum, suddenly came to a screeching halt.

We had feared that we could be turned away as foreigners or even non-residents of the immediate area. Despite having heard stories from friends who are not American citizens getting vaccination shots while traveling in the States, we realized our situation in a Central American country was a much different situation.

Americans?

The obvious question, why aren’t you just getting the vaccine at home?

This was either just going to work, or it wasn’t.

The coin was still rolling on the table. It could fall either way.

The women asking the questions in Spanish called out to a second person, a supervisor we assumed. We politely and pleadingly tried to reiterate that we were not residents of Panama but, rather, visitors living aboard our sailboat who had found ourselves trapped in Panama after arriving literally the day COVID lockdowns were implemented. Eighteen months later, we were still trying to get vaccinated like everyone else and get on with our lives… but all in Spanish… yah, sure.

An excruciating tension filled the air, and time almost seemed to stop. You could almost see the wheels spinning inside her head as she tried to process what we were desperately attempting to explain in a vaguely recognizable and mangled version of her Mother-tongue. Finally, she turned to the woman filling out the paperwork… and gave a nod.

Hallelujah! It was like a sandbag was instantly lifted off my chest. Whatever reservations, administrative protocols, politics, and/or linguistic confusion had been stirred into the mix of uncertainty, the ultimate decision by the one gatekeeper who controlled our immediate destiny was apparently, and thankfully, guided by humanitarian considerations — get as many people jabbed as is humanly possible.

It could have gone either way. We were lucky.

Thirty minutes later we were nearly levitating back to our dinghy. The tiny bandage on our upper arm and small card in our possession, filled out by hand with the day’s date and a Pfizer vaccine lot number, were the only proof of the incredible success we had.

Nevertheless, we knew. Shot one was done.

Little did we know, that would be the easy bit.

While we were in Portobelo we visited the church Iglesia San Felipa which is home to the venerated wooden statue Cristo Negro (Black Christ), as well as the ruins of Fuerte Santiago, which dates back to Portobelo’s days as the greatest Spanish port city in Latin America.

May 7 – June 23, 2021

After essentially being all by ourselves for more than two weeks both at Escudo de Veraguas and Rio Chagres, our arrival at the breakwater just outside the entrance to the Panama Canal was, to say the least, quite a shock to the system.

From peace, quiet, and isolation…

… to a convoy of cargo ships.

Once inside the breakwater, we dropped the hook at the edge of all the hustle and bustle, just outside Shelter Bay Marina, and made the final preparations for our imminent haul out.

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The actual process of getting a forty two thousand pound boat from a position of floating on the water to balancing on stands in a gravel lot is, fortunately, turned over to professionals.

In some cases, professional means impeccably qualified and experienced. In other cases, it simply means the guy who does it.

Stories were still resonating through the cruising world about a recent mishap with a catamaran being hauled out at a marina on the Rio Dulce in Guatemala. The crane lifting the cat out of the water failed, causing the boat to come crashing down with the boom arm on top of it. S/V Ginger Cat, a boat we had dinghied past dozens of times while in Bocas del Toro, was written off as a complete loss.

Even though this would be only the fourth time we had seen Exit precariously hanging in the slings of a huge travel lift, I thought we deserved rather high marks for concealing the inevitable breath-holding and sphincter-tightening that seems to accompany such situations.

On the other hand, this was the first time we had seen a transfer occur from travel lift to trailer. The gravel track leading into the boatyard was too narrow to accommodate the travel lift, so the move had to be done on a trailer that was literally bolted to a forklift.

We were grateful that the crew knew what they were doing.

With Exit finally in place, an array of stick-like and completely inadequate looking metal stands are set into place around the hull, supplementing what can only be described as a pair of stacked oversized Jenga towers, which support most of the weight 0f the boat… yowsa!

An extension ladder now provides the means by which we get access onto and off of the boat. Every… single… time…

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The list was made, and it was long.

