Panama Canal

S/V Mañana successfully transited the Panama Canal on December 26, 2009.  Because of the holidays there were few cruisers at the Balboa Yacht Club when we went looking for crew (many had traveled inland, flown home, or just left for other locations for the holiday week), but we managed to find a truly international crew to man our lines. Each small boat moving through the Canal is required to have at least four line handlers aboard in addition to the captain (me) and a Canal Advisor.  Andrea would get one line, and we coaxed our solo sailing friend Edward (South Korea) into helping. We also found two boatless travelers, Thomas (French) and Daniele (Italian), who were looking for a ride to Portobello on the Caribbean side so we hastily added them to the crew. Both Thomas and Daniele are hoping to find a ride across the Pacific, but for now they were happy to get to Portobello where they had a friend with an extra room. Along with the Panamanian advisor and the two Americans (us) we had a regular United Nations crossing.

 

We had already lined both sides of the boat with tires to prevent damage in case the turbulent waters in the locks bounced us around too much, and we had rented four 125’ long lines as required by the Canal Authority. The crew was ready at 7 AM as requested, and the advisor came aboard at 8 AM, but he brought news that we would not enter the first lock (about 4 miles away) until 10:30 because the Mexican tall ship was going through that day. We had really hoped that we could share the locks with this ship which would transit with much pomp and circumstance and flags flying. The late start would mean a two day transit with an overnight at anchor in Lake Gatun.  For us a one day transit would have been much more convenient.  When we did our practice passage of the Canal we had also been forced to stop in the lake for the night. While we were swimming in the first fresh water that we had seen on the entire trip an ACP boat (canal administration) came over to warn us that lake swimming was verboten because of the crocodiles.  Oops! This time there would be no scheduled swim break.

 

 

We passed through the Miraflores Locks first and then the Pedro Miguel Lock. In each of these locks we were side tied to a sightseeing boat, and that made our passage much, much easier. The excursion boat was a large ferry, and she side tied to the wall so all we had to do was get our lines over to her and then hang on.  The ferry entered the lock first, and our only job was to maneuver into position. Our daughter managed to catch us live in the locks on the Canal webcam. 

 

We exited the Pedro Miguel Lock at noon and began the long motor trip (no sailing allowed) through the Culebra Cut and into Lake Gatun. This motor section of the trip was to take about 5 hours and covered about 25 miles.  During this time we took turns steering, served lunch to everyone, sat in the sun and relaxed.  The Lake is (was?) the largest manmade lake in the world and was created by damming the Chagres River as it flows into the Caribbean. The first three locks had raised the boat to the lake level some 84 feet above sea level. At the other side of the Canal we would pass through three more locks dropping down to sea level again, but the dam and the locks keep the lake level at 84 feet.  This was a change from the original design of the canal which was supposed to be a sea level canal (like the Suez) with no locks, but the difficulty of digging, the constant land slides, the ever increasing width of the bottom of the canal (which then required many times more width at the  top of the cut to prevent slides) led to the failure of the French effort, and the Americans opted for the more complicated lock system. The locks are water inefficient because none of the water is recycled.  It just runs out to sea.  Each series of lock openings uses about 1 million gallons of fresh water so even if our small boat was in the locks all alone we would need that much water to transit. New locks are under construction and they are designed to address this problem.  Given the traffic in the Canal you can only guess at the amount of rainfall that Panama gets to keep replenishing the lake.    

As we approached the Gatun Locks (and the nearby anchorage where we expected to spend the night) Andrea and Edward went to work on the advisor trying to get the trip completed that night. Fortunately we had (1) treated the advisor very well, feeding him constantly, and (2) he had previously worked in Canal Control so with a bit of effort on his part he managed to schedule a night entrance into the locks that we would share with a 700 foot tanker. We really appreciated the advisor’s extra effort because it meant he would spend another two hours aboard instead of heading home early to Panama City. In Gatun Locks we agreed to be tied to the wall, but with less turbulence on the downward trip this was okay.  Our line handlers were great and we arrived at Shelter Bay on the Caribbean side at about 9 PM.  We tied up and quickly opened the beer cooler.  We were happy, tired and relieved. 

