13 Feb-20 Mar: Visit Panama City, motorcycle trip in Costa Rica, and through Panama Canal at long last.
Oooh, I got a bit lazy on boat blogs, didn’t I? Sorry about that, we’ve been busy bunnies. Will try to catch up now, especially that we have just started what should be the highlight of our circumnavigation: departing Panama on 20-March to cross the Pacific to New Zealand.
But first Panama, which most yachtie folks only come to with the sole purpose of transiting the famous Panama Canal. Either Pacific based yachts heading for Caribbean, or boats passing from the Caribbean Sea to cruise the Pacific, either up to Alaska or more usually, like us, the “coconut run” through the thousands of South Pacific islands. Some would say a cruise through paradise, others might exclaim: “why would you do that”. Each to their own.
Having arrived at Shelter Bay Marina, Colon (the previous blog) our immediate task was to have the boat “measured”. This is where a canal official visits us, measures the boat length, inspects things like fog horns and flairs, and fills out the numerous forms required for our transit. He also explains the process right down to detail of what we should feed the “adviser” (pilot) who will transit with us. And he outlines the requirement to have (or rent) 4 line handlers, 8 big fenders and 4 x 120ft mooring lines for the transit. All of which we have already arranged with our agent.
Some yacht crews arrange all these formalities themselves, as we would normally do, but in this case we have hired an agent to do the complete A-Z, including Panama check-in, cruising permit, canal transit and Panama check-out. $350 for the agent fee and around $3000 for all the canal transit fees. Yes, a lot! But consider this: the large ships pay over $1 million! And the alternative is a boat-bruising slog around Cape Horn, against raging winds.
We managed to get our inspection done 3 days after arrival in Shelter Bay marina, but as this is the busy season for yachts transiting, it will be an estimated 10 days before we can actually transit. So rather than wait for our assigned day, we instead chose a date 2 weeks ahead, giving us time to travel to Costa Rica and, like Colombia, do a 2 week motorbike tour while we wait to transit.
So after 6 days in Shelter Bay marina, on Sunday 19-Feb we took a taxi the 40miles across the country to the Pacific side and treated ourselves to a nice hotel in the old colonial part of Panama City called Central Hotel, Casco Viejo where we spent 2 days visiting Panama City. Since the USA handed over the canal to Panama in 2000, this capital city has flourished, with many high-rise buildings. But similar to Cartagena, its modern skyline masks real grubbiness once you get to the actual streets.
The old colonial town, Casco Viejo (translated: Old Helmet) was interesting, but nothing compared to the UNESCO citadel in Cartagena. There didn’t seem to be many of the original Spanish buildings left. But it was interesting to see many art-deco style buildings constructed in the boom days, when the canal was first opened (1909). One hotel had an amazing original wall-tile mosaic from 1910 that showed a cross section of the entire canal, perfectly depicting the engineering behind its construction.
The history of the canal is very interesting. Having just successfully completed the Suez Canal by simply “digging a ditch through sand”, in the late 1800s the French tried to do the same to construct the Panama Canal. But 3 things they hadn’t factored in left them walking away from it after just a few years into their construction project. 1) Malaria and yellow fever ruthlessly took 20,000 workers’ lives. 2) unlike the Egypt sands, Panama was hard volcanic rock and a mountainous jungle terrain. 3) The river Chagres, that they hoped to dig their ditch along, became a dangerous torrent in the 8 months of rainy season, often wrecking their construction progress.
So enter the Americans. They solved the Malaria problem, identifying mosquitoes were to blame. And rather than cutting a deep ditch in the bottom of the wild river, they instead dammed the river Chagres, and flooded Panama’s interior with what is now Lake Gutan. Then they construct 3 locks-up, 3 locks-down to allow ships to transit the thin Panama isthmus via the lake. And it all works on the basis there is enough rainfall to keep the lake full, despite the huge volumes of water each lock opening uses.
For the privilege of building it, USA helped Panama get independence from Colombia and they also ran the canal under a 100 year contract which ended 14 years early at Jimmy Carter’s decision. Since then, Panama hugely increased the cost per canal transit and its GDP soared. Amazing what you can learn from a mosaic! (and the canal visitor center).
I wouldn’t say we enjoyed our visit to Panama City. 2 days was certainly long enough, and it did get the city ticked for us.
Tuesday 21-Feb we took the 1h20min flight to San Jose in Costa Rica. This time, rather than biking with a group, we rented the GS1250 bike and they arranged a route and all the hotels for us. All in all, it was an amazing bike trip and we stayed in brilliant hotels. In January we had declared Colombia as our new favorite country, but we now think Costa Rica even trumps Colombia. So clean and civilized (for this part of the world) but also very expensive. We wrote a daily blog for the entire trip, which is posted on my FB page. For us, there were just too many highlights to mention here. But what we will forever remember is the rain forest, the biodiversity (especially the birds) and the simply amazing hotels we stayed in. We also decided we much prefer riding on our own agenda and speed. Much more to our liking than a large motorbike group. The only negative was the cost. It feels like the country has been “spoiled” by the high number of visitors from the USA. We judged it to be at least 4x more expensive than Colombia.
Arriving back to the boat on Saturday 4-Mar we had to wait just 3 days till our canal transit on Tuesday 7-March. On Monday night our 4 Panamanian line handlers arrived and slept on Cloudy Bay ready for 5am departure the next day. The “adviser” was dropped off from a pilot boat at 9am and we had completed the 3 up-locks by late morning. Having once transited the entire length of France by canal (English Channel to the Med) we both found the Panama Canal rather uninspiring. Unlike the massive Rhône locks, these were only a 9m rise. And unlike the steep sided Corinth canal (Greece) it didn’t actually feel like we were in a canal. But it was interesting to be “nested” with (tied to) another catamaran and in a lock with a monster ship, the dimensions of which must surely have been designed with the Panama Canal locks in mind. There cannot have been more than a 1m gap between its hull and the canal walls on each side!
The transit across the lake was interesting, especially the oncoming giant ships suddenly appeared from what looked like mountain passes in front of us. The whole transit was complete by sunset, and suddenly, there we were, anchored in the Pacific Ocean! There’s no going back now!
Having already seen the Panama City, our intention was quick food provisioning then set off for the 3-4week passage to French Polynesia. What we hadn’t banked on was wind forecast. For a full week there seemed to be zero wind for the leg out to Galapagos. And given the full length of the passage (4000nm) no yacht has enough diesel to motor all the way. Cloudy Bay is better than most, with the ability to motor for a week. But it would take a week just to motor to Galapagos. And refueling there was fraught with bureaucracy. So, like all yachts, we waited … and waited … and shopped and shopped!
Finally, we found a weather window for Monday 20th. Nearly 2 weeks sitting in an uncomfortable anchorage, longing to depart was hard to take, knowing it was time removed from our Pacific season. But in that time, having already cancelled 2 flights back home, my darling Oana decided to come with me. She says she will probably kill me on route, and told her I can always sail near to Galapagos and she can swim to the airport there! But, if she can only manage not to be sea sick, I think she will enjoy it. As for me, while trying my hardest not to influence her one way or the other, I’m over the moon she will be with me. Without my bunny, no adventure is quite so pleasurable.