Panama

A Pacific New Year 2013 with Canal Transit

- Ann 1 Comment
SEE UPDATE REGARDING FEES after paragraph five
On either side of the canal it’s easy to recognize boats about
to change sides, because of the dozen or so car tires wrapped in plastic
stacked on the dock or deck. This time it was our turn.

Yes, it’s official. We transited the Panama Canal, all fifty miles of it, from Atlantic (north) side to Pacific (south) side, this past weekend. Although we spent New Year’s Eve as many people do,  not even resolving to stay up late,  it’s hard to avoid a new 2013 mindset to go with the new 2013 location. Still, we haven’t formulated any real plans other than casting an eye towards Ecuador and the Galapagos.

A canal transit agent can make all the arrangements for those who care to pay his fee – about $350 for a boat our size. But we were traveling not in the busiest transit season (that would be February, March and April, when the Polynesia-bound boats generally move.) And we had good instructions, from the SSCA Bulletin of June 2011 (thanks Ainia). So we made the arrangements ourselves.

Basically it required two visits to town, the first to the Signal Station to arrange to be measured, and the second to pay the fee, in cash, at a particular bank in a safe area across from the Port Captain’s office. (It takes special wardrobe functions to get all those bills out of one’s underwear in a public place!) Then there were a couple phone calls to the Scheduler’s Office. For us, it went like clockwork.

The measurer and his tape measure came to the marina, filled out the forms, made sure we could provide a toilet and fresh water (preferably bottled!) to the advisor, and that the boat could go fast enough to make the trip. The fee, for boats whose total measure (including the part of the anchor that sticks out the front, and the steering gear, or davits etc at the other end) is less than 50 feet, is $1875, up $375 from this time last year. An as yet undetermined amount of that was our ‘buffer’ fee and will be refunded, I hope. The main advantage of the agent, as I see it, is that he covers the buffer fee for his clients, and provides lines and fenders.

UPDATE: about a month from when we paid, we had an email from the Canal Authority indicating that our US bank would not accept the funds being wire-transferred to them: “the beneficiary account has restrictions” and upon further investigation “Panama is on a restricted list”(aimed at money laundering?). So we arranged to pick up a check for $866 at the Panama Canal Authority, meaning that our transit would cost basically $1000 (credit for the wire transfer, plus tire rental $2 to receive $1 to discharge, per tire. We also rented four 125′ 7/8″ lines for $60. We could have used our own lines, long enough,  but they are only 3/4” and we didn’t want to chance being dinged by a faceless bureaucrat. In retrospect, we should have used our own lines.

Here’s a great note I received from a friend about his two canal transits:

After reading your comments on your canal transit, I couldn’t help but think of the fees we had to pay for the two transits we made. The fee for the one in 1971 in our 30 ft Seawind Ketch was a bank-breaking $18 dollars. In those days we had to pay based on the same formula for tankers, freighters etc . It was based on a boat’s cargo holding capacity. The second transit in 1998, this time in our Valiant 40 Tamure, the fee was $118.

So, here follows a photo journey thru the Panama Canal. And, if you’re curious about the story of the present canal, which is in fact full of cultural, political and social as well as historical interest, a book I’d recommend is Panama Fever, by Matthew Parker. Also, loads of factoids at http://panamacanalmuseum.org/index.php/history/interesting_facts

Kim and Steve and their son Tim came along as line-handlers.
It’s good practice before coming through on your own boat.

PHOTO BRAZILIAN REEFER KIM STEVE
We locked through the ‘uphill’ three locks lashed to the port side of another sailboat a wee bit larger than Galivant, trying to stay in the center of the lock. Ahead of us was a ship, the Brazilian Reefer, behind us a tugboat tied to the wall. Between the turbulence as the lock fills, salt water mixing with fresher water, the ship’s propellors and the tugboat’s smoky exhaust, plus a little inattention aboard the boat to which we were yoked,  and activity in the neighboring lock, the first lock was a little exciting.