 

 

Our top line handler Edward deserves a special paragraph to himself. Edward had a small retail business in Indiana that didn’t survive the recession. He and his wife, Jade, thought perhaps they would return to Korea, but since Edward always wanted to go sailing he thought this was an opportunity knocking.  They flew to St. Martin (Windward Islands of the Caribbean), bought a 36’ Beneteau sailboat, took TWO DAYS of sailing lessons, and headed out for Cartegena, Colombia.  He admitted he had no previous sailing experience but “I read a lot of books”. Jade had never been on a sailboat. They left St Martin  in late October (too early) and headed west (wrong direction) and predictably got hit with the late season storms. They got knocked down, they got rolled, they got a lot of wind and 20’ seas.  They also reached Cartegena (somehow) and after a three week layover headed for Panama, and  they made it.  Now Edward is fixing the boat and preparing to cross the Pacific to South Korea… by himself.  Jade went home. They are still married, but she is not getting back on the boat again. I give the guy a lot of credit for striking out on a trip that even seasoned sailors would balk at, on a boat that might be a little less than a blue water boat, and on a boat that was bought out of charter, i.e. needs repairs. His comment was “The books don’t tell you how hard it is”. 

Happy New Year

Tom and Andrea 

Las Perlas

We have been in Panama City and the neighboring Las Perlas Islands for almost 4 weeks now.  What had originally been planned as an early December passage of the Panama Canal has now become a Christmas trip (yes, we are scheduled to cross on Boxing Day). We have transited the canal once already, but we did it as crew on another sailboat. Each small boat that transits the locks is required to have at least 4 line handlers on board, and we volunteered to help a solo sailor make the crossing.  In addition to Andrea and I, he had recruited two bicyclists who wanted to make the trip from Panama to Cartegena, Colombia. Marc and Indira are both photographers, one from Spain and the other from Chile, who were bicycling from Alaska to Argentina. At this point the roads into Colombia pretty much disappear into the jungle so they chose to make part of the trip by volunteering as crew on a sailboat. The fact that they had no sailing experience and  had never been to sea did not seem to faze them in the least. We loaded their bikes on deck and off we went. That canal crossing took two days because we missed our scheduled lockage on the other end (Gatun Locks) and had to spend the night anchored in Lake Gatun before we could continue north. After reaching the Shelter Bay Marina Andrea and I treated ourselves to a night in a hotel before taking the bus back to Panama while the others continued sailing east. Our bicyclists have a web site at 2Greenprints.org.  The web site is “en espanol” but they may have put up some pictures of the crossing by now. One interesting sidelight was that they normally stayed at firehouses all along the way.  Every town had one, they were safe, they could share kitchen facilities and the firemen were usually very welcoming.

 

You can check out the Panama Canal and Lake Gatun on Google Earth.  You will see the mooring field at the Balboa Yacht Club (8° 56.211'N 79° 33.374'W), the Bridge of the Americas (which provides a beautiful night scene when lit up) (8° 56.604'N 79° 33.900'W), the two locks at Miraflores (8° 59.723'N 79° 35.412'W), the Pedro Miguel locks, the infamous Culebra Cut that required so much work to complete that it defeated the French (along with the mosquitoes) (9° 3.228'N 79° 39.378'W), the huge above sea level Lake Gatun, the three Gatun Locks (9° 16.482'N 79° 55.338'W) and finally the long channel out to the Caribbean through Colon harbor.  Whew! Quite an experience. We are worriedly looking forward to our own passage in our very small boat. On our first trip through we were locked in with a Panamax freighter (maximum size for the Panama Canal) that dwarfed the sailboat we were on. We worry that Mañana will not have the engine capacity to maintain the required speed and to handle the strong currents in the locks. If there are no more posts after this one then our worries were justified.

