Day 25-28 (Coco’s Island)

Can you say AMAZING! Everything you’d ever imagine an exotic heavily jungled island to be…. It feels prehistoric in fact.  Any minute now I’m waiting for velociraptors to start swarming over the top of the mast to stake out their next meal.  The jungle here is about the densest I’ve ever seen, without a doubt, at least on island.  In some spots, water seems to shoot directly out the side of sheer cliffs into the ocean.  It’s unreal, and therefore no surprise to hear that the filmmakers of Jurassic park shot the opening scenes here.




Cruising into to anchor, we got the boat settled in. I was finally feeling better, starting to kick my cold.  Eric and I had been grating on each others nerves for a few days, and as tensions mounted, I thought I would break the ice by quickly cleaning down the interior below, and jumping up on deck to offer him some help shamying  the boat’s exterior.  He took the bait, and quickly we were getting along again.  It’s hard to hold a grudge against someone who is sincerely offering you a helping hand when your tired and have had a long day.*




Did I mention that Coco’s Island is hot, like drippy sweaty, fucking HOT…yes, that kind of hot.  Needless to say, we got our butts in gear and went out snorkeling the next day.  Well at least I went snorkeling with Val. Eric did a proper dive with Stu.   It was pretty murky for the most part, but we did see some beautifully colored parrotfish and some juvenile white tip sharks, not very big though (no more than 2 feet).  Midway thru the snorkel I started to notice that I wasn’t feeling so hot.  I thought maybe it was a mild hangover coming on from one too wine glasses of wine with dinner the night before (unfortunely I would later find this not to be the case!).

We didn’t get too much time to go stomping around the island itself but for one morning while the boss and missus were doing an organized dive.  They took off at 8am, and Eric and I quickly hightailed it onto land to get a little hike in.  On land itself there is absolutely no village, or town or anything, the closest thing to it is a forest rangers station, run by scientists and volunteers studying and protecting the wild life there.  There are literally a few small buildings there, and that’s it.




 

We wandered around a bit and finally found a trailhead that led to a  bay just over the ridge.  Eric, being the haul ass type of hiker that he is, was off like a shot, while I meandered more slowly up the(very steep) hill taking photographs, listening to the birds.  When I say listening to birds, I mean you have not heard birds until you’ve been here.  Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been scared by a bird’s call in my life until I came to this island….I can only describe the sound as a cross between those emergency broadcasting sirens you hear late night on the television and a baby tyrannosaurus rex, really, but much scarier!  Anyways, half way thru my hike it started to sprinkle a bit, which at first I was quite enjoying. 

As I got to my 3 rd or 4th plateau on the hike, I looked across the valley below and thought to myself uh oh.  Looming on the other side of the valley the rain appeared to be somewhat less gentle, and it was quickly surging towards my exact location.  I scrambled about to protect my camera just before it started to absolutely dump on me……If you’ve ever been in a rainstorm you know this feeling.  At first you feel a bit like a wet cat, it’s uncomfortable, and slightly irritating to note that everything attached to your body is becoming completely saturated.  But, after that passes, and you become truly drenched, there’s a sort odd playful exuberance to the moment, you can’t get any more wet than you already are, so why not bask in it, which is exactly what I did. Sort of jumping around in the mud, falling all over myself, quite literally, and practically loosing my tightly ziploced camera as it rolled down the hill in this process.  God bless Eric, who ran down the side of the hill and found it hiding 20 yards off the trail.

Day 13 (Gatun Lake to Panama City- Flamenco Island) Panama

The final leg of our journey through the canal started bright and early (5am – and a good two hours before I woke up – God bless Eric and our provisional canal captain).  We made it through the final gate a little after 2pm, and secured our way into Flamenco Bay Marina on the Pacific side after much discrepancy over whether we actually had a place to dock the boat (welcome to the laissez-faire marina attitude world wide).  Coming into the marina, I was a bit overwhelmed by the site of Panama City in the distance.  Much larger than I expected, the city seems unfazed by the world wide financial crisis that consumes every other major location I’ve been to within a city this size.  From a 10-mile distance, I could see at least 12 massive skyscrapers in the process of being built.  Through the haze, digital billboards flashed brightly, and the buzz of city life burst well into the evening.

Day 12 (Thru the Panama Canal to Gatun Lake) Panama

Yeah! Last night we finally got clearance to move through the canal, and we’re all pretty anxious to get going.  We fueled up in the AM and set course across the main channel where all boats must pass thru on the way to the actual canal.  It is required for all trips passing through to have a special captain on board to maintain the organization and systematic order required to get boats through without problem.

