A few mediocre photos of Panama wildlife before we leave for Las Perlas

A sloth! It was in the tree about 6feet away from us completely at home and munching away.








A porupine!! Again, in the tree about 6 feet away and casually observing it's audience of 30 or so. I suppose they have much fear of anyone?






A cayman......!!! Looking down into the pit where it lived..... They are around here in the wild too but quite hard to spot as they only come out to bask occasionally. We were told not to swim in the marina as a pair had been spotted there the other week killing a wild pig!




Er.......a very tiny little yellow bird if you can spot it....but it was extremely close anyway! I saw lots of other exotic birds but no chance of a photo.


We are leaving Panama tomorrow for Las Perlas and then on to Galapagos for the 9th of March where I may be able to get online again.
We have stocked up the boat for up to 4 months as food etc here is so much cheaper than in the Pacific Islands....84 litres of milk for a start (I don't touch the stuff myself.....there are several cases of beer though.....30p a can and litre boxes of red wine at £1.50 each.....!!) Just too good to miss.
I hope the Galapagos live up to expectations....so far it seems that the most important thing to have is enough dollars to pay for it all....$100 for a start per crew member before anchoring charges etc are calculated.
No idea how much the excursions will be but I suspect a little on the expensive side?
Hope to have better photos to post from there......

The ship that our two rafts of three yachts followed into the first Gatun Locks.





The raft of three, Simanderal ( 45' Malo)in the middle because she has a bow thruster and Aspen (36'Island Packet) on the other side.






This is the ship ( Golden Wish) that followed us in as we transited alone through the Miraflores; quite a monster with just about two feet spare on either side.





Victor, our advisor on day two. I fed him well, giving all on board a full english for breakfast for a start but he just loved the ginger nuts and ate them in handfuls!!





Moonshiner out of the locks and just about to go under the Bridge of the Americas which is the entrance to the Pacific! See how grey the sky is? It absolutely tipped down a few minutes later..

Greetings from the "Other Side"

Well, here we are then, safely at anchor in Amador, Panama after a week of horrible headcolds and canal transits....yes, there was more than one of them!
The entire crew (!) of Moonshiner acquired a rather nasty cold virus after the first gathering of the Bluewater rally participants at Shelter Bay Marina leaving us ill (ha ha!!) prepared for the news that we would be the first boat in the first batch of canal transits starting that Sunday 7th Feb......but we left anyway as we had all the documentation ready and willing volunteers to help line handle.

So, we left the marina and motored across to the designated place to pick up our "advisor" who would stay with us until we tied to the buoy in the Gatun Lakes later that evening after the first set of three locks at Gatun which would take us up 90 feet. This was the hard part where the line handlers are required to do some pulling to keep the lines taut though as we were rafted alongside two other boats, there was only a need for four "active" handlers...one at each corner of the raft leaving the other eight doing little but watch. I kept myself busy making drinks etc for everyone and feeling increasingly lousy at the same time.

So far so good and we settled for an early night as we were leaving around 6.30 the next morning for the long motor (30miles or so) to the next set of locks which would take us down to the Pacific. Our second advisor "Victor" arrived next morning and we set off. Now the problems begin!! There were five other boats with us and they all shot off at breakneck speed, well nearly 7 knots anyway leaving us behind! We were only required to maintain 6 knots through the canal but the advisors were pushing the boats to get to the Miraflores locks even earlier than our allotted time for some reason.

The end result was that Moonshiner just couldn't keep up the pace and the engine started to protest by losing revs. Oops! We were in the unfortunate position of going nowhere fast in the middle of the canal with enormous ships bearing down on us. This sort of thing happens quite often however and so the Authorities quickly sent a launch to push us alongside a jetty while we sorted out the engine.....our line handlers, Bill (Camomile) and Nigel (Honalee) were brilliant and quickly got the engine back (and purring), so we continued on our way, by this time a long way behind the other five yachts and no chance of catching up. The Panama canal waits for no man!
We had to be rescheduled and our advisor Victor who was very patient (and kept well fed with ginger nuts) arranged for us to go through the first lock, the Pedro Miguel, alongside a tug. So our line handlers had a rest while the tug did all the work.