 

Panama City is also the gateway to Las Perlas Islands (8° 37.585'N  79° 1.825'W), over 100 tropical islands just 40 miles offshore.  After our canal adventure we spent a week in Las Perlas swimming, cleaning the bottom of the boat, and enjoying anchorages in near deserted coves and beaches. About a thousand people live in Las Perlas and many are descendents of slaves brought here by the Spanish to harvest the oyster pearls that give the islands their name. Queen Victoria’s pearls originated here. Panama’s history is one of piracy and conquest because the narrow isthmus was the most convenient way to transport the riches of Peru back to Europe. The pirate Henry Morgan figures prominently in any story about the old cities and islands that date from the early 1500s. 

 

We returned to Panama from Las Perlas to pick up Liz (ex-wife #1) and her boyfriend Mike who flew in to Panama for a winter break from the weather on Cape Cod, and then sailed back to Las Perlas for another visit. While Liz and Mike were here we got some of the best sailing of the year along with good snorkeling each day. We also set records for beer consumption, sunburns, jellyfish stings, etc. Yep, last day of the trip we swam through the jellyfish while snorkeling.  I didn’t even know I was allergic to jellyfish.  What I got was a bad rash very much like poison oak that lasted about three days. However even the jelly fish couldn’t spoil what was a great week .

 

Christmas is just around the corner and Panama is decorated with Santas and reindeer and cute little signs that say “Let it snow…”.  All of the carols are the same (with some translation needed) and they dream of a white Christmas and sleigh bells ringing. Everything would be perfect if it weren’t 95 degrees and humid each day. The prospects of a Christmas tree surviving the heat must be dim, but we see Christmas pines for sale, and gift paper with pictures of Santa in his full red suit.

I repeat myself when I say Panama has been a wonderful experience. Great sailing, beautiful islands all along the coast, friendly people, clean, relatively safe, and very hospitable to tourists and retirees. We are in awe at the size and number of freighters passing continuously each day to enter the canal, and we even got a close up view of the Mexican tall ship with all hands manning the yardarms as it entered the canal.

 

We have spent the last few days getting all of the permits to transit the canal and paying our fees (about $1,000) for the trip. Panama still has the Latin American penchant for paperwork.  Even the modern computers in each office have not changed the reliance on carbon paper for copies. This transit is the big deal for us because when we left California our single goal was “the Panama Canal”.  Of course we now plan to sail much further, but this was what we set out to accomplish over two years ago.  We are excited. Christmas at the Balboa Yacht Club and then Caribbean. Hello!!!!!

 

Merry Christmas to All,

 

Tom and Andrea

It was a dark and stormy night

 

The next leg of the trip was to be a 24 hour sail from Benao to Panama (Panama City is referred to as Panama much the way NYC is simply New York). We got underway about 11 AM figuring that the 24 hour sail would have us arriving safely at mid-day on the Island of Taboga ( 8° 48.000'N 79° 33.250'W) just 7 miles from the Balboa Yacht Club and Panama. The first 6 hours were great as we sailed merrily along rounding Punta Mala (Bad Point) ( 7° 25.000'N 80° 0.000'W) mid afternoon. Just before dark the storm clouds appeared on the horizon and the skies blackened appreciably.

 

Then the storm hit. We were sailing on a moonless night, pitch black, pouring rain, moving along at 7 knots under sail, and we could see about 3 feet ahead. We were wet and blind. It was very much like driving through a large cow pasture with your headlights turned off. You’re pretty sure there was nothing in front of you, but you can’t tell for sure. God forbid one of the cows got left out. We had planned our route to avoid the shipping lanes for the big freighters exiting the Canal so our chief worry was the smaller fishing boats. I will only say that it was not a pleasant night, but we did arrive safely at Taboga, in a driving rain, almost exactly as planned.

Taboga is a residential island with small homes and weekend homes. It is only a short ferry ride from the city but with only one ferry a day each way it is not suitable for commuting so it has retained its island atmosphere. We had met one of the residents of Taboga in Puerta Vallarta two years ago who runs a small mooring rental business on the island, and as soon as we arrived we hooked up to one of his moorings for our stay. We took time to explore the town, the beach and the bars, and we took advantage of the ferry to cross to the mainland to find a hotel and to explore the city.