The obvious priority was to address anything below the waterline while we were on the hard and dry. We already knew our most pressing issue was getting more anti-fouling paint on the bottom, clearly indicated by places where the paint had worn completely off, exposing the barrier coat of epoxy underneath. Maintenance on the MaxProp and replacing the protective underwater zincs could be done anytime, but being out of the water certainly made things far easier.

However, any painting would be contingent upon a thorough inspection for any suspected points of corrosion, a shitload of scraping and sanding, as well as some cooperative weather.

If we were lucky, spots that still had good bottom paint could be lightly sanded and painted over. Any points where corrosion was even suspected would be taken all the way down to shiny bare aluminium, and recoated with multiple barrier coats of epoxy before being painted.

Knowing we would have very little access to equipment and tools in the Shelter Bay Marina boatyard, an electric grinder was one of the things we purchased before leaving Bocas del Toro. This would make quick work of the sanding, but the fact that we had no vacuum system to contain the dust meant it would be incredibly messy (most likely to the chagrin of any neighbors) and it would take off far more paint than we wanted (after all, the goal was keeping as much paint ON the boat as possible). So we opted to use the grinder only when we needed to get all the way down to bare metal.

Clean-er… but, by no means clean.

A number of things occurred to me during this process…

#1- I should be able to swim for quite some time without having any algae growing on me.

#2- After fourteen months of global Covid pandemic, the mask actually seemed much more normal than I expected.

#3- Even with a palm tree in the background, this did not feel like paradise!

During this time, Kris was locked in mortal combat with the dinghy, cleaning both it and the protective chaps we were so happy to have gotten while we were at the Rio Dulce in Guatemala.

Fortunately, though almost every task was within the realm of possibility for us to undertake ourselves, the marina had a sail loft with a very capable canvas worker who was able to sort out some minor repairs on our dinghy chaps, mainsail cover, staysail, and Isenglass window (which had taken on more of the transparency properties of a wall than a window and the water resistant properties of an open door).

It seemed that one of the biggest challenges we faced was not the ability to do things; but rather, the ability to get things done. The forecasts we looked to in attempting to plan our daily agenda were schizophrenic, conflicting, and inaccurate. Depending on who you talk to (and what island you are next to), Panama seems to have rainy seasons throughout the year. Of course, June was supposed to be entering “the rainy season”.

Hearing that Bocas had been getting non-stop rain for quite some time, we were grateful to be where we currently were. Still, nearly every day seemed to either flirt with the threat of rain…

… or simply deliver on that threat.

Slowly, steadily… progress continued.

On the hull, questionable spots were sanded down to bare metal for inspection.

Eventually, the areas that had been sanded to bare metal were all covered with multiple coats of epoxy, the masking was complete, and bottom paint began to be applied. Seven coats at the waterline was the goal.

Busy times. It was eight days before we took our first official break and visited the pool. But, even at the pool, one only had to look over their shoulder to be instantly reminded that a shitload of work remained.

So, with a relentless laser focus, we pressed forward. By the end of two weeks, everything (with the exception of the centerboard and under the stands) had at least one coat of Trilux 33 anti-fouling paint.

Exactly seven days later, we put on the final coat of bottom paint.

That morning, for the first time in the three weeks since our arrival, we were greeted in the cockpit by a visitor who had never before ventured up the ladder leading precariously up onto our transom. We called our new friend Morris, though it turned out he was actually a she. It was as though Morris was telling us, “You realize what today is, don’t you?”

It was final coat of paint day!

With the last coat of paint applied, MaxProp serviced, and new hull zincs installed, everything we could do below the waterline was done until we were back in the travel lift slings again.

To be sure, revealing that clean, crisp line along the edge of brand new bottom paint as you carefully peel back the blue masking tape certainly generates an immensely satisfying feeling.

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Though much of our attention was dedicated towards work below the waterline, we managed to successfully juggle a number of other tasks simultaneously.

Not so much distractions.

More like side projects.

An unanticipated survey had to be done as a requirement to renew our insurance. However, no drama ensued and we actually found the Panamanian surveyer to be well more thorough and personable than the surveyer we had hired in Maryland when we first bought Exit.