Then we had to wait for some time before a suitably sized ship was scheduled to go through so that we could motor in ahead of it. This is why there is always a need for 4 line handlers on each boat. You just never know what will happen...... As it turned out, we had a special transit which was apparently watched by some form of English royalty who just happened to be visiting the canal that day. I've no idea who this dignitary was but we waved as we went past anyway!

Once out of the Miraflores locks, we motored down to the anchorage where we sit today and hoped for a few days rest to get over the colds which were starting to get quite nasty. This was not to be the case for me unfortunately as I discovered the next morning and with 15 minutes warning that I had to go back to the other side of the canal by minibus and help another boat through acting as line handler. Well I did it but only just and I felt like death after two days on the canal again! I'm still coughing and spluttering and this wretched cold is going through the fleet...brought in apparently by some unsuspecting soul who flew in just over a week ago. I've said it before and will repeat that airlines must do something about the quality of the air that their poor passengers are forced to breathe. Rant over..... !
Photos next.......... They're not very good as I wasn't really with it most of the time. Sorry!

Crossing over to the Other Side

The preparations are now complete for our canal transit which was supposed to be next week but has been brought forward and we are now the first official Bluewater boat to go through…..at around 5pm local time (10pm UK time) today. We have to leave the marina by about 2pm. You can watch the transit live via the webcam at Gatun Locks on panamacanal.com …or something like that. It’s easy to find anyway! I shall send text messages to a few family/friends as we transit so I am hoping that at least some of you will still be awake.

I had no idea just how much red tape was involved to get the boat ready as well as a small mountain of paperwork to be completed which included a trip to downtown Colon (awfully scary place!) for fingerprinting. This is a new requirement in Panama…they change the regulations frequently and also charge for each new service…. The dollar pile is reducing rapidly......

The boat had to be measured by an official measurer and the loo inspected to make sure it is suitable for use by the “advisor” who will be on board while we are in the locks at Gatun, Incredibly, if the loo is deemed unsuitable for his requirements, a launch has to be called for to come alongside so that he can “go”….this inconvenience (pun intended!) would cost the skipper $300. Luckily, I had only just cleaned out the heads which can be a little leaky. Phew!!

There have to be four long ropes of at least 125’ on board just in case they are needed though these can be hired. We measured out the long ropes that Dick has stored and they are long enough even if they are cut in two. We all have to learn how to catch a monkey’s fist and tie it rapidly onto the 125’lines for the shoreside handlers. No dropping of ropes or shoddy knot tying is allowed.

The length of the boat is a problem as it is now over 50’ with the davits and dinghy meaning that we would have to pay considerably more for the transit so we are discussing ways to tip the dinghy on its side to make the boat shorter. There are enough fenders on board but most people also use old tyres which are covered with bin bags. These are readily available at the marina …in the rubbish bins.

We have three extra people on board for the whole transit which should end tomorrow afternoon. They act as line handlers. It will be a squash for sleeping but it’s only one night. I have already made the dinner with jelly for “afters”! The fridge is turned up to its coldest setting so that the beer will be cool enough. I think we will need it after a long evening of rope heaving.

We anchor in the Gatun Lakes for the night before starting off again for the second lot of locks at Miraflores at the Pacific end. There is also a webcam there and it should be easier to see on the computer as it should still be daylight for us.

The marina has been so pleasant after such a long time at anchor.…all the water we can use…and all the cleaning that has been going on means that we certainly are using lots and lots of the wonderful cooling stuff. There is also a very nice pool for our use though it can get rather full of Germans. Just where do they come from?

Several other Blue water boats have now arrived and so we are gradually meeting them and getting to know some quite well. They are mostly British (Irish, Scots and Welsh and all!) though we have re-met a very nice US couple whom we first met in Trinidad, Steve and Maria on Aspen. Steve is a geophysicist so it has been lovely to talk about rocks! They are rafting alongside us for the transit…we will be a group of three with the boat that has a bow thruster in the middle. The middle boat also steers us all.

So, there’s just time to refill the water tanks and recharge all the electrical appliances via the dockside supply before a light lunch and then it’ll be time to let go.

Exciting stuff!! See you on the other side……

In the water in Los Rosarios and hoping I don't get stung this time!









The village on Pinos, San Blas. There were only 2 concrete buildings here. Other islands now have lots more, plus television and an airstrip!