 

This was our first glimpse of the city and we were impressed. Panama has a skyscraper skyline. There is a lot of new building going on and the country appears to be thriving. We walked the Casco Antigua (Old Compound). Casco Antigua was the center of the city during the canal building of the late 19^th century and the area very much resembled the architecture of New Orleans with two and three story buildings with elaborate iron balconies. We also visited two impressive shopping malls: Multi Plaza was a decidedly upscale mall selling a lot of goods we could not afford (think Neiman Marcus, Tiffany, very chic) and Albrook Mall was the largest mall I have ever seen anywhere. No, I have not been to the Mall of America in Minnesota, but we have nothing in CA to rival the size of this mall. There must have been over 100 eating places in the food court alone. The place was packed on a Monday afternoon. Panama is indeed experiencing a thriving economy right now with an impressive standard of living.

 

 

Panamanians are very friendly and seem genuinely happy to see visitors. There is not as much English spoken here as I would have expected since the Canal Zone was under US control until 2000, and we understand that the education level is not as good as that of Costa Rica, but the petty crime is not the problem it was in Costa Rica and the availability of goods in Panama is incredible. I can think of nothing that I could find in the US that is not available here from food to clothes to electronics to whatever. If you need it you can find it in Panama (albeit with several bus rides involved).

We moved the boat from Taboga to the Balboa Yacht Club where we are hanging on a mooring within 100 feet of the ship channel, and we can watch the big, big freighters slide slowly by on their way to the first of the locks. The yacht club is in a beautiful park like area that was once the site of a US Army base. We have seen pictures of the area in the 1930s that show barracks and drill fields where there are now trees and walking paths along the shore. We are getting a chance to meet cruisers from all over the world. Our trip down the Pacific Coast of Latin America has crossed paths with several boats making a trip similar to our own, but here in Panama we are at a crossroads for boats sailing north from Ecuador, west from Europe and the Carribbean and east from, well where we came from. There are many, many people in all stages of their voyages that stop at the BYC for a while (and stay even longer).

Trivia item: The Panama Canal runs North to South (not East to West as we might think in moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean) for the 50 miles across the Isthmus of Panama. This is the shortest distance between the seas in all of the Americas. When Balboa crossed this narrow isthmus heading south from the Caribbean he “discovered” this huge southern ocean which he named the Pacific. Since that time mariners have generally referred to the Pacific as the “South Seas” even though we all see the Pacific as an ocean west of the Americas

We have visited the Miraflores Locks (which are three of the 8 locks in the canal) and we have watched the big boys transit the locks. The Panamax ships (maximum size for the Panama Canal) squeeze into the 110 foot wide locks with less than 3 feet to spare on each side. Our own transit is still up in the air. We first need to decide when we would like to go through and then we have to go through some red tape to get measured and scheduled.

 

We are anxiously looking forward to exploring more of the Pacific Panama Islands, in particular the Las Perlas Islands which are just 40 miles from Panama. We are told that beautiful anchorages, white sand beaches, great fishing and good snorkeling are waiting for us in Las Perlas so we are delaying our canal transit until we have fully explored this side of the canal.

Fact: Assuming we do not change our minds and continue on to Ecuador we have passed our furthest point south on this trip at about 7° 10.100'N. We were about 430 miles from the Equator at that point.

On Island Time

Panama has been a great, great sailing experience so far. We have been sailing the Pacific islands of western Panama on our way to Panama City and the Canal. The islands, bays and the Panama mainland are blissfully quiet and very beautiful. Few people live in this end of Panama. We see lots of green hills and blue water as we sail the coast, and the seas have been flat and the winds light. It makes for good sailing and even better anchoring.

In the 400 miles between Golfito and Panama City we will find only anchorages, no marinas, and in most of those we are the only boat there. We even visited one bay that had a small village with no overland road access where we traded tools for vegetables. The farmer we traded with did not want money because he had no place to spend it, but tools and an old tarp were much more valuable to him. We have definitely gotten away from it all.