PHOTO LINE THROWERS
The men with the monkey’s fists do a very neat little maneuver as they heave their lines towards us (we covered the solar panels with our cockpit cushions, just in case!). We tie their line through the loop on ours (‘You do remember the becket bend, don’t you’, says Doug) and they haul it back, drop it over a bollard and then disappear as the lock fills. They send our line back to us, but walk us, along with the messenger line, to the next lock, and so it goes through the three locks which raise us over 80 feet.

PHOTO OUT LOCK GATE 2
It’s quite an odd feeling to look down at the Caribbean waters ( hard to see but I can assure you they’re there, stepping down in the distance) as the lock gate closes behind you!

PHOTO LOCK AT SUNSET
It was getting pretty dark by the time we finished with the uphill locks and were let loose in Gatun Lake, less than a mile above the dam from where we had stayed in the Rio Chagres. It would be wonderful to spend a couple days in the lake poking around, but that is strictly forbidden, although you could go in a kayak!

Photo by Kim Watford

We were expected to, and did,  spend the night tied to this ship mooring. Luckily the weather was still and there were only five us, to share the two moorings – sometimes there are half a dozen boats all on the same ‘hook’! Can’t anchor because of ‘lots of trees underwater.’ And by no means should we swim, because of crocodiles. In fact, we saw a croc about 8 feet long floating in one of the locks, but he was dead.

Sunday morning 6:30 found us motoring through the lovely mountaintop lakes for our special date at 11:15 at the Pedro Miguel lock. Staff offered up coffee juice bacon eggs potatoes refried beans salsa and raisin toast. The captain drove. And Ricky, our advisor, cheerfully answered every question as we crept along the side of the channel.

Each boat is required to have an ‘advisor’, but these are not ‘pilots’ (the official pilots perhaps see the small boats as not quite worthy of their attention.) Rather,  the ‘advisors’  are drawn from the ranks of canal employees such as firemen and security officers, and are required to have a university degree and to speak English. Ricky’s other job is aboard a hydrographic vessel, but he says he likes this one better and has transited the canal about 70 times a year for four or five years now. When the yachts go through tied to each other, there may be a sort of pecking order discussions among the advisors, which can cause confusion. But we liked Ricky and were pleased when he joined us again on the second day.
PHOTO SATELLITE IMAGE (from 2005) OF PANAMA CANAL COURTESY eorc.jaxa.jp

These lakes are the reservoir for the copious quantities of water necessary each time the locks are filled. Some of the islands are built of fill from construction of the canal. The Smithsonian has a nice tropical research facility along here, as the lake coast is undeveloped and likely to stay that way.

With explosives and dredging, the bends and curves of the shipping channel are gradually being straightened and deepened for the arrival of the new generation of super-container ships being made possible by construction of new super-sized locks parallel to the ones we just came through.

PHOTO SHIP UNDER BRIDGE WITH TUGS

The downhill locks seem a little easier to negotiate; they were certainly less turbulent. It’s more interesting to see the lock structure being revealed than to see it covering up. I enjoyed contemplating that all of this was built a hundred years ago of a quality that endures, although not one of the ladders has every single one of its rungs intact.

PHOTO INSIDE DOWNHILL LOCK

This set of locks we shared with a boat-load of tea-drinking bare-chested Brits, and all hundred-odd spectators at the visitor center at Miraflores locks. There’s a web-cam too, but I don’t know anyone who watched it for us, and, thankfully, it wasn’t very exciting.
PHOTO OF YACHT RAFTUP IN LAST LOCK

And then we were out! The skyline of Panama City Panama is getting rather Miami-like; one of the most interesting features is this under-construction BioDiversity museum designed by Frank Gehry. Looks like it will be another couple years before it opens its doors, or should I say, has doors to open! Right now it reminds me of how the sea urchins we see on the reefs often manage to camouflage themselves with little bits of shell.
PHOTO GEHRY BIODIVERSITY MUSEUM CONSTRUCTION SKYLINE

May your own new year also be as pacific and tranquil as you like it, with just the right amount of biodiversity.
A few more photos here: Panama Canal Transit

And They’re Off!

- Ann Leave a comment

Here we are at the airport in Panama City.  Off the boat. Off the land. Off our familiar  hemisphere. The toilets may flush the other way ’round where we’re going. I’ll let you know. 

