The day we decided to leave the Rio Chagres and move on to the marina at Shelter Bay inside the breakwater of Colon, dawned clear and pleasant. Still we lingered to enjoy the quiet beauty around us-
Well, pretty quiet considering the howler monkeys in the trees, and parrots screeching overhead. Up came our anchor about 9:00AM to hopefully sail the 7 miles into Colon.
Jamie on Windsong began his trip in hopes of good sailing, too. As mentioned in previous blog entries, he had no working engine propulsion on Windsong, having had his shaft sheared and propeller lost back in Bocas Del Toro. Both of our boats had made reservations at the marina. Jamie was having Windsong taken out of the water to return to his teaching position in Canada for ten months and Dan and I wanted to see him off, maybe help with his repairs if there was time, wait for more packages of electronics to fix our boat and check out Panama City for a few days.
In a little over two hours Dan and I were entering the breakwater. We had been able to sail about half the distance, then we had to use the engine. We worried a bit as Jamie tacked his way out of the narrow channel from the Rio Chagres but all went well and we worried again as rain pelted down as we were entering the marina and could raise no one on the radio to give us our slip assignment. We could see Windsong, still valiantly tacking along the outside of the gigantic rock breakwater and doing her best to get where she needed to go and avoid the seven or eight anchored ships of various kinds and foreign flags; tankers, container ships, car carriers, cruise ships and yachts waiting in a line to transit the Panama Canal.
Yachts heading for Shelter Bay traverse near this anchoring area called “the flats”. Eleven years previous our trawler Sea Star had spent a month in the deep and muddy flats anchorage waiting for a slip at the Panama Canal Yacht Club. Now the Panama Canal Yacht Club has been closed and there is nowhere to park a dinghy, so the flats anchorage is not used much by cruisers.
After a few unanswered radio calls on channel 74 we made our presence in the entrance to the marina known and were guided to our slip and told that we were lucky, because we got the last slip. I immediately reminded the dock person that two boats had made reservations and Windsong may need help as she had no engine. A few minutes later we heard Jamie trying to raise the marina on 74 to no avail. Knowing that he might have to use his dinghy to assist his entry, we wondered where the marina was going to put him, but he still received no answer on the radio, but at least the rain was lessoning by now.
At the entrance to Shelter Bay there is a long dock on the right. Perfect, we thought, for bringing Windsong in safely. Finally by cell phone Jamie reached the marina and was told where to go. Dave, a marina manager and a dock person waited to receive Windsong’s lines as Jamie putted his way in, circled, and driven by port side dinghy tie, eased his starboard up to the dock. We all guided her by lines to the far end of the long dock. It seems the marina staff were actually waiting for a 100 foot yacht expected soon at that very dock!
After welcomes and introductions on the dock Jamie asked about the hauling of his boat. He learned that the lift was going to be shut down at the end of the next day, but extracted a promise that he could be one of the three boats hauled before the lift closed. Feew! That was a lucky break as Jamie had just run out of time and had only a few more days to get ready to leave his boat on the hard and return home to teach Science in Windsor, Ontario for ten months. Of course he was reluctant both to leave his boat and the cruisers’ life.
Shelter Bay is not a cheap place to leave your boat but it is safe and has excellent floating concrete docks with finger piers, electricity, (by meter), potable water, showers and laundry. The amenities were more than we had seen for a long time and we were wanting to use the air conditioning on Sea Star as it had been so very hot! Shelter Bay also has a small restaurant , walking trails right to the Chagres River and the Gatun locks, a free bus to take cruisers to the town of Colon where groceries and hardware stores were said to be available. Since the closing of the Panama Canal Yacht Club they are the “only game in town” and all Yachts transiting the canal find their way to Shelter Bay.
The next issue for Jamie once he arrived safely at Shelter Bay, was a ticket home. He planned to leave the next Tuesday if he could accomplish his next task which was to find a mechanic to machine his new shaft. Meanwhile he had to start to ready his boat for the pull out; bilge pumps had to be cleaned and working well, the boat needed a certain amount of cleaning, sails had to be removed, dried and stored -- the faithful dinghy as well-- and he thought he was going to have his mast taken down and removed from the boat.
The real fun began at the nest issue. Jamie has a cat, Spot. She was a rescue cat and had been a faithful, uncomplaining sailing buddy, and she was expecting to go back to Windsor, Ontario with him, maybe climb a mountain or two and get her feet back on dry, stable land.
