April We are in Panama
Panama has been a wonderful surprise. It is beautiful. I never thought
much about Panama other than to go through the canal. We have had
wonderful sailing, plenty of wind. There are hundreds of islands all
along the Pacific coast. Most of than are completely deserted. The
islands are covered with dense lush jungle and coconut palm lined white
sand beaches.
Sharon changing of the flags
Our sail from Costa Rica to Panama was a lovely overnight sail.
Dolphins joined us several times throughout the night. We arrived into
Panama at the port town of Armuelles. The port captain came out to meet
us upon our arrival. He and his whole staff were extremely helpful and
thank goodness he spoke good English. We think he was the only person in
the entire town that spoke or understood English. We were the first
sailing vessel in many months to visit this place so we were treated
very "special". He arranged for diesel to be brought out to our boat,
took us to the market, show us where we could provision, got us a taxi
to go to the internet and best of all showed us the best Panamanian
restaurant in town. We went to dinner and the bill was a whopping $14
dollar. We had fish dinners with great mixed seafood soup and two beers
each. The beers were more expensive than most restaurant at $0.60 but
this was after all, the best place in town!! You could even get good
imported beer here (Bud) at a whole $1.00!! The prices are the best have
we seen: Diesel at $1.15, Internet cafe at $1.00 per hour and best of
all Ice Cream Cones at $0.25!
Buying Bananas, Plenty to pick from
This town was a working port in the middle of the Banana Republic.
Chickita Banana was here for many years but pull out three years ago.
The port is now economically depressed but the people were still great.
We were lucky enough to time our visit when the second ship to visit
this port in three years was at the pier. It was a huge freighter from
China unloading of all things, cement. It's for all of Central America.
So everybody was happy and there was lot's of work for people, even if
was only going to last a few weeks while they unloaded. A few weeks pay
would really help these people. We are very sure we are the only
"tourist" to visit this town in a long, long time.
We left Armuelles and sailed to Isle Partida and spent a couple of days
there. Partida is one of many islands on the Pacific coast of Panama.
Partida was covered in dense jungle and spotted with white sand beaches.
At Partida a local fisherman came by and we bought 2 huge lobsters for
5 dollars.
From Partida we sailed to Bahia Honda. Bahia Honda was a large very
protected bay. Anchored at an island just inside the bay we saw a huge
230 foot Mega Yatch called Amazon Explorer! At first we thought it was
a scientific research ship but we talked to the owner. He told us it
was just his private yacht! He was from Switzerland and his yatch had
been around the world many times. His dinghy was almost the size of
"Reality". You meet all kinds! In Bahia Honda we visited a fishing
village. The village appeared to be the fishing boat building yard of
the area. There were about 8 boats in various stages of being built.
They were all completely built from hand cut wood. The smaller boats
were made from huge dugout logs. The larger boats were built with hard
wood hand cut boards. It was a good reminder that the good "old way" of
building things is still the current method in a lot of places in the
world,
it was very interesting to see.
We then sailed to Isle Jicaron. It was a really great Isle about 40
miles off the coast. As the Panama book say "it is the most wildly
beautiful stop in the Pacific Panama". That is an understatement. This
place was like Jules Vern "Fantasy Island" absolutely gorgeous. The lush
mountains, coconut palm lined white sand beaches and the underwater
coral and fish were all beautiful. We enjoyed excellent snorkeling.
We saw tons of fish and large coral heads. Vaughn speared a big "Pargo-
Dog Snapper" fish for dinner. Sharon collected rock scallops and we had
a great seafood pasta to complement our fish dinner. We could have
stayed for weeks but we needed to move on.
Vaugh with his Pargo and beaches of Jicaron
When we left the anchorage we had 10-12 knots of wind. The wind built
for the first 50 miles to 20 knots. It was a great overnight sail to
Bahia Benao. It's a little anchorage just north of Punta Mala. In
Spanish this means "Bad Point". It looked like it would live up to its
name. We waited 2 days at the anchorage while the wind was blowing 25-35
knots. The next day we and 4 other boats left for the point, which
turned out to be a kitten, only 7 knots of wind.. How things change.