We are so very anxious to get rolling now (I am seriously hoping the other side of the canal is a bit less skanky than Colon).  The humidity is really starting to get to me, and I’m glad we have the excitement of the transit to keep our minds occupied…

So the whole adventure finally starts.  First a giant tanker, about 900ft. long went into the “lock” ahead of us, then two small catamarans went in with us, basically side by side.  Once inside the lock, we rigged Restless up in the middle, with the two cats to our left and right side.  It was quite a shit show, as the crew on the boat on our right only spoke French, and the boat on our left Dutch.  Yikes!  Thank god for our provisional canal transit captain who helped keep everything relatively calm, and without incident.  You could see how things could most certainly go astray in such a situation, and the captain most scared me when he told us stories of boats, whose lines broke off, being sucked in and crushed behind the lock doors.  We were giddy with nervous excitement; none of us had ever done this before (ironically, by the 3rd lock, the excitement had wore off and we’re all satiated with our canal experience).

Once in the lock, the doors inched slowly closed….I kept having these eerie flashes of thought in my mind from watching Lord of the Rings and the Wizard of Oz One too many times.  It’s that moment, in both movies, where the protagonist is waiting and watching at the evil castle’s doors as they slowly creep open, and out marches the Orcs of destruction, or whatever. In this case, those seemingly exact same doors were closing in on us…mmmmmm, okay,  I need to climb out of Middle Earth here and back in to reality. 

The doors finally shut, we sat patiently for a few moments until the water level in the lock creeps up the sides of the enclosure.  As it rises, the boats on the outer edges take up the slack and keep our little floating island of boats, so to speak, facing tightly forward.  All in all it takes about ½ hour for the locks to fill up, as they do, we rise up above the sea level below.  It’s a strange feeling to look down at 100 hundred yards behind you to see that you are floating, along with a 900 foot tanker a few hundred feet above sea level….it makes for a pretty damn good photograph, I’ll tell you that! 

I don’t think many people realize it, but there is actually a very large lake in the middle of the Panama Canal, if you happen to be transiting it in a smaller boat, less than 250 feet, more than likely you’ll spend the night in that lake, which is exactly what we did.  There’s something so very bizarre and cool about it (besides the howler monkeys which scream at you from the shore all night long)….I mean here we are, on a sailboat that was just sitting in the very salty ocean waters of the Caribbean, and now, boom, 3 hours later, we’re sitting in a fresh water lake in the middle of the Panama Canal, what a trip…..

By the way, this is no small lake, it took us well over 5 hours to get across it the next morning to prepare to go thru our final 2 locks so that we could enter into the Pacific side of our voyage.

Day 10-11 (Colon-Shelter Island) Panama

There’s not much to be said for waiting it out in Shelter Bay, except that it is very wise to have a quick a savvy agent to move you in, and out asap.  Nothing to do, hot as hell, shitty food, yikes…..are we ready to move on yet?

Day 9 (Portobelo to Colon) Panama

Today was muggy, muggy, muggy.  A fat layer of haze hung on the edge of land and sea as we rolled into Colon, the entrance point for the Panama Canal.  As a side note, you should know that Colon also happens to be one of the more dangerous, and dirty armpits of Central America.  Warned not to go into town from the Marina “even during the day”….we decided to stake our claim in the Shelter Bay Marina until our clearance papers came to allow us to pass through the canal.

Day 8 (San Blas to Portobello) Panama

Today we journeyed from the San Blas Islands to Portobello.  I was quite sad to leave, as I think I could have stayed there for a couple of months.  The people of San Blas have such a uniquely intact culture that operates on it's own terms, a thing to marvel at in this day and age.

It took us about 6 hours to get to Portobello traveling northeast up the coast of Panama.  We arrived around 3 in the afternoon, which gave as the opportunity to jump off the boat and take a look around the town.  Apparently Portabelo had been a major stomping grounds for Sir Francis Drake.  He pillaged his way throughout the region; hence many long abandoned forts and cannons remain along the outskirts of the town, which we were able to briefly explore.  There wasn't much to the town, but it did have a unique charm to its brightly colored homes scattered along the main road.