We left Costa Rica in our wake spending our first night out anchored near the famous surf break at Pavones (8° 23.930'N 83° 8.280'W, Google Earth latitude/longitude).

Pavones is the longest left hand break in the world (whoop-de-doo), but this is a big thing in the surfing community and we wanted to see what all the excitement was about. Also, since Pavones was only a 15 mile sail we could leave late, sail slowly, check out our engine repairs, and still find a safe place for the night.

Two more day sails and we found ourselves in an island anchorage at Isla Gamez (8° 7.708'N 82° 19.017'W) which may be one of the prettiest spots in the world. This was our first glimpse of palm trees on the beach and turquoise waters. Add in gently lapping waves and we were in heaven.

Sailing Panama one of the attractions is that the spots available to drop anchor are much closer together, and we avoid the long sails and overnights that are much less appealing. Yes, it rains in heaven too, so we are still getting our regular PM showers, and it is very dark at night with no lights ashore or on the water, but the scenery makes it all worthwhile. (We were a little spooked one night when the cloud cover obscured the stars, there was no moon, there were no lights, and we realized that we could stare into the night with no hope of seeing anything more than two feet from the boat. Definitely an eerie feeling.)

We crossed over to the mainland to explore the small town of Boca Chica (8° 12.684'N 82° 12.450'W ) and to get some fresh fruits, and we found an extremely pleasant restaurant high on a hill overlooking the harbor entrance. A fellow from Vail, CO had just opened for business, and he served some great seafood dishes for very few dollars. Panama is much less expensive than Costa Rica which is also one of its appeals. A large and delicious fish dinner cost us $6.50 (no tax) with $1 Panamanian beers to wash it down. In general Panamanian beer is pretty bland, but when it’s hot… Boca Chica was also the first place we had seen any other boats on this trip and we enjoyed the opportunity to share sea tales at the bar.

 

Isla Seca (7° 59.600'N 82° 1.900'W) was the next island anchorage and my first opportunity to clean the bottom of the boat after months of sitting idle in the Golfo Dulce. Swim fins, mask, snorkel and a good paint scraper were all I needed, that and the ability to hold my breath for several minutes at a time as I scraped sea grasses and barnacles from the bottom. I wanted to throw this in so you will know that even out here we are working hard. Isla Seca had some canvas tents on the hills that we could see from the anchorage, and we understand that for $300 a night you can occupy one of these tents while visiting these islands from the mainland.

 

Bahia Honda (7° 45.849'N 81° 32.281'W) was where we got to meet Domingo and his son Kennedy and his granddaughter Lacy who provided us with spinach, limes, bananas, cilantro and peppers in exchange for our small tools. What they really needed was fishing lures and lines, but the fish had already stolen most of ours. Buying fish from the locals is lot more reliable than dragging a line. Also the local fishermen can catch lobsters which have completely eluded me so far.

 

Santa Catalina (7° 37.400'N 81° 16.350'W) was our second surf stop and already I am wondering why I don’t surf. These are supposed to be some of the best waves in the world and most of the breaks are very difficult to reach by car or bus, but they are right there on the boat road south. But at least the surf breaks attract enough traveling surfers to warrant small bars, restaurants and hostels nearby.

 

We are spending an overcast afternoon in Benao Cove (7° 25.362'N 80° 11.296'W) which is another surf spot, a long, long sand beach with gentle breakers. We are just 24 hours from Panama City and will probably make that jump in one quick sail either tomorrow or the next day stopping at an island near the city to rest and relax and re-acquaint ourselves with civilization before we visit “the big city”. Benao has a small palapa bar and restaurant with internet access (first internet since we left Costa Rica) so we are taking advantage of their hospitality while we catch up on news from home.

 

 

Hope you all are well and enjoying our trip as much as we are.

Tom and Andrea

Off to See the Wizard

We got our first look at Panama this week, but it was via bus rather than by sea. We had learned that our best bet for finding a needed carburetor gasket was to try the Yamaha dealer in David (2^nd largest city in Panama), and since we wanted to see this inland city anyway we decided to take a shopping trip via Greyhound (well, maybe not THE Greyhound). The trip to David would be two buses with a stop at the border along the way, and would cover about 90 miles of Costa Rica and Panama.