After our harrowing night time drama with the stern anchor at Escudo de Veraguas, the thought of deploying our stern anchor again was not an appealing prospect. However, if it came time to use it again, we realized that the rust buildup on the chain was becoming very problematic.

In fact, the rusty ball of corroded metal near the bitter end of the chain could easily jam up and completely destroy our windlass. We weren’t ready to replace the chain at this point; so… the next best thing was to lower the whole mess down onto the gravel, grab a hammer, beat the shit out of the chain and knock the rust clean off. A temporary fix as well as good cathartic therapy. The ball of rust that comprised the last three feet of chain just had to be hacksawed off.

When we purchased Exit in 2017, one of the appliances already aboard was a washing machine. While this seemed like a great commodity at that time, in reality the thing was dead weight.

It hadn’t been run in over a decade. We learned it would consume a ridiculous amount of precious water, if it even ran. And, though the washing machine took up a massive amount of space, its actual capacity was minuscule.

A bucket with soap and water had been more than adequate for the past nearly four years now.

So, in an inspired moment of ambitious insight and energy, I decided it was right now that this fucking thing was going away.

Relative to most washing machines it was tiny. Still, it was one heavy and bulky son of a bitch. The limited space to work made it a challenge, to say the least. And the eight foot drop off the transom made it even harder. But as is always the case when you’re living on a boat, in the end, persistence and sheer tenacity won out.

It was a good decision.

Once back in the water, we never would have gotten it into the dinghy. And we would never have been callous enough to simply throw it overboard.

Bye, bye. And good riddance.

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Our house battery bank had been giving us grief for nearly a year. What appeared to be a continuing decline of capacity plagued us to the point where, despite receiving a solid battery charge during the day, we were facing critical charge levels by the next morning even if we turned off the fridge overnight.

It wasn’t a matter of lack of attention or concern.

Rather, we thinks… a combination of consistent cloudy stretches normal to Panama which affected our solar charging, a lack of moving about which would normally help with some engine charge, the death of our generator (whose sole purpose was battery charging), the added power draw of using the water maker, as well as (probably more than anything else) an ongoing struggle to understand both the fundamentals and subtleties of the mystic and elusive voodoo known as electricity.

A seemingly never-ending process of research and troubleshooting preceded our arrival at Shelter Bay. Confusing. Frustrating. Concerning. Our dear friends on both S/V Avigna and S/V Cetacea deserve big shout outs for providing repeated guidance, reassurance, inspiration, and therapy.

Ultimately, we suspected that both misinterpreted information and flawed charging strategies had led to us inadvertently killing the six batteries we had purchased less than three years ago. Our current luxury of unlimited shore power gave us the possibility of finally answering that question.

Converting our salon into a temporary laboratory, six separate battery capacity tests revealed an even more dire situation than we had thought. One of the six batteries was operating at only twenty four percent capacity… and that was the best one. The worst performer came in at only an astonishing nine percent!

The cable connecting us to shore power was truly acting as life support for our house battery bank.

The next day we ordered six new Lifeline AGM batteries from the same guys we got our windlass, chain, and anchor through while we were in Bocas.

Cha-ching!

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T-minus thirty six hours…

Twenty three days into our haul out we were finally ready to go back into the slings. We arranged to be lifted at the end of the day on Saturday, which gave us until Monday to get our centerboard and areas we hadn’t been able to get to because of the stands sanded and painted.

Getting a forty two thousand pound boat from the water onto stands is a task that is best not observed by the faint of heart. Getting a forty two thousand pound boat from stands onto a trailer is a task best not observed by anyone who owns the boat being moved.

This sphincter clenching process first involves taking the stands, which already seem completely inadequate in structure, and inverting them from a position in which the three legs are equally supported by a welded triangular base into a position where each stand is tilted and ridiculously balanced on one edge of that triangle.

The result is threefold.