Peru, a place completely new to me, will be at the bottom of the ramp, I hope.  

We’re trying to travel light, one carry-on each. We think they each weigh about 22 pounds.  My backpack (mochilla) is new so i know it’s capacity is 35 liters.  The weight is okay but i’m a little concerned about the density of what I’ve stuffed in there, much of it compressed in  Ziploc bags. I think I’ll be pretty tired of this ‘travel’ dress when I’m done!
No computer, just this little sort of smart iPhone loaded with books and maps. 
We’ll be gone a couple months. Galivant is hauled out in the Secure Storage Yard at Shelter Bay Marina, Colon, Panama with a dehumidifier humming away – it’s been shocking to see how mold or whatever it is, grows even when we’re there with all the hatches open and the humidity streaming through. 
But we’re not letting the moss grow under our feet. Peru here we come!

Postcard from Portobelo, Panama

- Ann Leave a comment

image copied from http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/captain-morgan-549521

Portobelo, Panama, is the unofficial capital of the Costa Abajo, that stretch of Panama’s Caribbean Coast that runs west from Kuna Yala/San Blas.  Behind the narrowish coastal plain there are big hills/small mountains (the tallest, Cerro Carti, is 748 meters).

The bay is nice and big, deep in the middle, shallow around the edges. Although open to the west, from whence can come some powerful rockin’and rollin’ when the tradewinds are in abeyance, it’s a pretty good harbor most of the time. The land is still quite wooded, but more and more now cleared in the service of cattle (McDonald’s, we hear you!) and small agriculture (spindly corn, bananas, tubers like yuca). A couple rivers come in at the east end, which make for nice dinghy excursions through the cattle bottoms.


 To someone coming the 40 miles from the San Blas islands Portobelo feels like a big, even modern, place (5 Chinese grocery stores! buses to Colon! 3000 people! maybe). Also on our ‘haven’t seen that for a while’ list are wheeled vehicles larger than baby strollers, such as taxis, pickups, and dump trucks. There’s even a front-end loader in town, for moving the trash pile. Different body types, not just the small-framed Kuna people, but Anglos and Africans and lots of blended. The sound of howler monkeys is back with us (really makes me wonder why they’re never heard in the mainland areas of Kuna Yala) in an early morning duet with the screech of bus brakes (Bluebird ex-schoolbuses, splendidly painted and speaker-powered).


The buses have their own distinctions – and you’ll learn quickly which ones have the biggest speakers, and the hard-to-open windows, but you’ll get in anyway. Colon is an hour and a half away, and Panama City another hour or so, depending on traffic!
The Chinese groceries have distinct personalities too, and are full of surprises, but often short of fresh fruit and veg. For your nutritional needs, you listen for the loudspeakers screeching something from the top of a pickup-truck. If you’re quick you can usually find the truck somewhere in town, or wait around until he comes back a couple hours later from ‘the end of the road’ at Isla Grande/La Guiara.

The Portobelo of today is a funkily pleasant place that makes me think of all the complementary forces in the universe, feng shui and the ebb and flow of styles, fortunes, cultures partly in ascendance, partly in decline, like all of us. There are good things here, and friendly people, and some puzzles too.

What put Portobelo on the list of World Heritage sites is its history. The Spanish conquistadors began to use Portobelo as their major Caribbean loading place for the riches they were removing from South America. Gold and silver and others items valued by the Spanish were transported overland through the jungle to the Caribbean and loaded into convoys for shipment to Spain.  Nuestra Senora de Atocha, the wrecked treasure ship that is the foundation of Mel Fisher’s Treasure Museum in Key West, sailed from here.

Nuestra Senora de Atocha, courtesy of   theamericano.com

“PORTOBELO ON THE SPANISH MAIN   “The city was also victim of one of Captain Henry Morgan’s notorious adventures. In 1668, Morgan led a fleet of privateers and 450 men against Portobelo, which, in spite of its good fortifications, he captured and plundered for 14 days, stripping it of nearly all its wealth. This daring endeavour, although successful, also proved particularly brutal as it involved rape, torture, and murder on a grand scale.” from Wikipedia, and more in The Sack of Panama by Peter Earle.