Tuesday at 6 AM we were ready. We waited patiently for the bus to the Panama border to pick us up on the main street in Golfito. And we waited, and waited. Around 7 AM a friendly Costa Rican passed by with the words “No bus, no puente”. For those of you who struggle with Spanish this loosely translates as “You’re out of luck. The bridge washed away last night”. Something to do with the rain. Undaunted we were back in place at 6 AM the following morning, and the bridge was back in place too.

The trip to David for parts is very much like pulling into Santa Cruz harbor and then heading for San Francisco (by bus remember) to find a marine store in a large, strange city. Throw in a couple of bus changes, and then a border crossing, and try to do it all in a foreign language. The border crossing was like visiting two DMV offices (Costa Rican customs and Panama Immigration) along the way to stand in one line, find you’re in the wrong one, find another line, fill out a form, go back to the first line, etc. In addition to all of the above NO ONE spoke any English at all. Nada. Could a German tourist pull this off in CA? I doubt it. But with a lot of questions and a lot of luck we got to the border, managed to check out of Costa Rica and into Panama, and then find another bus to David.

Panama was a very pleasant surprise after Costa Rica. Good roads, clean, great buses, and the stores turned out to be the best stocked markets south of San Diego. Even the razor wire and armed guards so prevalent throughout Latin America were missing here. Panama was indeed a pleasant surprise.

Panama also had a less pleasant surprise waiting. We had arrived in the middle of a huge Independence Day parade. None of those great stores (including the parts store) would be open until after the three day Independence Day celebration. Historical note: This was the independence from Colombia in 1903 when about 10 local guys got together and offered to take over Panama so they could sell Canal rights to the US for $15 million dollars. Since there were only 10 of them they needed us to send in the troops, and since you could only reach Panama by sea from Colombia our big battleship sailing into the Colon harbor sealed the deal. But the parade was great so we decided to make this a multi-day visit to Panama.

The parade consisted of many, many, many marching bands with many, many majorettes. White go-go boots with 3 inch soles are apparently still in style in some places. There were no vehicles or floats in the parade, just the bands with drums and bugles. We watched some parade, walked in the city, watched some more parade, went to lunch, came back and watched some more parade, checked into a hotel and then caught the end of the parade. We had first seen marching bands at 10 AM and the last band was still marching at 4 PM. David is about the size of Santa Cruz so where did all the bands come from? A very impressive display.

 

With time (days) to kill we added the town of Boquete to our itinerary. A few years ago AARP had identified Boquete as one of the top 5 international places to retire and we had heard it was a pleasant mountain town with much cooler temperatures. An easy, hour long bus ride dropped us in the center of a very nice community with coffee bars and hiking trails, and rain. We drank coffee and watched it rain for an entire day. It was a good thing we were in such a pleasant town. When we returned to David we learned that Boquete had made the national news because of the flooding in the town that day. We heard it was a remnant of hurricane Ida but it seemed like just another rainy day to me.

At long last the stores reopened. The holiday started on a Tuesday. Stores closed Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and then just to break up the work week they opened for Friday rather than making it long holiday. But Yamaha came through for us and the Super 99 market was open so we packed our parts and our supplies onto the bus for another ride to the border and back to Golfito, Costa Rica. Overall this was a great trip and we were very impressed with Panama.

The engines both work (first time we have had both engines working since Mexico), the boat is cleaned and polished, and after a relaxing Sunday afternoon at the bar of a first class hotel watching the NFL we are ready to leave Golfito. We checked out today with immigration, customs and the port captain, and paid our bill at the marina. The sail south (and east) will cover 400 miles and we will spend all of our time at anchor for the next 3 to 4 weeks. I suspect internet access is a thing of the past so if you do not hear from us for a while just assume we will be enjoying palm lined beaches and turquoise blue waters aboard our little boat. Either that or it will still be raining. J

Tom and Andrea

Panama Here We Come… Soon

In case you missed the news we are off again for another 60 day sailing adventure. With any luck we will make the sail from Golfito, Costa Rica to Panama City, transit the Panama Canal, and get to spend some time in the San Blas Islands of Panama before we head home in January. Once again I will try to entertain you and maybe educate you about Latin America with some highlights of our trip. As always…. if you find our vacation boring feel free to hit the “Drop me from your e-mail list” button on your computer.