Number one, it creates barely enough space for the trailer to be slid in between the stands and the blocks underneath Exit.

Number two, it creates a brief period where the entire weight of our boat is resting solely upon the two oversized wooden block Jenga towers; the metal stands appear to be doing little more than trying to keep Exit from toppling sideways.

Number three, it creates a perfect opportunity for a grown adult to justifiably shit themselves repeatedly.

To the yard workers’ credit, they managed to thread the needle and everything went off without a hitch. Fortunately, rather than the trailer knocking Exit off its stands, it was the staff who kicked over the tower of blocks after the trailer had lifted Exit. Whew!

For an encore, the yard workers backed Exit, perched atop the trailer, on a narrow and uneven temporary gravel road the entire way to the travel lift, which was too wide to fit on the road. Bravo performance!

Eventually, Exit was sitting in the travel lift slings right next to the haul out bay. We were so close to the water, but not quite read to splash.

Now, twelve feet from the ground to the deck, it was twice as intimidating being on the ladder, and twice as much of a pain in the ass getting on and off the boat. Not to mention the hundred yard walk to the bathrooms.

We rigged up a lift to make the challenge of getting stuff up and down a bit easier.

The remaining work to do on the centerboard and spots that were concealed by stands turned out a bit more extensive than we anticipated but nothing that threatened to derail our launch.

Fair to say that, despite seeing plenty of storm clouds and rain during the previous three weeks, the weather gods were by and large rather kind to us.

Another point of distraction: Uncertain of the proper terminology “by and large” or “by in large”, Google informed me that the term “by and large” has a nautical origin. Apparently, the “by” referring to being closed hauled (or sailing as close into the wind as possible) versus “large” which referred to sailing aft of the beam (or just slightly downwind) — the wide range of sailing points carrying over into the “in general” or “on the whole” sense of the term (source: marriam-webster.com).

I guess you’re never too old to get a little less dumb or a little more salty.

Anyway… by and large, while we experienced near daily rain showers, there were only a few instances during the haul out where an entire day was lost to shitty weather. We seemed to be particularly fortunate on days where timing was critical. And when you’re painting, the nervous tension of the threat of rain is always better than actually feeling the rain drops.

With the final drops of paint transferred from the bottom of the paint can to the bottom of Exit, we were able to enjoy a well deserved quiet moment of victorious celebration. The beer was no different from the cans of local Balboa we had become accustomed to over the past fourteen months… and, yet, these particular beers seemed profoundly cold and exceptionally tasty.

Salud!

The following day dark clouds lurked ominously above us from horizon to horizon. But it didn’t matter, cause we were gonna get wet anyway.

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We hadn’t escaped the clutches of the marina yet. But alas, Exit was finally back where she belonged… in the water. A handful of things needed to get done while we awaited the arrival of our new batteries and at least now we didn’t have to climb down a ladder and walk fifty yards just to pee.

The laundry water was a testimony to our previous three weeks of hard work. Finally, our clothes were far dirtier than anything else on the boat…

And it turned out we apparently had a new crew member. After discovering our stowaway, Lizzy was gladly welcomed aboard as Ambassador of Goodwill and Mosquito Consumption.

Sometimes guilty pleasures (very different from politician Matt Gaetz’s self-described naughty favors) simply must be indulged.

While making only our second run into Colon to shop since arriving at Shelter Bay, we found ourselves with an extra fifteen minutes before the van was scheduled to leave returning to the marina.

What better way to kill that time than with a DQ Blizzard?

An hour later, while we were still unpacking bags back on the boat, we heard a rap on the hull outside. It was our neighbor two slips down, who explained he was preparing to haul out his boat for long term storage and had some perfectly good unused food he had provisioned while in Puerto Rico that needed to be gotten rid of.

Enthusiastically, we accepted the offer. Looking inside the bag, we were stunned. Pure gold had just materialized before our eyes…

The following day was my birthday. I had won the trifecta of gastronomical bliss.

The breakfast that Kris made was a decadent home run… she had undoubtably knocked it clean outta the park. Thanks for that, my love!

