Trouble in Paradise

What I would like to be writing with this e-mail is a picturesque travelogue about sailing the turquoise waters of a tropical island paradise. San Blas, Bocas del Toro, maybe even Cartagena, were all part of our plans for the spring. These are unbelievably beautiful spots that people sail around the world to visit. True cruising pleasure, and the reason we undertake trips like this.

What we have actually been doing is something just short of that, “way” short of that. We are back in Panama and into our second week here without having done any sailing at all. Actually we are in our second week, and the boat hasn’t even gotten wet (unless you count the occasional rain shower). We are high and dry and working through a series of mishaps involving our new motors.

We had two new outboard engines shipped to Panama over the winter and the thinking went “we’ll take a couple of days to install the engines and paint the bottom before launching, sailing, and relaxing”. Well the engines didn’t fit, the wiring harness didn’t work, and installation process revealed a few “minor” boat items that needed to be repaired before we could get underway. I feel like I’m on a Survivor show where they give you a hammer, a screwdriver, a piece of wood, and say “build an engine… and do it in Spanish”.  We did some welding, some fiberglass “alterations”, and some praying (swearing) while we took 10 days just to get the first engine installed (we have two, you know.) The good news is the weather is warm, the beer is cold, and there is a great deal of satisfaction a figuring this all out. Panama is still a nice place to be stuck building a boat.

We did rent a car and took a driving trip across Panama for two days. The town of Colon which is supposed to be one of the roughest towns in Latin America features what I call “No Way Stop” intersections. Just like four way stops except no lights, no stop signs, traffic from four directions, and who ever moves first wins. Slightly chaotic, but it does make for some of the most aggressive driving I have ever seen.

We re-visited Panama City and stayed at a very nice B&B halfway up Cerro Ancon (highest point in Panama City) where we could look down on the skyscrapers, neighborhoods, beaches and the Bridge of the Americas. We hiked to the top of the mountain in the early morning, and then watched monkeys off our balcony while eating breakfast. The B&B set out bananas each morning to entice the monkeys to come closer. These little white faced monkeys were about the size of small cats, and they climbed through the trees only a few feet from our breakfast table. The young monkeys looked very much like long tailed kittens scampering along the tree branches. These “cute” monkeys were a far cry from the ferocious sounding howler monkeys that fill the trees near the boat. Every day in the work yard we are treated to the loud roars that caused Christopher Columbus’ sailors to report “dragons” in the forests of Panama.

While we were driving we also observed that the buses in Panama have some of the most interesting murals painted on them. The recurring theme is to have a picture of Jesus painted on the rear door (very religious country) between the twin exhaust pipes. This may just be a form of accident insurance for the faithful (God protect this bus?). For the non-religious types J-Lo is also well represented as a bus icon in Panama.

Today, May 16, is National Census Day in Panama, and the entire country seems to have shut down. The country is small enough (3 million souls) that they actually count everyone, every single resident and visitor, once every 10 years (at home we count a lot of people and then do some statistical hocus pocus to come up with an actual “guess” about how many Americans there are). So today NO ONE could leave their home until they were counted. No businesses were open, no restaurants, no gas stations, no convenience stores, nada. You could not leave home until you were counted AND THEN you were given a pass allowing you to go out before 7 PM.

Would we move to Panama? It’s warm, friendly, inexpensive, a nice place to visit, but consider this… there are only seven golf courses in the entire country, and three of them are “opening next year”. That’s not paradise.

Best to all,

Tom and Andrea