Panama City, Republic of Panama
Monday December 3, 2008
This morning a number of boats all gathered on Warrior for a three-hour medical seminar. Jeff (Stravaig), a veterinary surgeon, held council, and we learned some very interesting ways to cope with various injuries, trauma, shock etc as well as going through our medical supplies and antibiotics etc. A few well spent hours.
This afternoon at 4pm we were invited to dinner on Parrot Bay to say farewell to Olga who was heading home to Honduras. As always Olgaīs cooking was supurb; we feasted on special Honduras fare, including fresh home made tortillas. Back on the boat by 7:30pm, an early night as we have to be up at the crack of dawn. We are linehandling for Jeff and Jose Stravaig īs canal transit tomorrow.
Tuesday December 2, 2008
Up with the birds this morning and raring to go. Robin made coffee, Joe off Ora arrived to ferry us over to Stravaig, then went and collected the "kids", (as weīve all nicknamed them and they donīt even mind) off Shandrika who would be the other two line handlers today and we weighed anchor by 7am. Our advisor arrived at 7:30am sharp and we began our trip up the canal to the first of the two locks at Miraflores. We were sharing the lock with a loaded cargo ship, a tug which we were sidetied to, then a 100 foot sailboat behind us which was so confident they didnīt even have a fender on. The first two locks went smoothly then as we were approaching the last of the locks on the Pacific Side, San Pedro Miguel, we were asked to tie up to a mooring bouy as another tug was having to uplock in our place. We sat around twiddling our thumbs for an hour and 50 minutes and finally made it through the last lock at 1:15pm. There goes our downlocking schedule of 3:30pm. No way we could make the 30 mile distance in two hours so we mosied along at 5knots against 25knots of wind and adverse current. We made it to the Banana Cut just on sunset and I think our advisor was reluctant to take us through but we assured him it was fine and we darted off to starboard. This shortcut saves seven miles and is well worth it. We made it though the other side just finding it hard to see the bouys lining the channel and I think he was sweating buckets. He admitted afterwards it was the first time heīd done the transit through there in the dark. We pulled up to a mooring just around the corner from the Gatun locks and settled in for the night. We would be staying on the lake tonight. Sadly it seems we wonīt be locking down tomorrow until the afternoon which will mean sitting and twiddling our thumbs for another half day.
Panama Canal Take 2
Wednesday December 3, 2008
We had a nice surprise this morning. When we checked in with the port authority to see what time the advisor would be arriving it turns out he was heading our way at 9:30am instead of midday. This was a great improvement over midday to early afternoon. We sat around in the peace and quiet of early morn on the beautiful fresh water lake of Gatun, drinking coffee and eating blueberry pancakes that Josee had whipped up. The advisor arrived and we were underway in just a few minutes. Our advisor today was an old pro who usually worked the tug boats so he had many a story to tell. We downlocked through the last three chambers without a hitch, sidetying to one of the huge tugs and were making our way up the fairlead and out to the anchorage at the flats. The wind on this side was blowing a steady 20knots through the anchorage and we were hoping Warrior was behaving herself on the otherside. A friend of Stravaigīs dinghied over and offered to drop us all ashore. We said our sad goodbyes to Jeff and Jose who we wonīt see for probably a year, grabbed a bite of lunch at the yacht club, met a few more cruisers, heard a few more stories of robberies and holdups around the Colón area and it was time to catch the bus, which was conveniently waiting for us to jump on as we arrived. Two and a half hours back across the Isthmus, this time in daylight showed us that we hadnīt really missed much last time when we crossed back over in the dark. We arrived back at Flamenco anchorage just on dark and Joe from Ora was heading in to pick the four of us up when his dinghy engine died. Luckily Phil on Sisiutl who was anchored around in La Playita kindly dinghied around and collected us all and we were finally home. Warrior hadnīt budged but Iīm sure she was happy to have us home.
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| Jeff and Jose |
Panama City, Republic of Panama
Thursday December 4, 2008
Thereīs no rest for the wicked. Today Robin started on the old rusty anchor chain. He has this new beaut stuff which turns rust into a hard coating in 20 minutes. Itīs called Casamar Rust Converter and after removing any oil, grease, dirt or wax residue, you just brush or dip the rusted surface and the reactive action converts the rust to a black acrylic hard protective coating. No more messy rusty spare chain laying in the bilge. Hopefully it will work. The weather is still very saultry here today. We will miss the fresh rain water in the water tanks but we really are getting sick of rain now. Keeping ahead of mildew inside the boat is becoming a thankless task, needing to be done every three weeks at a maximum and you had better believe itīs almost every square inch of the inside surface of the boat. Everyone who has been in this area for any length of time are all fedup with coping with the mildew problem. Bring on the dry season!