Oh ya… and how can I forget. Our celebration dinner a week earlier, the day after launching Exit back into the water. Cheese fondue… epic!

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The weather, which had been quite cooperative with us while we were trying to paint, seemed to take a definitively more humid turn. Ultimately, we didn’t care that much because we were back in the water, even though we still longed to be out of the marina.

The alternative to rain seemed to be an intense bones-to-dust heat that was brutal to endure. Exposure to only a few afternoons like that quickly clarify how the concept of siestas may have evolved. Hotter than inside the Devil’s ball sack may very well be a phrase I coined, but I’m not sure how quickly it will catch on…

Nevertheless, we continued to press forward, diligently ticking off task after task.

A hatch whose hinge had seized up and hadn’t been open for a year managed to get sorted out.

Our Bimini cover came back from the sail loft with a brand new Isenglass window. The next time we raised our sails, it would actually be possible to see our wind indicator at the top of the mast. Woohoo!

A truly sobering moment was the prospect of drilling holes below the waterline of our dinghy in order to install the mounts for launching wheels. We had obtained them while we were in Bocas from a couple we met, also from Washington state. They had been sailing for decades and now, one in the sixties and one in the eighties, stilled live aboard their sailboat. Cudos!

After purchasing the wheels for a mere forty dollars, we learned that the Danard brand was considered the Rolls Royce of dinghy wheels, retailing for three hundred bucks brand new. Score!

With our mess making largely complete and our access to unlimited water nearing an end, an onslaught of cleaning ensued. The cockpit looked cleaner than it had for a long time. The deck was largely free of bird shit and Panama dirt which had being accumulating. The dodger and Bimini were as clean as they were ever going to get and had multiple new coats of waterproofing (we had given up on small, expensive aerosol cans and graduated to gallons of siliconized sealer made for concrete, brick, and tile that had to be literally painted on with a roller or brush).

At long last, the moment arrived. Our six new Lifeline AGM batteries and a Honda EU2200 generator showed up on the dock.

Aside from a final provisioning run, this was all that was holding us here at the marina. Get the batteries installed… get some food and fuel… get the fuck outta here.

When Kris posted the above photo on Facebook, a number of friends thought we had purchased $3500 worth of wine. Alas…most of the wine we brought aboard was boxed wine rather than boxes of wine. The truth is, our wine provisions rang in at more like thirty five bucks instead of thirty five hundred.

Jose, one of the marina employees, had been the most outwardly friendly, smiling, and engaging of all the non-management staff we interacted with while we were hauled out. When he learned we were getting new batteries, he perked up and got even friendlier. I imagine the potential income from recycling the lead inside the old batteries offered him a significant supplement to a barely adequate salary.

For us, the hassle and cost of taking them twenty miles to a retail store that would give us a hundred dollars for the lot was not very appetizing. On the other hand, paying forward good karma was.

In the end, Christmas came early for Jose. Good people deserve good things.

We had learned many expensive lessons with our previous battery bank and hoped to not repeat this whole replacement process for quite some time.

The new generator was an imperfect solution to our dead Fischer Panda generator, which had been on Exit when we purchased her. At $15,000 new, the old generator was ridiculous overkill for the sole purpose of backup battery charger. Even the part we suspected we needed for the repair was $5000. We had decided, if we could ever resuscitate the thing, we would just get rid of it.

The only other possible use we could have had for the Panda was as a 220 volt source of power for a potential dive compressor… but it turned out even that was not necessary.

---

Okay.

The real reason we came to Shelter Bay Marina… not really, but it sure made the rest of the process more bearable.

A dive compressor, with only three hours of use, and a couple of extra scuba tanks became available from a friend we met in Bocas now selling his boat at Shelter Bay. In the end, despite the fact that we were already hemorrhaging money just being in the marina, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to finally become completely scuba self-sufficient. Sweeeeet!

Our transom has a locker that was built specifically to house the life raft. Smart design, conveniently accessible, and excellent protection from the environment.