Panama regulations and airline red tape made this a difficult task and almost caused him to return home later than he should have for work. Because Panama is hot and Miami or Texas, cities he might fly through, also hot, the airlines had regulations about an animal in cargo flying when the temperature was too high. He found he could not carry the cat aboard the plane on which he had already bought his ticket. He couldn’t ship the cat in cargo as an individual, he had to hire an Animal Exporter to certify the animal was healthy and capable to fly and arrange the flight with an airline. The animal needs to have all its shots and see a veterinarian within seven days of the flight, then the Exporter had to certify the veterinary signature- and all this, he was told, could not be accomplished in less than three days!
He extracted a promise to try to expedite the process and decided to bring the paperwork to Panama City that afternoon. He had updated the cat’s rabies shots in Bocas and had a clean bill of health for the cat so cat in carrier and Jamie and Dan went off in the Shelter Marine bus, then a taxi in search of the local vet in Colon to sign off on the seven day requirement.
The only vet office cruisers knew of was closed, permanently! Next the guys rented a car and somehow found a feed store where, speaking pigeon Spanglish they communicated that they needed a vet. The store keeper found another vet who agreed to come to the store in his car. He provided a rabies tag as if Spot had just been vaccinated and then Dan, in a rental car, took Spot home to the boat (let’s just say Spot doesn’t ride well in a car) , and Jamie jumped on the express bus for Panama City. There he was able to meet the Exporter who took pity on him and provided the paperwork needed, and the name of a pet friendly hostel in Panama City which would allow both the cat and Jamie to make their flights-and all for only $750 fee and ticket for the cat alone!
Yikes, there was still a lot to do. I helped by folding sails and cleaning the dinghy, but Jamie worked non-stop until 6:00PM when we all left for Panama City in the rental car. We should have been there in 45 minutes but as luck would have it we missed the turn off in Colon for the toll road and found ourselves bumping along a construction zone and terrible uneven pavement with detour after detour on the “libre” all the way into the city.
Finding the hostel Balboa Bay, Panama was a bit tricky. Spot was welcomed by the friendly owners and the three of us were off to find our hotel and dinner. This part all went well. Dan and I stayed at the Marbella Hotel that had nice clean rooms and a good spot for a rental car, we ate Pizza and lasagna at Monolo’s Italian Restaurant, then Jamie took a cab back to the hostel and the next day Spot was transported by the Pet Exporter and made her flight. Jamie was transported by us and made his flight.
A few pics: but don't forget to come back for the rest of the blog!
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Dan and I drove through Panama City, mostly in a deluge looking for a boat store by the name of Abernathy’s that we could not find. We started to head back to the hotel when purely by chance we stumbled on it in a maze of one-way streets and bought a few things we needed. We walked to a movie theatre from our hotel, seeing our first movie out since Massachusetts, I think. It was Pelham 1-2-3 with John Travolta and Denzel Washington and a good action movie.
The next day on the way back to Colon we did some birdwatching on a road near Gamboa called the “Old Pipeline Rd”, famous in the Ridgley guide for lots of birds. In the woods we met a young Panamanian bird guide, Jacobo Ortega, who said he could identify 500 birds by their call. We were only with him for an hour but he pointed out many birds we would not have seen, White-tailed Trogan, a Black capped Pigmy Tyrant, and Masked Tityra. We want to hire him for a trip near the marina where there are more trails and roads suggested in the guide.
So now that Jamie has gone to land, Tregoning is still in Bocas and Sea Star is tied up at dock, our pace has slowed. I’ve tried cruiser volleyball for the last few days, Dan has done some more boat repair work, searching the US on the internet for a discontinued Pro Sign 2 control for the inverter. We have ridden the Shelter Bay bus to town and lugged back groceries-stores almost like the states! Plans are not made yet for next stops. Our cruising permit for the boat in Panama will need renewal in a few days. We think we would like to visit the San Blas Islands of the Kuna Yala after a few coastal stops-but we, like most cruisers, are looking forward to a trip back to the states to visit family and friends, for Dan to take a class and maintain his plumbing and electrical licenses, both of us to see various doctors and dentists, and of course, procure more boat parts. That might happen in late October so we need a safe place to keep the boat. Our dilemma is that Shelter Bay and Cartagena are really the only two marinas in the direction we are planning to go.
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