The village on Pinos. The houses last about 15 years.







A real dugout under construction!!!










This is just about the perfect sort of desert island. I wanted a picture of one with just one palm tree but there weren't any that we saw and of course, all these tiny little islands are just a stone's throw from the neighbouring islands!! So much for being castaway in the middle of nowhere.

Onwards and westwards

All the work needed on the boat was eventually done by about the 12th of January and it was therefore most definitely time to leave Cartagena as after over two weeks there at anchor, the boat was absolutely filthy…..part of the problem with being close to a big city. The Colombian courtesy flag is almost black in places. I had forgotten just how polluted the air can be.

Our destination was the Rosarios, a collection of little holiday islands about 20 miles away from Cartagena with no internet or telephone connection possible. Most boats heading west stop here for a few days and so many of the boats which have “buddy sailed” with us over the past few months turned up. It was a lovely anchorage with very clear water, so clear in fact that you could see the anchor on the bottom. This all looked very inviting and so I went in for a cooling off swim…a fairly rare occurrence for me as I only like incredibly clean looking and calm water and this has been quite hard to find out here. So, I got in and swam a few yards around the boat when I was suddenly and painfully stung by “something” in the water. This was enough to get me out again to investigate what it was. I suspected a jellyfish but couldn’t see anything in the water. Dick said it was probably one of the little animals which had been scraped off the hull earlier so I bravely went in again…this time I was stung several times by something that had wrapped itself around my arm. That was it! No going back into the water for me as the sudden pain was akin to walking through stinging nettles. My arm and legs came up in red weals which luckily didn’t last more than a few hours. Further investigation revealed that these” things” are long thin hair like strings covered in golden droplets of something irritating which drift past and just sting as they go. Ouch!
Apart from this, I liked the island where we had anchored and the people were very nice and friendly although a little pushy with their offerings sold from boats. I have learnt to say “No thanks” quite firmly in Spanish.

Our last night there, Simon who is Pete’s new crew on Troutbridge, organized a BBQ ashore on some land owned by one of the locals. We gathered the necessary things together and got the dinghies onto the beach, found wood and got the fire going. I think this must have attracted the locals, mostly children, because they suddenly started to turn up looking hungry! So what could we do but share? We ended up eating about half a sausage each and a small piece of steak washed down by a small glass of wine and half a beer. Dessert and all the other things like crisps etc were eagerly demolished by the children!! Never mind. Pam said this always happened to them in poorer places and she still hadn’t learned to take about ten times more than they would need to eat.

We left the next morning for the last brief stop in Colombian territory before an overnight sail to the first of our chosen stops in the San Blas islands, Pinos, Kuna Yala, which is part of Panama although self governing. Pinos looked lovely, just like a real tropical desert island should be. We went ashore the following morning after our arrival and tied the dinghy to the pier at the village. What an amazing place….straight out of all the classic books. A whole village built from bamboo and palm fronds. The locals (Kuna Indians) were all wandering around, the older married women in the traditional dress which is quite visually stunning. They bind their arms and legs permanently with elaborate beadwork. I’ve no idea what happens if they put on weight but I saw a lot of older women with very saggy beads!! The children, young men and women and the older men were all wearing western dress however ie jeans/shorts and tee shirts. We wanted to take photos of course but the information in the pilot guide says it’s not OK to do this so we hung back until we found someone who spoke enough English. It still wasn’t OK just to take photos and we could only do so if we paid the subject a dollar! Hmm. We have since found out that doing anything at all in the San Blas requires payment in dollars first. We were pressed into buying the local flag which sports a swastika (!)…it’s OK, they adopted the symbol before the Nazis…..

Our English speaking Kuna was the delightful, resourceful and wonderfully named Horatio, 72 years old, a very friendly little man (they are all short, mostly less than five feet and quite bandy legged) He very quickly invited us all into his house where he lived with his extended family. The house was just like the sort of “den” we would build as children making use of any old bit of stuff we could find to make it more homelike!(See Pete’s blog if you follow it for a picture of his house) We agreed to do him all sorts of favours….I gave him some ziplock plastic bags and things for the children, Jim did lots of photocopying and Dick tried to charge an ancient old portable DVD player donated we think by an earlier visiting yacht……a little futile as there is no electricity in the village so even if it had worked, there would have been just enough power to watch one DVD before it needed a recharge!