As it turns out, the dive compressor is almost exactly the same dimensions as the life raft. We already considered the transom our dive platform. What better location to fill tanks?

Come on… really.

Abandoning ship is soooooo overrated.

Just to clarify: washing machine… gone. Life raft… simply moved to a secure, undisclosed location. Questionable priorities? Maybe… but we’re not idiots.

April 29 – May 5, 2021

Crocodiles!  Woohoo!

We had been growing more and more skeptical that we would see any.  During our previous thirteen months in Bocas del Toro, we had spotted one actual crocodile.  It had disappeared quietly beneath the surface at Big Bight shortly after we jumped in the dinghy and we never saw it again.

Now, on our third day here at Rio Chagres, a crocodile was slowly swimming along the shoreline less than two hundred feet from where we stood on deck of Exit.  We could clearly see its  head and massive scutes lining the top of its tail above the surface.  A big crocodile.  We snapped some photos from on deck and hopped in the dinghy.  By the time we approached, the croc had disappeared under the murky water.  It appeared to have ducked into a small cove.  Ever so slowly, we paddled into what seemed like a very enclosed area.  Too enclosed.  

Excited and super creeped out, we backed right the fuck out and returned to Exit after making a quick comparison of the length of the croc relative to the size of the bushes it was in front of when the photo was taken.

We estimated ten to twelve feet.  Holy shit!

Later in the day we saw one more five to six footer in exactly the same spot.  The following day, a small one to two foot baby up a small creek we were exploring in the dinghy.  Kris saw a three footer the day after that while she was paddling on her SUP. 

My own SUP paddles up small creeks no more than twenty feet wide and five feet deep revealed no lurking reptiles; but I do know an Autralian with a healthy respect for crocs who thought I was one hombre muy estupido. Small rubber inflatable craft… crocodile teeth… remote and restricted area… fair enough. What the fuck was I thinking?

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Gatun Lake was formed in 1910 after a dam was built seven miles upriver from the mouth the Rio Chagres as part of the Panama Canal construction. Water from the lake is used in the process of raising and lowering the levels inside the system of locks inside the Canal. Vessels transiting the Panama Canal from the Caribbean side cross Gatun Lake after passing through the locks on their way to the Pacific Ocean.

Though the dam itself has made it impossible to access the Rio Chagres from Gatun Lake, this seven mile stretch of pure jungle is still accessible to sailboats who venture through the hundred foot wide mouth where the Rio Chagres feeds into the ocean.

For seven miles, the lazy river winds back and forth, cutting a track through a stunning swath of primitive Panama jungle. A number of smaller rivers and endless tiny creeks can be seen emerging from the trees and shoreline mangroves.

Any expectations that Rio Charges would be quite similar to the freshwater river Rio Dulce in Guatemala turned out only partially true.

The incredible density and diversity of intertwining trees, vines, plants, and foliage making up the lush green jungles surrounding both Rio Dulce and Rio Chagres is very comparable. Simply amazing.

While the Rio Dulce does have breathtakingly dramatic cliffs and elevations, it is primarily a brief transit between the town of Livingston at the river’s mouth and Lake Golfete. What I found much more memorable about the Chagres was that the river itself is the destination. We could drop anchor anywhere along the way and sit for as long as we like.

Another distinction was the difference in traffic. Compared to Rio Dulce’s constant stream of motored boat traffic as well as dozens of local dugout cayucas fishing around every corner, Rio Chagres was unbelievably devoid of people.

Not a single house (the entire river is inside a national park). No water taxis. Not really any tour boats. Maybe a couple of gringos in power boats a week. A half dozen or ten small local fishing boats or skiffs a day (maybe going both ways) would be an exceptionally busy day.

Everybody waves; Nobody stops.

Day after day, it was just us.

Yet, despite human traffic on Rio Chagres being very sparse, animal life in the area is abundant.