We were anchored in the harbor on the 344th anniversary of this attack, during inclement weather, and it was interesting to go ashore with ‘new eyes’ after reading this.

Then, also according to Wikipedia, after another humiliation by the British under Admiral Edward Vernon, (in the War of Jenkins’ Ear), the Spanish redesigned the defenses. Vernon took a big loss in Cartagena, but the world was changing. The Spanish finally learned to make their fleets smaller; then ships more regularly sailed to western South America via Cape Horn. So the forts whose ruins decorate Portobelo today never were used as forts; they became quarries supplying stone for early Panama Canal construction. Also, mustn’t forget to mention that Sir Francis Drake died of dysentery and was buried at sea in a lead-coffin not too far away. Maybe someone will be finding that someday soon.

Today the Customs House, once reputedly so full that silver ingots were stored outside on the street, has a museum on the ground floor, and an evolutionary ‘garden’ on the roof. Plus, those are supposed to be the scars of British attack on the wall.
PHOTO TREASURE HOUSE ROOF

The forts have restored areas, reader boards and visitors who dutifully wander through.

PHOTO FORT WITH COWS
The hills are steep and all I can think as I myself trudge about, redoubt to lookout, is how dreadful it must have been to be the slave, conscript or flunky on any of these projects. Charged with clearing jungle, digging, shaping and moving stones, humping stuff up the slope, no matter the heat, humidity, insects, disease, nutritional deficiency – and for what? Such big ‘public works’ for so little ‘public.’ In hindsight it looks pointless and even at the time, it must have been difficult to muster enthusiasm, unless it was whipped in.
So Portobelo’s other big attraction is its church, Iglesia de San Felipe, whose interior features the Black Christ of Portobelo. The history of the life-sized image of Jesus carrying the Cross is shrouded in the mists of time, and imagination – carved in Spain? Washed ashore in Portobelo?  But there are so many stories of miracles associated with the Black Christ that tens of thousands of pilgrims visit the Church (the new building, eventually completed in 1945) every October 21, some crawling on hands and knees. Reportedly, their number includes penitent rapists, muggers and thieves, the Black Christ being the patron saint of criminals, this according to http://www.coloncity.com/blackchrist.html.
PHOTO FAMILY AT BLACK CHRIST ALTAR


Nowadays Portobelo is where many backpackers come to find a ride to Cartagena by sea –  as traffic can’t get through the Darien peninsula by road. It’s where a wide variety of craft come to make a bit of money on that trade, some excellent and some downright dangerous. It’s the first ‘big’ place people come to after cruising the San Blas, heading for the Canal, or for time away in Shelter Bay or Bocas del Toro. I’ll bet Captain Jack’s Canopy Bar, restaurant, hostel and gathering place up the hill sells a lot of hamburgers to long-deprived carnivorous cruisers.

Maybe something in the air from all those centuries of soldiers of fortune has provided leavening for new generations of their descendants. Portobelo has more than the usual number of gnarly single-handers and boats which may never leave here – a regular little community of them in fact. One fellow got his boat to rest high and dry on a reef, on purpose. He’s always pointed out of the harbor, but never going.  Here’s my favorite: Absolute Absolution, a 53′ catamaran built via creative recycling of scavenged materials by someone not a naval architect. A mast on each hull. We’re all individuals out here, and there too. I need to find a better picture when I have access to my ‘stacks’, but you’ll perhaps get the idea. 


“This is a “Fourth Way” project which will change its direction and details many times along the way.”
http://www.floatingneutrinos.com/Buoyant%20Neutrinos/background.htm#Photo%20Gallery. This website is pretty dense.

Unfortunately, the most famous Floating Neutrino died not too long ago – here’s his obituary from -yes -the Wall Street Journal – worth the read, IMO.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013604576104412565095674.html
 

Another thing that can be said about Portobelo is that it rains a lot here. Rust, mildew, damp, facts of life. Some of the ruined houses were knocked over in landslides last year.  There are also an inordinate number of Black Vultures in town. They congregate on the roof of the cathedral, on the cemetery walls, on the trash pile (of course). Not the most charismatic of birds, but there are others!


