The beginning of June found us in the Rio Charges River in Panama. We had planned to just stay for a few days to enjoy our 6th Wedding Anniversary but ended up stay for almost 2 weeks! Getting into the Rio Charges was a bit hairy as the sand bar at the month of the river shallows up to 10 feet according to the charts. Reality's keel draws 7 1/2 feet so we knew we didn't have a lot of extra room to play with. Sharon climbed up the mast to the first spreader for maximum visibility as we approached the river mouth. Sharon could see we were in the deepest part of the river mouth but Vaughn was only reading 9 feet on the depth meter. We started to get real nervous! After several tense minutes the depth meter showed the water was getting deeper again...is that ever a good feeling! Once past the sand bar the river depth dropped to 30 to 60 feet and lots of room to navigate.
We cruised 7 miles up the river. This is the first time we have taken Reality up a river and being in fresh water was a fun change! Fresh water also naturally cleans the saltwater critters off the bottom of Reality, very nice The river ran through dense old growth tropical rain forest. There were parrots, toucan and howler monkeys everywhere. We traveled all the way up the river to the dam. The dam creates Lake Gatun for the Panama Canal. It is another engineering marvel. In its time it was the largest earthen dam in the world. Even today there is only a couple dams in the world that are larger. Each time one of the locks fills and empties passing a ship through, 52 million gallons of fresh water from the lake has been used! For the canal to continue to work the reservoir of water in the lake had to be enormous. Is there any doubt that it rains a lot in Panama?
We were the only boat in the river so we had this beautiful jungle world all to ourselves. We did lots of exploring in the Dingy up the small river tributaries and we found a whole network of old trails created by the USA for doing military jungle training. For the first time we were able to do a lot of hiking in the jungle! Even though we have been in the jungle area for months we had done very little hiking...the jungle is so thick that unless someone has established a trail...you don't get 10 feet into the jungle before you are stopped by the dense growth. The only ways to get around in the jungle is by following the rivers or chopping your way through with a machete or better yet a chain saw. We definitely have a lot better appreciation for what work the early explorers had to do. It must have taken them months just to move a couple miles. So finding trails was a wonderful surprise.
Our first hike we went about 4 miles up into the jungle. The trail was marked by an occasional red spray paint spot on a tree. Thank goodness we had brought a compass with us hiking because we almost got lost! Once you are deep in the jungle it all looks the same. The rainforest canopy is so thick you can't see where the sun is coming from so it's no help for direction. Even the hills are so densely cover in jungle you can't find a lookout spot. We knew it would be easy to get lost in the jungle so we had been very careful to ensure we followed the red trail marks. But on the way back out of the jungle we were following the path of red trail marks and checking our compass. We noticed that the compass heading we were going was wrong. We kept going for 20 minutes on this incorrect compass heading because the red dots appeared occasionally, seeming to confirm our path. We were beginning to get very nervous that we were going the wrong way and even started having visions of needing to sleep in the jungle hopelessly lost. We finally came upon a tree that had fallen across the trail. We knew there was NOT a fallen tree on the trail we had followed into the jungle. So we backtracked 20 minute to where the compass heading had begun to be incorrect and sure enough discovery there had been a "Y" in the trail that we didn't see going in. We found the correct branch of the "Y" and found our way back to the boat. Besides the adrenaline rush of perhaps being lost in the jungle, we saw some amazing things. The old growth rainforest trees are truly amazing. The vines and ferns and variety of plants were wonderful. We even saw a 3-toed sloth! The people of Panama call them "Lazy Bears".
Our next hike in the jungle we followed an old overgrown railroad berm. The railroad was build to carry dirt from the canal digging to build the dam. The railroad tracks were long gone, but the berm was built up about 20 feet off the jungle floor. It provided a completely different look at the jungle. We could walk along it much closer to the rainforest canopy. It was great for bird watching. It was also great that we didn't need to worry about getting lost.
The nights in the river were wild. You just can't imagine the sounds that come from the jungle at night. The sounds of parrots and howler monkeys start to sound normal compared to some of the weird night noises we heard. We had bats flying around the boat every night. The lights from the boat attracted the bugs, which brought in the bats. We thought a couple of them were going to take up residence.
In the evenings on the river we would see huge fish feeding on bugs on the surface. Some of them looked to be 4 feet long! After being in the river alone for almost a week we saw a small sport fishing boat with an American fishing along the banks of the river one evening. He was fishing for he called "the only fish".....Tarpon. So that is the big fish we have been seeing. He said they could get up to 150 lb. Wouldn't that be a thrill with a light rod and tackle! We never did try fishing for them we were having too much fun just watching them.
We reluctantly left the river and again headed east to Boca Del Toro. We needed to get Reality ready to put away for the summer so we could head back home to the States to visit family and friends. Boca is a wonderful little town. It is the closest thing Panama has to a tourist area. It has several hotels, restaurants and a community of about a 100 Americans that have decided to call this little piece of paradise home.