Howler and capuchin monkeys live all along the river, roaming constantly through the jungle’s canopy. Both are amazing to watch. Troops of six to a dozen monkeys, oftentimes seen with tiny, spindly babies gymnastically shadowing alongside or on top of their mother, venture right to the river’s edge.

The raucous vocalizations of the howler monkeys echoing across the jungle (announcing sunrise, sundown, approaching rain, or simply voicing an opinion it seems) are a stark contrast to the silence of the capuchins, whose presence may sometimes be revealed only by the swaying and crashing branches upon which they are moving.

Multiple species of toucans are numerous in the area. Despite their extremely unique profile and vivid colors, it is phenomenally difficult to spot these birds in the trees until they move. On the other hand, when in flight, the outline of their characteristic bill makes them instantly recognizable.

Also colorful parrots (squeak-beaks as we call them), almost always traveling in pairs, continually announce their presence as they noisily pass by overhead.

Every clear evening, the jungle would undergo an audible transformation from day to night. Birds, insects, frogs, and who knows exactly what else, all creating layer upon layer of a vast soundscape, filling the air with strange and overwhelming sounds that build and fade in volume as all of the participants compete to be heard.

In the morning, another stunning sunrise transforms the river’s banks back to amazing shades of green.

Aside from ourselves and the occasional passing boat, the only human sound we heard was a sort of thrumming hum that was generated by all of the activity, traffic, and machinery generated at the Panama Canal only a few miles away. The background noise came and went, seemingly dependent more on the wind direction than anything else, and was never obnoxious… only noticeable.

That, and air traffic. Planes passing a mile or more overhead… only noticeable. A helicopter traveling at high speed, following along the line of the river below mast height… not so cool. Military patrol? Drug runners? Tourists? Not sure, but we heard the Shelter Bay Marina owner likes to come and go via helicopter. Regardless, definitely not the bird you want your mast to be buzzed by.

On a less dramatic note, one of the really unique things we found about the Rio Chagres were the subtle, though strange, currents.

Over the course of the day we would experience an exceptionally gentle current flowing towards the ocean slow to a complete stop and eventually turn in the other direction, now moving “upstream” towards the dam.

If the lake is essentially at sea level, then I suppose the eighteen inch tide change could be enough to change the direction of the river’s flow.  Furthermore, that direction shift must become very convoluted when stretched over the seven mile distance of the river.  

We found ourselves very disoriented a number of times while sitting at anchor.   In the rather narrow and symmetrical looking corridor of a river, after the current would reverse direction, we would spin around 180 degrees and be facing the opposite direction, all without us noticing!

Also, each time I tasted the water it was more salty than merely brackish. Not really even a fresh water river.

Nevertheless, Kris found it to be another perfect environment for a paddle on the SUP.

Rain or shine…

During our week on the Chagres, we saw only two other sailboats the entire time. One arrived a couple of days ahead of us and was farther upriver. We saw them only passing in the dinghy and spoke for thirty seconds as they motored past us on their way out. The second sailboat arrived a couple of days after we did, anchored one night in view on the same section of river, then picked up in a day and we only saw them again and spoke for thirty seconds as they motored past us on their way out. During more than half our stay, it appeared Exit was the only sailboat on the entire seven mile stretch of Rio Chagres.

Nice.

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Firefly Rescue Unit

Having spent most of our lives in places devoid of fireflies, we always find rare and random encounters with the creatures to be welcome and somewhat mystical events. The strange floating light produced when their butt transforms into a lantern always seems like a bit of magic. However, on the Rio Chagres, we encountered a completely new species of firefly.

We had seen them from a distance a number of evenings before and they seemed particularly bright, but we had not yet been close to any. On this evening, we watched as a firefly lit up and emerged from the dark shadows of the evening jungle. It flew out over the water, not a hundred feet from us.

The small, yet intense light meandered back and forth in a seemingly random manner until, at one point, it clearly hit the water and stopped dead. We watched for a few minutes as the light sat there and then began to flicker and slowly fade.

