Panama to Columbia

In this edition: Sloth, Lunch With the Queen(s), Rivers, Absoluet Absolution, Islands, lots of poo talk, an enormously large grouper, a burial at sea and life in the Big City. Read on... (You can click on any of the pictures to get bigger versions)

Our tail continues in Northwest Panama where our dog, Cloe, began having more and more accidents on the boat. In a lighthearted effort to find new solutions to old problems, Pami bought a few disposable diapers to try. With a simple modification to allow for the egress of a tail, we were in business. The dog was momentarily stunned and confused by her new rig and stood still long enough for a picture. Other than that, the experiment was a failure and we redoubled our efforts at getting the dog up and out more often.


We took a couple more river trips in this area, the first of which was in the Cauchero area in Laguna Chiriqui which became one of my favorite destinations. Pami likes it there too, if I can get enough other people along to make it a sociable outing. I agree that it's nicest that way. We had the good fortune of coming across two sloths as we came back down the river. These critters have an incredibly slow metabolism and will spend about a month non-stop in the tree tops foraging leaves and, well, just hanging around slothfully. We came across the first sloth apparently napping in a tree, he looked like someone had dropped him out of a plane, sprawled on his back in the crotch of a tree. At first, I thought he was dead, and I'm still not sure, but on further reflection and conversations with other sloth spotters, I think he was actually sleeping. I suppose I should have gotten out of the dinghy and poked him with a stick, but I went with the take only pictures, leave only footprints, don't poke the sloths approach.

After a full month snacking on tree leaves, it's time for a poo. The sloth's metabolism is that slow. One poo per month. No daily reading the paper for these fellows. Anyway, considering how hard it is to spot these slow moving animals, imagine our good fortune to spot one slowly (of course) climbing down a tree to do his business in the river (minimizes cleanup efforts, I suppose). After climbing down and hanging his keester in the river (for not too long a time considering that it's a once a month event) our buddy climbed back up into the trees to look for a late lunch.

Moral of story: look twice before relieving yourself in the woods. You never know when some pervert will be there with a camera.

Back in the Bocas del Toro area to load up on groceries, check mail, and socialize, Pami went to one of the weekly Ladies' Luncheons, organized by a different cruiser each week. This particular event was organized by the two cruisers who were running the marina restaurant, Darrien and Dillon. The theme for the event was Lunch with the Queen(s) and the ladies were encouraged to wear flamboyant hats. Pam's creation was a big straw hat covered in some leftover fabric from my spinnaker sock project that I worked on in Cauchero. A lovely time was had by all. We recently heard the Darrien and Dillon have given up their life as restaurateurs and left Bocas del Toro. We're glad to have made their acquaintance and been so greatly entertained by them (see fore show in previous blog).



In our last days in the Bocas area, we traveled once again to Laguna Chiriqui and ventured by dinghy up the Rio Cricamola. In contrast to the other sleepy little rivers we had gone up, this one is quite large. There are lots of Indian villages along the river which serves as the primary transportation for the area. Although there were a few larger boats with outboard motors, most of the local traffic consists of small dugouts paddled down river and poled upriver in the shallows. Hard work, poling upriver. As a result, a family going up river with a load of produce from the farms downriver would be poled by the Papa while Mom and kids walked along shore. We stopped and chatted with one gentleman, heavily loaded with bananas, who asked us to give his wife and son a ride to their village. We let the little boy, 6, drive the dink. He had a great time, being large and in charge. I'm sure his buddies are all sick of hearing the story by now. We were invited to leave the dink on shore and come with them them to their home to dine. It's something we really should have done. Pami wanted to, but I wasn't totally convinced that our outboard motor would be there when we got back. To any of the locals poling their dugouts up the river, a 15hp outboard is something they can only dream of and the temptation would be great. On the other hand, all the locals seemed to be very friendly and hardworking and anyone who would steal such a thing would be faced with severe treatment from his peers. In the end, I was a chicken.

In late September, we renewed our visas one more time and headed East. I wanted to be able to spend some time cruising San Blas, a great archipelago of islands in Northeast Panama and home to the Kuna Indians. From there we would make a passage to Cartagena, Columbia. That passage is directly against the trade winds and one needs to wait patiently for calm winds (to let the seas die down) followed by a hurricane to the north to pull the winds around to something sail able. Our path took us to the Rio Chagres, the river that was dammed to make Gatun Lake that powers the Panama Canal. The river is just off to the West of the canal area and one can anchor mid-river in the midst of incredible jungle scenery and howler monkeys. You'd never know the Panama Canal was just around the corner.

From the Chagres, we made a stop at a great little port named Buenaventura, stopped briefly in Portobello, then on to Linton. Linton is a popular cruisers destination with a lot of people who live there full time. This lovely craft caught my eye as something truly out of the ordinary. I later looked up www.floatingneutrinos.com and my goodness, what a treat. Go check out the doings of Papa Neutrino. What a hoot. They originally planned to take this boat through the canal into the South Pacific. When that didn't work, Papa decided to make it a floating Buddhist Ashram. Now it's just sitting until YOU hook up with the floating neutrinos and create a life for Absolute Absolution!

From Linton we motored to Porvenir, the western port of clearance into San Blas. The San Blas archipelago has hundreds of islands and even more barely submerged reefs. After narrowly missing a reef on the way into Porvenir, we were greeted by the sight of a recently wrecked ketch at the mouth of the Eastern, easier, entrance.