Now, I think I’ve said enough about Portobelo. If you want to know more, you’ll just have to visit for yourself.

More photos here:
http://galivant.smugmug.com/Panama/Portobelo/24556216_D448fp#!i=2005529624&k=GpfnrKz
Books about history:
David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag
Earle, Peter.The Sack of Panama New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981.

We’re watching you!


Into the Remote Islas

- Ann 2 Comments

We haven’t seen another cruising boat for weeks, now that we’ve moved east and south in the San Blas, towards (but not approaching, since our Panama papers don’t expire for a while) the Colombian border. We’re visiting some places we missed when we came north and west from Colombia last year, like Ustupu, Ailigandi, Achutupu and Playon Chico.




It’s been a pleasant surprise. The people we’re able to deal with are friendly and happy to talk, or they politely just leave us be. The children are full of ‘holas‘ , waves and smiles. Even naked little babies wave. The confident among them ask our names. Ana, I say, y Douglas -“Doo-glas” is how it comes out here. When the kids give back a name, they don’t leave any part out;  we’re amusing to them as we tangle our tongues. Hey – we’re here to entertain!


The village houses are densely packed together on islands not too far from the mainland. Most  are palm-frond roofed, and walled, fenced and gated with laced-together bamboo cane. They remind me of a long-haired, huddled herd of llamas or yaks. There will be a few houses with metal roofs, with block, or even wood-sided walls, sometimes, for a lucky few, two-stories. 


The streets are almost always dirt  and often more path than boulevard and we’ve seen them raked daily by a  squadron of women and children. The smell is of cooking fires, fueled by husks of coconuts. Almost every house on the waterfront has an outhouse over the sea. The schools are concrete with breeze-block ‘windows,’ all painted yellow above blue. We notice the differences between islands: solar panels, TV antennas, satellite dishes have come to a few islands, public water taps, tiendas and panaderias, libraries, churches and their denominations, but we don’t know enough to come to conclusions.

PHOTO TIENDA USTUPU

We always come ashore with a mission, or maybe it’s just an excuse to wander around – let’s find some eggs, or cooking oil, see if there’s bread. I wish there were cafes or bars – they’re good places to chat people up, but generally the best we can do is buy a juice or soda, then park ourselves as bait on a bench out front of the tienda. Wander too far down into some alleys and you’ll end up in someone’s house, feeling a little awkward, not to mention banging your head on some low-slung roofs. Lost in a little-alley-maze in Mamitupu, we found ourselves modeling speech to a pair of young parakeets,  ‘merkey, merkey’ which turns out to be what the Kuna call Americans.
In Ailigandi there was a museum; sadly for me the proprietor, Sr. Roy, was in Panama City. I’d love to meet him. It would take much ambition, not to mention talent, to create all the things he has made and exhibited here. I gather his goal is to make Kuna oral-tradition stories available to Kuna outside the congreso/meeting halls.
Spring – I love it anywhere and everywhere. The isobar squeeze that brought heavy winds and big seas to the entire coast thru much of February and March has vanished, and we’re left with modest seas and amiable breezes, and, most of the time, good light for locating the shoals which pock-mark all these waters. The rainy season may start in a month or two, but for now, it’s a pleasant blend of balmy temps and light breezes. The problems will now arise when the wind fails to tame the insect clouds of no-see-ums waiting in the wings.








The Kunas are taking advantage of the lull before the rainy season to clear the forest for agriculture. It’s perfect weather for slash and burn, and plumes of smoke rise all along this part of the  coast. We were much less aware of this phenomenon in the area closer to Porvenir favored by most of the yachts.