Horatio agreed to take us on a tour, for a price, a circumnavigation of the whole island which is about 6 miles around. This was an unusual experience……along most of the trail across swamp, beach, coral, coconut groves etc were scattered literally thousands of discarded shoes (singles, not pairs). We surmised that these shoes which were by no means all useless were left beside the track for others to use as their shoes broke in turn? At the end of the trail, we chanced upon the funeral of one of the village chiefs or “sailas” who had died that morning. This was a rare event in a village of just 400 people. The Kuna have special sacred places for their dead and we were not even supposed to look at this site but as it was on the track, we had no choice. Most of the older village women were there performing rituals, chanting etc. Fascinating to see but very difficult to describe in words……and no photos of course.

Later on, back in the village, we stopped for a beer with Horatio at the shop which is run jointly by all the “female”villagers. (We met one of the famous transvestites there. The islands are famous for them and there is no stigma attached to them). Horatio was bought a soda which he accepted and then promptly returned to the shop to get the money instead! It was just so funny. We westerners must have taught him that money is more important than anything else. Oh dear!!

We left Pinos and headed north and west along the coast motorsailing inside the extensive coral reef system that makes up the chain of the San Blas islands. Some of the navigation was quite tricky and I’ve learnt to spot coral before we get too close! We stopped a couple of times at convenient anchorages and finally arrived at the other end of the chain in Porvenir. There are dozens of little villages along the chain and it would have been lovely to stop more often but yachts are not supposed to do this as the they have not officially checked in with Panama customs yet. This is available….for a price(!) in Porvenir. The details of checking in are usually boring and expensive in most of the places we’ve visited but here has been another experience entirely. Still, we are now officially allowed to cruise here and also allowed to leave!!

Several of the Blue Water Rally boats are here now so we have met some of our fellow cruisers for the first time. We all had a jolly and really quite cheap meal ashore last night washed down by some pretty good red! Next stop in a couple of days will be Shelter Bay where we will be very busy provisioning etc so I’m getting this writing done first.

Now in Shelter Bay as you will have realised since I can publish this rather long missive. More to come before we leave for our canal transit scheduled for the 12th Feb but subject to change….. Just waiting for the last of the laundry to dry…shopping tomorrow!!

On Colombia

We have been in Cartagena for about ten days now and are getting to know some parts of this interesting city quite well. About one million (and growing….they are Catholic) people live here in a mixture of old and very new. The new part is the Manhattan style skyline which looks quite impressive at night. This is built on one of the many islands which make up the area. A lot of land reclamation I believe. The old part is the walled city, also built on an island nearly 450 years ago and feeling rather like St Malo with its gift shops and cafes and narrow streets. Fairly poor looking horses pull cartloads of visitors around. We didn’t do a ride. Some of the horses looked very malnourished but an overfed horse would probably suffer more in the heat. Most of the animals we see anyway are thin, dogs, cats, goats and all. Only people get fat here!

We did the tour last week where we got the history and the views and inevitable hard sell tour of the emerald factory but have been back into the centre of town since to spend more time within the walls and to find things to buy within budget… You could walk there as its only about two miles but there are so many taxis here and they are quite reasonable though the unmetered fares fluctuate wildly depending partly I think on whether it’s females only or mixed company! Since my encounter with a distinctly dodgy “hands on” driver last week (while Dick was out of the car for two minutes getting dinghy petrol), I now choose a new looking car and a young driver...

For one of the trips in, I was posting an urgent letter for Dick. We had tried to find the one and only post office in Cartagena twice before with no luck. Either noone knew where it was or it was closed….as in Spain, they have early and long lunch/siestas here. This time, I had written instructions and was there by 10am. The post office was actually an airline office, “Avianca” which semingly delivers mail too. Presumably the post office proper is hopeless like so many other Caribbean places….I was told many years ago never to post anything in Venezuela as it would simply be dumped with the rest until the pile was big enough to set fire to. This small letter cost nearly £8.00 to post and would take 20 days to arrive. The alternative was to pay about £50.00 and a three day delivery. Well, it wasn’t that urgent! So there will most definitely not be postcards from Colombia and I haven’t seen any on sale anyway.

