Category Archives: Cruising Life

Describes an experience regarding the boating lifestyle of our travel.

Passage from San Blas to Linton Island, Panama

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We really would have liked to stay in the San Blas at least two more days to take part in the special events. Today on Carti Suitupo there are festivities for the biggest holiday of the year for the Kuna people, when they won their autonomy from Panama. Mr. G had invited us back for the last day of the puberty party, which is tomorrow, where the girl is unveiled in her newfound glory, with the shaved head, ring in her nose and her body painted. But we were out of time and really needed to get to the canal. We knew from the radio net that between the anticipated festivities and the not so great weather we have been having, not a lot of boats have headed to Colon lately, which means the canal wait is probably short. It sounds like a lot of boats would all be heading out in the next two or three days, when the forecast improves and the holiday is over. We were afraid that if we arrived in the middle of the glut, we’d get caught in a long canal line.

The trip to Colon would take about 13 hours total, an awkward number. Yesterday we had gone back and forth about the best strategy. Strategy one was to Continue reading →

Wandering Around the San Blas Island Chain

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Yesterday we awoke still feeling tired and out of it. We were sad to see that it was gray and cloudy, windy, and that the anchorage was filled with little but sharp and rapid waves. Darn. We had planned to go and explore the islands around us this morning. Getting the dinghy down would be a pain, and it would be a wet ride to and from the islands. We decided to wait until noon to go to shore. By then, maybe the wind would die down like it did yesterday afternoon. Our friends on Arielle called us on the radio to let us know they had arrived in the San Blas and had anchored at Lemon Keys, which is halfway between Porvenir and Holandes.

We made breakfast, put in a load of laundry, watched a movie, and kind of puttered around doing little odds and ends. At noon, we Continue reading →

Settling in San Blas

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From the outside, the office looks like a nice looking bungalow. Inside it is unfinished. While the concrete frame is structurally sound, there is still a long way to go before the construction will be done. Electric cables have been run through the building, but things like light switches and plugs have not been put it. There is no ceiling yet. The back door was broken and so tattered that only a few beams of wood were left on it. It didn’t look like there was any lighting installed yet, but there was plenty of natural light.

The three officials were all housed in the same little building, which made finding them easy. All were dressed in casual western wear and are pleasant people. We asked the immigration officer where the airport was and he told us that the airport is “broken right now”. Needless to say, with no electricity, there were no computers and all paperwork was done by hand. The paperwork process was slow, particularly with the port authority officer who issued our cruising permit. The check in fees were $96.00, and there are some check out fees, so Panama is one of the more expensive countries we have visited in terms of administrative costs. It took a full hour for the three stops. We didn’t mind. We were happy to be on solid land. We’d say the port authority officer has a nice view from his office.

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Several sets of boaters arrived after us, and got in line behind us. We can’t imagine how long it will take the people in line to get through. The German guys were first in line behind us and we started talking to them. It turns out that they also came from Bonaire, leaving the same day we did. Then one of them put two and two together and said “you’re the pirates!” It turns out these were the guys we were running parallel with last night. They had the opposite reaction to us as we did to them. When they first saw us, they thought we were fishermen and disregarded us. But when they realized we had been running parallel for over several hours, they got more and more worried that we were pirates looking for a good spot to attack. They shut off their lights and changed coarse to get away from us. They said we were very nice pirates.

After we were done, we Continue reading →

Welcome to the San Blas Islands, Panama

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At around 0330, we approached the east end of the San Blas archipelago. We were heading for the Canal Caobo, a channel just south of the group of small islands known as Holandes Cays. Eric slowed down to 1400 RPM. He set the radar/chart plotter so that the charts overlaid on top of the radar. He studied it carefully to make sure the land masses matched the chart exactly. He made sure the depth we matched the chart. We were relieved everything lined up. We proceeded slowly into the channel, carefully watching the depth sounder to make sure the depths continued to match the charts. This is the first time we have ever done a night entry without navigational aids, such as channel markers. Flying blind and relying on your electronics is a little scary. By a few minutes before 0600, we were as deep as we dared to go in the dark. We had hoped the sun would be rising by then, but it was still pitch black.

It was relatively calm in the channel — for the most part, at least. We did get the occasional bigger wave. It was a million times better than Continue reading →

Passage from Bonaire to the San Blas Islands – Days 3 – 5

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Day 3

At 0900 this morning the waves had climbed up to 6 feet. But then the wind died down to less than 10 knots apparent and the seas followed. By 1300 the seas had smoothed out quite a bit. It was still not flat calm by any means, but at least the seas were better. It was actually quite nice overall. With calmer seas, we could open the hatch downstairs for more ventilation, which helped tremendously in cooling it off and making it smell better. We tried to run the AC downstairs, figuring it would work in calmer seas, but it didn’t. That isn’t a good sign. We should have cleaned the strainer, it must be a bit clogged.

It was sunny and hot. In the mid-afternoon some clouds rolled in, which made being in the pilot house more bearable today than it was yesterday in terms of blinding sunshine. But even with the light cloud cover, by 1700 it was so bright in the pilot house from the setting sun that we could not physically stand to be in there. Eric saw a school of what looked like a 1,000 flying fish, the biggest school of them he has ever seen.

At about 1430 the wind started to Continue reading →