We bought mangos from this gent near Ustupu, largest settlement in the San Blas. When I asked if I could take of photo of him and his dog he struck this pose, then asked if I would be putting in on Facebook! And seemed disappointed when I said no. I’d be appreciative if someone could tell me what the hand-shape is meant to be communicating. UPDATE: Thanks for letting me know: this is I Love You, ILY, in American Sign Language. Now I’d like to know how it came to be the thing to ‘say’ while posing for pictures! ILY is way nicer than a gang thing, which was my first guess.
I think the further eastern sections of Kuna Yala are definitely more agricultural. Every ulu which passes by has green mangos, green bananas, plantains, limon, yuca, avocados, coconuts. I’ve often said that we do most of our eating out of self-defense, when it all comes ripe at once. I’ve been eating so many mangoes that I seem to have scraped the inside of my mouth trying to get the last of the juice from those scratchy seeds.
I gather the newly-cleared fields will be planted with corn, or bananas or plantains, maybe yuca, all for local consumption (not for sale or shipping to the city). The soil, or the steepness, or the heat, or something, will not permit crops like tomatoes or squash. I’ve yet to see more than a handful of gardens with that kind of produce. The fields will be abandoned in about 4 years, and a new one burned to replace it. It makes me sad to see this, actually. Even the Kuna, who in some ways still have a tightly controlled society, have not managed to avoid the ‘tragedy of the commons’, wherein they are free to use community resources like land and seafood, and will do so until they’re gone. There seem to be more people to support, and less knowledge of the traditional ways. I think the Kuna people finds themselves in an awkward place, straddling conflicts between their old way of life and a new one ever more firmly established. I want to say to them “are you sure you want all this city stuff and that individualized way of life? It’s not worth it! Turn back!”  Considering the ethically conflicted culture I represent, however, I’m not really in a position to comment. And of course, it’s complicated.

Speaking of agriculture, the Colombian freight boats, like the Caracol, run through here regularly. Here’s a ‘crop’ of coconuts bound for Cartagena. Each one of the 15,000 nuts (they’re actually seeds, I believe) aboard brought thirty cents to its seller, said the man whose legs you see. Coconuts are  prime source of income throughout the San Blas. As the Bauhaus Cruising Guide  to Panama is quick to inform, every coconut has an owner, and it is not the cruiser who finds it on the beach!


My sea-going nephew K learned at an early age that the best small-boat cargo is a waterproof one. Coconuts are waterproof, but they need shade lest they crack open, and they’re heavy. These are destined for ‘food’ in Colombia, and fetch I think about 800 pesos apiece there, not quite doubling in value en route.

Especially in these somewhat more traditional villages, there is a charge for anchoring, or for using the town dock, and it’s not just a way to profit from the yachts, of which there are precious few at this end of the province. The trading boats pay it, even Kuna visitors pay fees. It can seem a bit steep if you’re just staying the night, (how quickly we forget the $20/night moorings in the British Virgin Islands) but the fee is good for a month, or as long as you stay, depending. Anyone coming to collect it will have a receipt book and a well-worn letter of authorization like this one. 


One village, Caledonia, had a nicely typed explication, in English, of basic visitor etiquette: wear modest attire ashore, don’t take photos or make drawings without permission or without paying, don’t stay after dark, don’t do painting, boat work or otherwise pollute the harbor, no SCUBA diving, and, ‘no lolly-scrambles’ which I took to mean don’t throw candy to the children, or coins to encourage them to dive in the water.
We’ve tried to live by all these rules. The one that is hardest for me is about the photos- there are such stories to be told in images here.  I actually share some of Doug’s aversion to the often rude spectacle of ‘a tourist sticking a camera in someone’s face’ but I’d love to have a lens in the flower of my lapel, say, with a remote wire. Some people, women especially, don’t want to be photographed. Some few want to be paid the dollar they’ve seem postcards with their image selling for in Panama City. So, I ask permission first, (sometimes I sneak), or I don’t shoot at all around here. Those cane-slatted house walls are full of  friendly hellos, but also of surprising numbers of invisible eyes. I may be ‘merkey’ but I don’t want to be ugly!

There’s more about Señor Roy’s museum here:
http://titoherrera.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/el-museo-de-roy/
and some interesting reading from a 2002 San Ignacio de Tupile Peace Corps volunteer’s letters home here:
http://mmorrison13.wordpress.com/2008/03/30/panama-update-4-surviving-the-first-2-months-february-13-2002/

Taking It Slow in the San Blas Islands of Panama

- Ann 1 Comment




The wind has been blowing mightily here in the San Blas islands of Panama,  reminiscent of the Christmas winds in the Eastern Caribbean. It’s not  as dire as the blizzards of northern winter but it does encourage hibernation. Sleeping under the fore-hatch, it’s a choice between the howl of 18 or 20 knots through a small crack, or the atmospheric pressure pouring on the skin through a large one.