We then sailed 80 miles across the Gulf of Panama to the Las Perlas
Island chain. The Las Perlas Isles are 35 miles from the Panama Canal.
Sailing across the Gulf of Panama to the islands was like watching a
supper tanker highway. All the big boys coming and going to the Panama
Canal was like a "Sunday Parade". The huge freighter was everywhere! We
listening to some of them on the radio and they are from all over the
world. Vaughn laughed at one call Swan Lagoon who had a crew of all
Russians and they are carrying a full freighter of Banana's to Italy!
Then all of a sudden we got "buzzed" by a Helicopter. He did a full 360
at about 50 feet above us, waved and he was gone. An hour later we saw a
US Naval Ship. Vaughn's Dad was in the Navy for 27 years so in his Dad's
honor we called them on the radio to ask if it was their chopper that
circled us. Vaughn told them it was his Dad was in the Navy for 27 years
and his birthday was next week and that he would be interested in us
talking with a navy ship in Panama and would they tell me their name.
Well our quick "Hi"...became a 15 minute detailed question session as
they asked us all the details of who we were, where we where going, what
our mission was, etc. We asked their name again and they said they were
the US Navy WARSHIP "Samuel Elliot Morrison". We think we might have
made a mistake contacting a WARSHIP? I guess they are required to fill
out a full report about any vessel that contacts them. Oh well, we are
still good paying US tax citizen but we won't do that again.
This beach was amazing, it was solid shells.
The Las Perlas Islands are known for their beautiful beaches and of
course pearls (Las Perlas is Spanish for "the Pearl"). The islands have
beautiful white sand beaches, lined with coconut palms and dense jungle.
One island we anchored next to had an amazing variety of birds. We
could hear all kinds of different birdcalls. On another island the
beach was bright purple because it was absolutely covered with scallop
shells. We went to a village on one island that had about 500 people.
We were the hit of the town. As soon as we landed on the beach, all the
children playing on the beach came and gathered around us checking out
our dingy. They use dugout wooden canoes. So our rubber raft was
really different to them. We walk through the village and 20 children
tagged along. We found a little tiny supply store, with just the basics
(flour, rice, potatoes and onions) but, the store did have peppermint
candy....so we bought a bag and gave a piece of candy to each of the
kids. They were so excited and happy. Next thing we knew we had kids
from all over town running to see us. We gave them all a piece of
candy. They were so cute, laughing and giggling. The adults all just
smiled. They definitely don't see many visitor/tourist is this town.
We went to another tiny village of only 20 people, know for its pearls.
We bought a pair of small "Cafe Pearls" to make earrings. They had
pearls that were white, black and brown/cafe. We had never seen the
cafe color before, so got those because they were so different. They
will be a fun memory of this beautiful area.
The Kids on Las Perlas Islands
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Easter Sunday found us on the Island of Contradora in the Perlas. If
the name Contradora sounds familiar to any of you that follow politics;
you are correct it is the island of all the rich and famous people of
Panama and the place that hosted the Central American Peace Talks. We
had Easter Sunday brunch at a nice hotel with a couple other boating
friends.
Then we sailed to Tobago Island. It's has a pretty little town that is
full of flowers, everybody has lots of flowers planted in their yards.
Sharon really enjoyed it. While we were wondering through town the sky
darkened, for the first time in 6 months we got rain and boy did it
rain! It was like somebody turned on the faucet. It must have rained 5
inches in the next 5 hours. We got soaked getting back to the boat. No
wonder everything is so green and lush down here. When it rains it
doesn't mess around. Along with the rain there was a lot of lighten and
thunder. I guess the wet season is beginning!
We spent the next week in Panama City preparing for our transit of the
Panama Canal!
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