To get back to Golfito we were facing a long flight from CA to Costa Rica and then an eight hour bus ride through the mountains. Andrea, however, found us a $12 flight from San Jose, CR to Golfito. That’s right, $12. Skeptic that I am I had some serious doubts about the reliability of a $12 flight, but that’s cheap, could be an adventure, the pilot wouldn’t go with you if it wasn’t safe, so why not? Is this a second hand airplane? Do they save money on maintenance? Do they pack the plane with a little too much weight? Is it a scam? What are we getting into here?

First problem was that the cabbie at Alajeula airport in San Jose did not know where the airport was for the puddle jumper flight so we spent a few chaotic moments yelling in English at a Costa Rican who spoke about as much English as a sheepdog. He kept taking us back to the Alajuela airport which we knew was wrong, but we couldn’t explain where right was. He couldn’t read a map or the directions we had so there was quite a bit of “incomprehensible yelling” before we finally headed off in the right direction. When we did find the airplane we had to climb on a scale along with our luggage to see if we were light enough to fly. Fortunately I had been watching my weight all summer and we passed. Then we waited in line with several other thin people next to a sign that said “Wait here for Pilot”. Duh! We weren’t going to go anywhere without him, but it was reassuring to know that he was willing to go along with us. Actually the sign said “Favor espere por el piloto” which I had quickly mis-translated as “Please “hope” for the pilot… which I did.

 

 

The flight itself was anticlimactic. The very small plane got us off the ground with only a little hesitation and we were off to Golfito. Other than a runway full of dogs nipping at the wheels as we took off this was just like flying any of the big airlines, and the very slow speed landing was… different. The dogs might not have had to run to catch the plane when it landed.

The boat had survived the “green season” very nicely, thank you. Our friend Caesar had aired it regularly (after each rainfall) all summer and only faintest traces of mold/mildew were discernible. I will state flat out that “it rains a whole lot in paradise”. Someone in the Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce came up with a fantastic idea of renaming one of Costa Rica’s two seasons as the “green season”. Dry season and green season.  No bad seasons. It is green season now with no signs of letting  up. During the parts of the green season that we have seen the days start out hot and humid building towards the torrential rainfalls that start everyday at 3 PM and last sometimes all night. Buckets of rain. More rain than I have seen anyplace or anytime in my life. Likely more rain than Noah saw, although he started in a desert so it might have seemed like more to him. Green season, very clever, the touristicas will never figure it out. Put one over on them we did.

What caused us to stay in Golfito for the summer (rather than sailing to Panama last June) was a faulty transmission for which I needed a part that had apparently fallen overboard while I wasn’t looking. Armed with a new part obtained at home we were confident that it would take us just a day or so to be on our way south. Okay, maybe a few days. But no sooner had we fixed the starboard (right) engine that we developed a carburetor leak in the port (left) engine. Since we were fixing that leak anyway we decided to open up the fully operational starboard engine carburetor “just in case”. It seems that this now caused the good engine (starboard) to start leaking too. Worse… What could be worse you say?... since we only had one gasket we could only repair one engine. Yes, our one day, then a few days, is now one week. But at least it’s paradise. Pass the umbrella, Andrea.

Golfito Blues

We motored down river in Puntarenas at 7 AM to take advantage of the high tide in the estuary and sailed out into the Gulf of Nicoya . No sooner had we cleared the channel than the dark clouds of a rain squall started to form in front of us. Although we tracked the main squall on radar as passing a half mile north of us we still got drenched in a massive downpour.  The only saving grace was that the rain water was warm. This was as much rain as I had ever seen and visibility was absolutely nil. This squall passed in less than a half hour, and it was suddenly warm and humid for our sailing day. This was a pattern that we would see over and over again for the next two weeks as we entered the Costa Rican rainy season on Costa Rica’s wettest coast.  