With very little background in the behavioral psychology of fireflies, it was hard to be sure; but it appeared to us that we were watching the aftermath of an air traffic accident.

I hopped into the dinghy, which was fortunately still in the water, went over and scooped up the firefly out of the water into my drink glass and returned to Exit.

The strange creature slowly crawled out of the glass and sat on the cockpit table, cleaning itself. Two small but very bright dots were continually illuminated on its back. Every now and then, its rear end would light up, like a more traditional firefly. Eventually, it seemed quite content simply walking around, exploring our arms and hands.

After a bit, we hopped back into the dinghy with our new friend and went over to the shore depositing it on one of the leaves of a tree branch hanging out over the river.

We’ll never know for sure, but the anthropomorphic conclusion to the story rests upon whether fireflies actually can or cannot swim.

If not, I can only imagine the following day the story started something like… so, after a near fatal crash on the water I was unbelievably rescued, resuscitated, and returned by some strange guardian angel on the river…

If, in fact, fireflies can swim the story may instead have sounded more like… you’re never gonna believe this, but after performing a textbook water landing I was abducted by aliens and temporarily taken aboard their ship for observation…

Author’s note: Subsequent research revealed that the insect we encountered was not a firefly. Rather, it was a type of click beetle, aptly called a headlight beetle (for the two distinct lights illuminated on its back).

This totally changes everything. Obviously, the story must have went: I can’t believe those stupid humans. Bad enough that they accost me… but to mistake me for a fucking fly... how indignant!

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Twelve Hour Karma

Late in the afternoon on our seventh and final day, we received our only visitors during our stay on the Rio Chagres. Three local fishermen passing by in a small boat motoring “downstream” stopped at Exit. All three smiled, though only one spoke.

Not a word of English.

We tried to communicate with our limited Spanish, yet sometimes anything but the absolute most basic sentence can be misunderstood when spoken by someone with a limited grasp of the language.

POINT OF DISTRACTION: I recall once trying to ask a local fisherman in Spanish if he was having luck catching fish. He misunderstood me, thinking I was asking if he caught fish because they brought him good luck. With a very confused look on his face he replied, “No, the fish are to eat.” True story.

Anyway… after a bit of back and forth, I got hung up on a word I couldn’t identify. It sounded something like meshis.

Something about fuego meshis… fire something….

Finally, I realized it was not Spanish. He was trying for English. Duh.

Meshis… matches.

Feeling stupid, I disappeared down the companionway, reappearing moments later with two books of matches. I handed them to the guy.

He smiled and said gracias. They disappeared around the bend and the sound of the boat engine slowly faded away.

A bit out of the ordinary, to be sure. But… really, just another strange moment in a rather ongoing sequence of the surreal.

The following morning, both Kris and I were jolted awake at 6am by what sounded like a tapping on the hull. Wtf?

“Hola”… came a voice along with another rap on the side of Exit.

“Hola. Buen dia… ” I replied as I stumbled into my boardies and climbed, bleary eyed, up into the cockpit.

I was greeted by what had to be nearly a ten pound red snapper! Dead – no doubt about that – but still staring me right in the face. Holding out the magnificent fish was none other than the guy I had given two matchbooks to the day before.

The same three fishermen in the same boat were now alongside Exit facing the opposite direction as yesterday, coming back from a night of fishing. I’m not sure how far they had travelled, maybe all the way outside to the reef, but it was obviously a very successful night. One of the three guys, sporting an ear to ear grin, lifted the lid of a huge plastic cooler that sat in the center of the small boat, revealing a stunning assortment of fish that filled the container clear to the top.

It appeared we were being offered the prime catch of the night, an incredibly generous gesture in return for us giving them some matches.

Wow.

Even after a exhausting night of work, they made a point of stopping as they passed. They were definitely proud. They were definitely grateful.

Rarely am I early to wake. Yet today, for the first time ever at 6am, Kris brought me a knife and cutting board and I cleaned fresh snapper… on the transom of Exit… in a jungle shrouded with the morning’s low clouds… in Panama.

Go figure.