The Kuna culture is largely intact, even today. Each village or area is ruled by a Congresso made up of a chief and some assistants who regulate nearly aspect of Kuna life, who can travel where and do what for a business. Although some islands are private, most belong to the Kuna nation as a whole and the Kuna live there and harvest coconuts under supervision of the Congresso. In addition to coconuts, the other and probably much larger source of income is the Mola. Molas are detailed reverse-applique handcrafted panels of fabric which are traditionally incorporated into dresses. I think that more molas go to tourists than to local dresses and the Kuna are quick to spot new boats in the anchorage. Pami did quite a bit of shopping and we got to know several of the Kuna families. The Kuna's society is very Matriarchal and boys who don't take well to fishing and lobstering and finding a wife take the other road of crossdressing and making molas. The Kuna women are wonderful at making beautiful molas, but it's largely the gay dudes that are good at doing business with the cruisers. The interaction of the sailors and the Kuna is delightfully symbiotic. The Kuna have molas to sell (whether you want to buy anymore or not) as well as fish, lobster and crab. What they don't have is a place to charge their cell phones. Everyone's got to have a cell phone, right? Well everyone does, believe me, and they paddle out to a cruising yacht with their phones and chargers in plastic bags to bum a charge. We got pretty good at doing a charge for fish trade and would usually offer our new friends a cool drink (something else they don't have on the island) and a snack for the kids.

After doing a bit of shopping in the Mola rich islands near Porvenir, I was eager to take Pami to the Holandes Cays, some of the prettiest in San Blas. Our first anchorage we arrived at was a two boat anchorage that had two boats already in it. It was getting late in the day, making it hard to spot the reefs, so we didn't dare go on too far. I selected a spot from the guide books that looked like it would be a good anchorage. Well... another victim of global warming. Most of the islands in San Blas are very low islands which maintain a 'lens' of fresh water in the sand to allow the palm trees to flourish. When the sea levels rise, the lens becomes inundated with salt water and the trees perish. There are lots of islands here that have sunk beneath the sea and I'm sure that the next 20 years will be very hard on San Blas and the Kuna nation.

After that spot, we moved to another anchorage in the Holandes, called the Hot Tub by the gringos, where we did some great snorkeling trips and visited with friends in the adjacent anchorages. Then it was on to the Coco Banderas which are a truly idyllic group of islands (ack, wash my mouth out with soap for using a schmaltzy work like idyllic). We spent several days at the cocos and charged a few cell phones. It was at this point that Cloe, who had been pooping in the boat more frequently since NW Panama, now was having trouble pooping at all. After finally getting rid of the ticks Cloe picked up in Guatemala, we hadn't been taking her to shore much. Lots of places are hard for a blind, deaf dog to get around. But I figured that the best way to get a dog pooping is to go for a walk in a new neighborhood and so it was shore leave time for Cloe! These islands are perfect for a blind dog. Nowhere to get lost: water on one side, grass and trees on the other and sand in the middle. After the jungles of NW Panama, it was great to be on the beach again. We all had a great time.

Before leaving San Blas, we headed back to Porvenir to check out of Panama and then on to the East Lemon Cays where we dallied a bit before heading further East. During that time, we got a call on the radio from some friends who were buying a big fish from a local fisherman and wanted someone to go in on it with them. What a fish, indeed. Our half of the fish was good for better than a dozen meals. It took Pami several hours with her electric fillet knife to cut it up.

If you think this life is all beach parties and dirt cheap fish and lobster dinners, think again dear reader! At about this time, our SSB radio that lets us talk with other cruisers up to 1500 miles away and send email when we're not in an internet friendly port, started misbehaving. The antenna system is grounded by a network of copper foil strips throughout the boat, several of which had been doused in salt water and were corroded beyond repair. We experimented and found that if we could connect the traveler track, part of the mainsail rigging, into the system, we'd be able to transmit again. Unfortunately, there was no room for me to crawl in and attach the wires to the track, so it was Pami to the rescue (again). She managed to get the connection made and I helped her out of the hole when she was done.

We had been waiting for an opportunity to cross to Cartagena, about 150 nautical miles to the East, and one was provided by tropical storm Ida, later to become hurricane Ida. Ida formed just north of Panama and worked North through Honduras. While doing so, she pulled in air and moisture from all directions. In our case, we had a 12 knot South wind with largely clear skies which allowed us to sail about half way to Cartagena and motor sail much of the rest before finally packing it in and flat motoring into the Bay of Cholon, just West of Cartagena. The bay of Cholon is wonderfully protected and tranquil. I took the picture from the deck of Robert's house. Robert is a former LA motorcycle cop turned cruiser turned landowner. He's got a very nice house that he is working on. As he says, the only thing finished is the view. While we were in Cholon, poor Cloe's health continued to deteriorate and we were fortunate to meet a retired vet and his wife on their trimaran who was kind enough to put Cloe to sleep for us. We gave her a burial at sea on our way from Cholon to Cartagena. She was a great friend and a good boat dog.

I'm now in Cartagena with the boat and Pami is at home in Meridian, ID visiting her family for the holidays. Cartagena is a big city with some wonderful stuff for boaters. We're having a new fuel tank made and I'm installing a new, more powerful drive for the autopilot. As soon as I get done with this blog, I can get on to some wiring and figuring out what to do about the spongy floor in the galley. It's been a party here! Their independence day celebration is held in conjunction with local and country-wide beauty pageants. It's a big thing here, and if you saw some of the Colombian women, you'd know why. There's been days of parades during which the spectators spray squirt foam at each other and throw blue paint and old motor oil on each other. I guess every place has their crazy traditions. We light off fireworks on the hottest, driest day of the year, so go figure... The big finale of the parades is the water parade in which the winners are paraded around the harbor and where the Colombianos all cruise around in their boats, playing music and partying. It made for a very lumpy day at anchor.

From here we plan to cruise the San Blas again starting in February and then transit the Panama Canal and work our way slowly up to the Sea of Cortez.