But a major Panamanian attraction was noted in this town for the first time, and it is in fact my favorite thing about Panama.  If you get a chance to go yourself, you’ll see that public buses here, are in fact the coolest form of public transportation I’ve ever seen.  The buses are pretty much designed in your standard high school “Sixteen Candles” style, but where these differ, is in the incredibly brightly painted exteriors, each showcasing the individual artists style and flare for whatever he/she’s into.  Buses are adorned with images of Christ, Yosemite Sam, Billy the Kid, Frodo, Selena, Shakira, you name it, and it’s there.  And it’s not just a face on the side of the bus, but the whole damn thing is decorated, grill to tail, 1985 graffiti style.  Every time I saw a bus it just sort of made me smile.




Anyways, towards sunset we headed back to the dingy, the troops were getting hungry...

Day 7 (Portveneir Island - San Blas, Panama)

Stu and Val’s friends arrive, and I am relieved to see that they are down to earth, lovely people.  Eric and I take part of the morning and check out the island, the people of San Blas, and the dangerously small “airport” of Portvenier.

Day 6 (Portveneir Island - San Blas, Panama)

Up at 8am today to clean, clean, clean….I’m still not loving my situation, but trying to make the best of things.  Stu and Val have friends arriving tomorrow, so the boat needs to be “flipped” quickly: Eric moved into my cabin, his cabin made up for guests, heads cleaned, boat wipe down.  By noon I’m feeling tossed, still not fully recovered from my overall lack of sleep and soggy room.  Eric forces me to get off the boat with him after lunch and take a few hours off on the beach (which I am greatly thankful for later).  San Blas is unbelievable from the moment I saw it.  Fortunately for Eric it was a good windy day, so he took off kite boarding while I hung out on the tiny island we were anchored off of: Chichime.  It’s really the quintessential fantasy island for any office worker sitting in a cubicle with fluorescent lights over their head.  A real “Joe vs. the Volcano” kind of fantasy.  I felt content for the first time since joining the boat…Oh yeah; THIS is why I do this for a living.  Even though it was only a 2 hour break on the beach.  It was all I needed to remind me that in the end, it really is worth it.  With my own resources I would never have the opportunity to be in a place like this, and see such a precious place.

Day 5 (Arrival in San Blas Islands, Panama – Chichime Island)

Yuck, Is all I can say.  The seas are rough, my cabin smells like mildew…r we there yet??? Mmmmm, not until 2am, do we actually arrive.  Which is not so much fun when you’re trying to anchor somewhere you’ve never been to before.  3 hours sleep, then we get to clean the boat all day, yeah!

Day 4 (Tortola, BVI’s to San Blas Islands, Panama)

Ok, some days provide life lessons. Today is one of them.  If you're having problems sleeping, even if you can’t sleep for three days straight, do NOT take a sleeping pill.  Murphy’s Law states then when left up to chance, what can go wrong, more often the not will, right?!  Needless to say, having been unable to sleep well, I groggily jumped at the chance for a good night sleep, and sure enough, just as I’m wondering off into la la land, the weather takes a bit of a change, and things get a little rough.  This all would have been find had I not forgotten to seal my overhead hatch.  So of course just in my moment of blissful takeoff into sleep, I am suddenly doused with bucket after bucket of sea water from my hatch.  A single sprinkle would have been fine, but now my mattress is currently swimming.  Like a cold wet kitten, fresh outta the womb, I’m feeling pretty helpless here, not too mention the fact that in my groggy state, I can barely stand up straight.  I had enough sense still left in my head to quickly grab my computer and wipe it off before stumbling into Eric’s cabin and crashing on his bed while he was on watch.  Needless to say, Eric was kind enough to let me have his bed for the night, while I slept off my sleeping aid coma….cleaning up my cabin the next day was no fun, let me tell ya.

Day 2-3 (Tortola, BVI’s to San Blas Islands, Panama)

Vibes are beginning to mellow out a bit as we settle into life at sea, and the daily routines ensue.  I am still feeling challenged and anxious, with little personal space to work it out.*  ON a plus note, dolphins visit us and ride at the bow for a bit.  I am hoping it’s a good sign of pleasant things waiting on the horizon, and on the evening of day 3 we catch our first fish…Wahoo!  (Recipe for Sushi to come shortly!)

Day 1 (Tortola, BVI’s to San Blas Islands, Panama)

Leaving today was rough, and incredibly uncomfortable (I’m not referring to shitty seas here!)  The vibe is not all that good on the boat right now.  It’s been a stressful and challenging last few days getting all the final details sorted, and I don’t think I was quite prepared for all of the challenges that come from living, breathing, and working with your bosses 24/7….anxiety over this challenge is mounting as we begin our VERY long journey TOGETHER*