“Atlantic ridge causing strong isobar squeeze in the central Caribbean and off the traditionally windy corner of Colombia”: these conditions also bring big seas to Panama. Recent weather reports from Chris Parker have used words like ‘humongus’, ‘immense’, ‘ludicrous’; referring to 15′ seas at 9 second intervals, certainly not something you’d want to beat into in 20 knots + on your way to Cartagena, and pretty uncomfortable coming the other way too.

KitesurferKITESURFER



The outer anchorages are full of current; it’s like trying to swim up the stream of a faucet. Many spots are too churned up for snorkeling (not to mention the occasional Portuguese-man-of-war stinging jellyfish and other creatures blowing through). Only the kite surfers, of whom there are a growing number, are really getting exercised.
Iguana swimming
IGUANA: He must have fallen out of a tree somewhere – sure was happy to clamber into our dinghy, where he curled up in the shade under the seat until he was delivered ashore. I’m glad I knew he was there before I hopped in!

The air near those crashing outer reefs is full of salt spray, which means the inside of the boat gradually gets that way too. The up-side is that the wind generator has no trouble keeping the batteries topped up; fortunate for us because it’s also been overcast  for days, 20 and counting. The gray sky carpet inhibits the solar panels,  snorkeling, and a small part of the spirit.
The sailing, however,  is fantastic, at least in the flat water behind the reefs.  We even had a close little ‘race’ the other day – race being defined as two boats going in the same direction. Each boat had excuses ready in case of loss; luckily we weren’t the ones who had to use them!

PHOTO GALIVANT
The cruising fleet, now numbering about 120 vessels in the more populated western San Blas, flows and ebbs between anchorages in random rolling clusters. It’s interesting to watch how the proximity of a cell tower, the route of the veggie boat,  the chance of no-see-ums near the mangroves, and social events like birthday parties, determine where and when and with who(m?) the fleet disperses. 

More about the overcast skies. We’re used to clouds over the mainland mountains, and a certain haze which can make the mountains difficult to see even from islands only a couple miles out. But it’s been a long time between bursts of sunshine. Some people believe the wind has spread the moisture from the mountain clouds more out to sea. Others mention the cosmic radiation associated with a current uptick in solar flares as contributing to low-level cloudiness. Or it might be ‘normal’ like warm weather in March up north is ‘normal’ sometimes. It’s easy to be skeptical about these hypotheses, but it sure is cloudy, harder to read the water and I miss the lovely colors of the sunlit sea.

SAILING ULU: there’s a wall of mountains not three miles behind us, barely visible.


And, recent solar activity has in fact disrupted several GPS receivers and chart plotters. If it keeps up, we’ll all be lost, since, in this land of reef, shoal and surprising bottom contours, everyone relies on waypoints and tracks from previous visits, and tries to travel to a new place when the visibility is fine.
The ‘rainy day’ feel of things is not unwelcome. We’ve been chasing down inside projects, including some pesky plumbing problems, varnishing, and general installations, repairs and maintenance. Spring cleaning,bread-baking, hand-laundry, all that domestic stuff which takes time, and a dash of Zen. Repacking lockers, curating our collections of stuff. Much of what I try to get rid of, Doug snatches back, and vice versa, so progress is erratic.
Reading. It’s hard to believe, but in these Kindle days, some people are adamant about getting real books OFF their boat.  With a Kindle ‘shelf’ full of books I actually selected for myself, my own reading habits have changed. Feeling book-rich, I’ve become more of a nibbler than a savorer, and less of a hoarder. I’d still rather read a real book, admire the cover and fold down the corners. But books I want to read indubitably come my way more readily on the Kindle. Modern times, mon.
This dry season is what the Panamanians consider summer, but it has had a hearth-focused feel of winter to me. In any event, balmy spring will soon be upon us, and new life. I’m ready!