There are other things to buy here…. The clothes like everywhere nowadays it seems are plentiful and fairly cheap……brightly coloured and varied styles of cotton tops mostly suited for the young, unbelievably bright and often quite gorgeous swimsuits…. I just couldn’t resist….. and my favourite, the lovely and quite flattering ruched top cotton dresses. I have bought one or two of these too. Trouble is, they are hopeless on the boat! What I need mostly is shorts but these are hard to come by in sizes to suit the slightly larger, older model…..only young and unbelievably slim girls are catered for out here, most certainly not the good old English pear. There are a lot of seriously chunky women out here too but they wear tight stretchy leggings and/or jeans to accentuate their behinds….far too unflattering and hot for us! Lots and lots of shoes around too, probably not strong enough to cope with boat life, though I did buy a pair in Curacao. They are purple because I believe I am now old enough to get away with it?

The local supermarket is very close and open all hours even Sundays. The shelves are well stocked….just don’t buy imported food…the prices are unbelievable, £18.00 for a jar of pickles. Local food is good, thankfully and I enjoy trying new things occasionally. The meat is superb and cheap. The beef is the best, all of it fit for frying. They cut it into huge thin steaks. I watched the butchers doing it the other day. Quite an art. They wear chain metal gauntlets…maybe one slice too many? It’s all perfect too as thick juicy steaks. Pam and I bought meat the other day, had it vacuum packed and frozen for the trip to the San Blas and Panama where the shopping opportunities are minimal. Dick may or may not catch a fish or two en route. I’m so glad the fridge is now working. I have even managed to get ice cream made from a packet to freeze.

The fruit is good, the limes are lovely, big and juicy and no pips, great for adding to other juice to give it some refreshing zing. It’s “quite interesting” to see how the tastes for different fruits vary across the Caribbean. There are no grapefruit as such (pomelos aren't really grapefruit are they?) that I’ve seen but they love blackberries which you can buy as a flavour in many forms, though not fresh Are they out of season?. I suppose they grow in the mountainous regions of the country. I haven’t seen them anywhere else. I think most of the fruit on sale must be grown in Colombia. Our guide, Hernando (see earlier post for photo!) told us that there were 280 varieties of fruit grown in the country. In the islands to the east, a lot of fruit is imported from Venezuela however.

Colombia and Venezuela are virtually at war at the moment though we have seen no sign of trouble here. The navy base is just a few hundred yards away from this anchorage. The trouble is all happening near the border apparently. Colombia is now the Good Guy in this part of the world and Venezuela the Bad. We have heard the first report of a pirate attack by Venezuelans on a yacht that was sailing from Trinidad to Grenada, just before Christmas, along the exact route that we had taken a month earlier. Seven or eight armed men completely ransacked the boat and tied the crew up, taking everything they could. This is very worrying as yachts will now be thinking twice before sailing to Trinidad for work on their boats, laying up etc.

Trinidad is very close to Venezuela at Chaguaramas where all the boatyards are. Many boats would cruise to the Venezuelan islands and the river Orinoco nearby but this had mostly stopped because of the threat of pirate attacks. We certainly didn’t consider venturing anywhere near and this is why we sailed north first to “safe” Grenada before heading west. The pirates have probably realized this and have obviously increased their range. The boat in the attack, a local type called a pirogue, had three 115 hp engines. That would be very fast and wide ranging too. The Trinidad coast guard is quite good as long as they don’t have to leave their area, in other words, out of sight of the coast! I have no idea what the Grenada coast guard is like in action….they have several boats just lying around in Prickly Bay but they would be no match anyway against that type of pirate and it’s an overnight sail of around 80 miles between the two anchorages, well outside anyone’s territorial water.

We are nearly away from any of this type of trouble now. The other entrance to Cartagena, Boca Chica, has seen some trouble with robberies on boats anchored there or with boats leaving at night, which we have no intention of doing of course. Some places in Panama are dodgy but the boats going through the canal are always well guarded. I hope the Pacific carries on deserving its name! On that note…..more soon while internet facilities are good. The plan is to leave next Tuesday for the Islas Rosario (Colombia) then the San Blas and on to Panama for the beginning of February.