Shelter Bay Marina, Colon, Panama October 1, 2009

What does a cruiser do in a marina ?

Shelter Bay Marina, Colon, Panama October 1, 2009

So the sailing vessel Sea Star remains tied to the sturdy, concrete finger piers at Shelter Bay Marina. What does a cruiser do in a marina for over a month? (Well, not now- now we have moved on so that Oct. 11, 2009 we arrived in the San Blas)
Since there are few worries once all the boat projects are done or planned- you can just hang around your boat and watch the comings and goings. Here at Shelter Bay there is a regular stream of cruisers planning to go through the canal to the Pacific, waiting for the measure of their yacht to prepare to move through the canal or arriving at Shelter Bay Marina the day of transiting the canal from the Pacific to Atlantic Ocean. The sailors and motor yachts are from all countries and they all have had adventures so it is a lively group.

Many cruisers run, jog and work out on a regular basis. For Sea Star and a group of cruisers who are heading toward the San Blas and eventually Columbia, the location of the marina near to the San Lorenzo National Park offers some great exploration opportunities while hiking, jogging or just walking and gawking. It's beautiful exploring the quiet, green and majestic canopied walking paths and roads. The roads were built back long before 1999 when the park and the Panama Canal were returned to the Panamanian Government by the United States military who used to jungle-train here in Panama. There are open fields, some with bunkers or homes that have now been allowed to return to jungle.

We Cruisers have been thrilled to see and hear mammals such as white-faced capuchin monkeys and the larger howlers cavorting in the treetops. Occasionally cats such as the Jaguarondi, anteaters, coatimondi, a long-tailed raccoon-like animal, agouti, a fat rodent with little tiny round ears and an few solitary crocodiles and caiman around the dock areas where there are mangroves have been seen. The paths are alive with a large variety of singing, whistling, colorful, noisy or squawking birds flitting around flowered branches, munching on fruits, ants or catching insects in flight, or just quietly sitting in foliage. Our Ridgely bird identification book has had a workout.

For us, mornings can be very leisurely. We get up, have great Panamanian coffee(we finally invested in a whole bean grinder when we visited Bouquete) and check out the news on the internet if the network is working that day, or read a book for awhile before breakfast. Sometimes Dan and I take an early morning walk carrying our binoculars and often discover new (to us) birds. But sometimes as needs arise for groceries and boat parts, we must gear up early to hurry to the Shelter Bay 8:00AM free bus with our canvas boat bags and backpacks and take the hour long trip to the city of Colon to a specified mall to shop.

Colon, we are warned in writing from the marina managers and from other cruisers, is not a safe place for gringos to walk around town. The crime rate is high as there is extreme poverty and petty thievery and worse is rampant. Shelter Bay must pick up some of its employees in Colon and so a bus is available to bring cruisers to the necessities of life. The Shelter Bay shopping bus arrives at the Rey Market where the majority of the people get off to grocery shop. Other cruisers pile out of the bus, some into other taxis to go to deal with boat papers or be driven to hardware stores, machine shops, the downtown vegetable market, or to Budget Rent-a-Car. Most will race back to rejoin the group for the bus at 11:15 on the trip back over the Gatun locks and back to the marina, the groceries, purchased gas tanks, water bottles, propane bottles etc. now stuffed onto the crowded bus, on all the seats, up near the driver and resting on the floor slipping and sliding on the 45 minute return trip over the bumpy and twisting roads, over the Gatun Lock with perhaps a 45 minute wait for a cargo ship or tanker to clear the locks, (makes for great scenery) through the gate into the military drill base (now Panamanian) and back into the gated marina. After disengaging ourselves one couple at a time from the mountain of purchases, we return to our boats and the intense heat and humidity of a day in Panama, exhausted.

But now we must store the purchases. The mantra is "there is nothing available in the San Blas". The refrigerator and freezer are solidly packed as we wash and repackage grocery items. Any cardboard possible to remove is removed to avoid contamination of the boat by cockroach eggs said to lurk in the glue of any cardboard. The aft cabin is stuffed with canvas bags containing the vegetables that won't fit in the refrigerator and any other large item that needs to be dealt with later. We collapse in a heap, turn on the boat air conditioners and try to recover from the marathon of shopping, packing, lugging, washing, cleaning and storing.

Other cruiser activities can fill our time, too, beside working on the boat and just waiting for the frequent rainstorms to subside so laundry can be brought to the three machines where you wait your turn in the 90 boat marina. The summer camp for adults atmosphere is noted at the swimming pool and hot tub. ). The restaurant has AC and provides some relief from the heat generated when cooking on the boat) although the food is not great. The restaurant has a large screen satellite TV playing ESPN or the occasional movie (in Spanish). On opening day of American football the bar threw an NFL party (sparcely attended however). Seems like we just finish one meal, barely get the dishes done (do you remember life without a dishwasher?) and it's time to start the next! Add the requirement to bring something out to the dock for happy hour and you are planning food all day. Some of the boaters have both cruisers who love to cook and have become sought after for the weekly pot luck dinners.
There is an "everyone is welcome" daily volleyball game organized by Suzi and John on m/v Cabaret for exercise and sociability and an evening gathering on the dock to hash over the events of the day, see who has arrived or left, who is waiting for what parts shipment, what cost three or more times what was expected and general meet and great gathering of the cruisers.

Specifically for Dan and I in our time at Shelter Bay some time has been spent in procuring a get-home to MA ticket for our boat cat, Maggie. This required driving her to the vet in Colon and to an agent in Panama City so she could be flown to Boston then driven to Greenfield to rejoin our son, Steven, at his home. We were able to fly her for more money than tickets for the two of us will cost- in Continental Cargo $346.00, and we met some nice people that helped through the red tape. The veterinaria in Colon, Omar Lorenzo at Silver City was excellent and helpful. $15 for the health certificate proving her rabies vaccine was current and $45 for a new cage for her transportation. He was able to certify that Maggie was healthy and could travel. In Panama City we usedmovetopanama.com for $551.00. Mario and Karina's service was appreciated as they took care of her to be sure she would be on the plane on time. We miss Maggie as she was great company on the boat, playful and uncomplaining, unless we were traveling for days, but we felt she would be happier on land with space to walk and exercise. The days were brutally hot in the boat when it had to be closed for the day.

Happily, our friends on Tregoning have traveled to the Rio Chagres and it may work out that Tregoning, Navy Blue, Cabaret, Whane and Sea Star as well as many other boats from Shelter Bay or Bocas Del Toro may move on to the San Blas soon. We heard from Jamie by email, now returned to his science teaching job in Canada and off of Wind Song for ten months. He is slowly acclimating to the differences in culture on land and he and his cat Spot, miss their sailing days. Well, actually Spot is fine. We miss you, Jamie! I guess it's up to you to teach the youth the basis for your values and the importance of conservation principles to the natural world.