We had planned a series of day sails along the coast between the Gulf of Nicoya and the Golfo Dulce (about 200 miles) that would allow us be at anchor each evening during the daily rain and lightning shows that began shortly before dusk.  Most of the anchorages were pretty little bays surrounded by steep hills and lush tropical jungles, and frequently we could hear the howler monkeys at night. Even though the lightning lit up the skies we felt much more comfortable with some hills nearby than we would have at sea with only our mast (read ”giant lightning rod”) poking up from the sea. The strategy worked as we bobbed peaceful and dry during the storms.

We finally reached Golfito which is only 30 miles from the Panama border.  We had planned a short stay in Golfito which is a cruiser friendly town with good supplies, entertainment, and a well protected bay sheltered from the wind and swells. This was also the first stop since El Salvador where we found multiple cruisers in the anchorage so we finally had a chance to swap stories about our travels and our plans. We heard that there are fewer than 30 boats cruising the coast of southern Latin America this spring, and in most of our anchorages we have been the only boat. 

 

Unfortunately our short stay in Golfito will now be an extended one. Once again a motor is the culprit.  A rather necessary part had apparently vibrated loose from one of our motors.  The missing part prevented the motor from shifting out of reverse, and no replacement was readily available. We could have had the part custom machined or we could have tried to get it shipped from San Jose or the states, but we have decided to leave the boat in Costa Rica for the summer (short of our planned goal of Panama) and bring the part back with us when we resume sailing next fall. To be honest… weather did play a part in this decision because the entire coast of Costa Rica has been HOT and HUMID!

 

Golfito did provide some entertainment however.  We took the death defying ferries to and from Puerto Jiminez on the Osa Peninsula across the Golfo Dulce.  We took the “fast ferry” over in the morning.  Although not the hover craft you normally associate with “fast ferry”, the monster 300 hp Suzuki outboards on a 30 foot open boat really did mean fast. I think when the boat was on plane only the propellers actually touched the water anyway. For the return trip we opted for the “slow ferry”.  The only difference was a smaller boat (with more passengers) that would have had water flowing over the gunnels if not for two more outlandishly big outboard motors that lifted us well clear of the water. Thank god for smooth water because this was not a stable setup, but it was a lot of fun. We also spent an evening in Golfito at a local bar that featured an all girl band called the “Tipsy Chicks”.  The highlight song was “Tequila Makes My Clothes Fall Off” if you were wondering about their musical talents. They were actually pretty good and are rumored to be very popular in Europe .

 

Our final trip of the trip (for this spring) was a seven hour bus ride (Costa Rican buses are worlds apart from the rolling wrecks they use for local buses in Mexico, Guatamala and El Salvador) from Golfito to San Jose where we rented a car to kill three days before our flight home.  We visited a coffee plantation and got a tour very much like visiting a winery (complete with instructions on how to taste test coffee), and we drove to some of the anchorages along the coast that had taken so long to reach under sail and that we had enjoyed so much. It was life from the other side of the tracks so to speak. Since it was a rental car we also drove the 30 mile dirt road from Manuel Antonio Park to the surf town of Domincal . I have been on worse roads in my life, but I have never been on a worse road for that long. The 30 mile trip took well over two hours. I was reminded again that although Costa Rica boasts the highest standard of living in Latin America , that standard is none too high.  At the very least I think any country boasting about its standard of living should be required to have toilet seats on all the toilets. Call me picky. Throw in the rampant theft problems (none of which we saw or experienced personally) that make razor wire as common as picket fences and you have something less than a “high standard”. Yep, we are very spoiled in the US , and we don’t always appreciate how much.

As usual I write this final e-mail from a small seat on a large plane.  We are headed home, tanned, happy, and sorry that the trip is ending. The heat was a drawback and the rain was a nuisance, but visiting El Salvador , Nicaragua and Costa Rica over the last six weeks has been awesome.  We are already looking forward to Panama and probably Colombia late next fall.