We set out from Santa Marta, Colombia early on September 10th
to make the 286 mile trip to the San Blas islands of Panama. After watching the weather for several weeks
prior, we came to the realization that there would be little sailing on this
passage. During this time of year, the
trade winds just don’t make it this far west.
The best we could hope for was flat seas, a favorable current and a
quick two day trip.
We were able to maintain 6 knots for the first few hours, but then our
speed started going down. By noon, it
was down to a measly 3-4 knots with a light 5 knot breeze right on the
nose. During the first night, there was
a lightning storm off on the horizon. It
turns out this would be the case every night for the next three months. Conditions would be generally clear and sunny
during the day, and then as the sun was setting, thunderheads loomed
overhead. We were fortunate to miss
most of them and their many lightning bolts, but it made every night watch more
intense.
In preparation for this, we had our jumper cables attached to the
shrouds and stays that we could drop in the water to help with the grounding,
and we stowed our computer, spare GPS and handheld VHF in the oven. In theory, the oven would act as a Faraday cage
and protect those electronics if we were struck by lightning.
Early the next morning, before the sun rose, we started to see a
string of lights on the horizon in front of us.
This is a busy shipping route, with freighters coming across from the
Panama Canal regularly, but these did not appear to be moving. When the sun was up, we could see seven large
warships lined up in front of us. We
passed each one, and they disappeared behind us, only to appear in front of us
again a few hours later. Several
helicopters circled the boat, and a plane made a few passes as well. We could hear them on the radio, and they
were US warships. One of them followed
us for an hour or so, but never attempted to make contact on the radio.
During our first 24 hours, we made only 89 miles. By the second night, our speed was down even
further to 2-3 knots thanks to a ten knot head wind and a little bit of swell
that we were motoring into. We started
to wonder if our problems were due to countercurrent, or if the hull and prop
were just really dirty from sitting in the marina for a month. Andrew debated going overboard and giving the
prop a quick scrub, but first we decided to stop the engine and see how strong
the current was. We coasted to a stop
and then started drifting NE at 2 knots.
The problem was definitely the current and a quick calculation showed
that we would be well short of the San Blas islands before running out of
fuel. The forecast showed more of the
same, and we wouldn’t be able to make any headway under sail with a light
headwind and two knots of current against us.
So we decided to alter course and make a detour to Cartagena, 53 miles
away in the wrong direction.
The next morning we were just outside Cartagena at sunrise. Rather than go all the way around Isla de
Tierra Bomba, we decided to take a 12 mile shortcut to the inner harbor by
going between the island and Bocagrande.
This route involves going over a one-mile long undersea wall that was
built between the two land masses in the 18th century to protect the
city from siege. Ships still can’t go
over the wall, but shallow draft vessels can pass over it in a certain
area. It made us a little nervous, but
as we went over it, the depth sounder never showed less than 10 feet. A few days later we met some sailors that
attempted to go over it in a boat with only six inches deeper draft, and they
hit the wall twice before turning around and going around Isla de Tierra Bomba.
Since we had been to Cartagena a few weeks before, we were relatively
familiar with the harbor and had a general idea where to take on fuel. We hoped that since we had already cleared
out of the country, they wouldn’t ask to see our papers at the fuel dock. It would have been really annoying (and
expensive) if we were stuck in Cartagena for a week just clearing in and out so
we could take on fuel. Fortunately,
nobody asked, and we filled up and headed out.
Less than an hour later, we were clear of the undersea wall and again on
our way to the San Blas islands.
Just outside Cartagena, more warships dotted the horizon. We passed through a group of four much
smaller ships, and later that afternoon they hailed us on the VHF. This time it was the Colombian Coast Guard
who was apparently doing exercises with the US Military. They told us to clear the area as another
fleet of warships would be passing through in a few hours. We told them that the 3.5 knots we were going
was our maximum speed, but we would keep a look out.
The next day, Andrew spotted a suspicious looking boat on the horizon,
towing a dinghy behind. We became
especially concerned when it passed by a couple hundred feet away and then turned
around to follow us. We had read about
some very crudely built wooden boats that are used by the Colombians to trade
with the Kuna Indians in San Blas, and thought maybe it was one of those. We increased the RPM’s a little and kept on
eye on them. The boat seemed very heavy
and we thought maybe we could outrun it, but they were towing a big dinghy with
an outboard. This seemed especially
strange since we were over a hundred miles from land. It was a stressful few hours, but eventually
they disappeared on the horizon behind us.
It took twice as long as planned, but after four days, the San Blas
islands were in our sights. This
archipelago stretches 110 miles along the coast of Panama. There are 378 islands in the group, of which
only 49 are inhabited. They are beautiful
low lying islands with white sand beaches, and we were happy to be there. Our first stop was in the Holandes Cays,
where we dropped the anchor in ten feet of crystal clear water surrounded by
little islands on all sides.
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| mola |
In addition to the men selling their catch of the day, women would
paddle out to sell molas. The word mola
means clothing in the Kuna language, and the blouses the women wear are made by
cutting and sewing different layers of cloth together. Each color in the design is made from another
piece of cloth and some of the ones we saw would have seven or eight layers
sewn together. They now sell these mola
panels to tourist, and they would come and lay them out all over the decks so
we could see them.
 |
| a Kuna using a machete to crack open the conch, which we cooked for dinner |
A few days later, we were happy to see our friends aboard Vanish as we
pulled into the Coco Bandero Cays anchorage.
We met Maynard, Vicki, and Mike in Colombia, and had hoped we would see
them again in the islands. Vanish is a
76 foot motor yacht, and they were kind enough to host us for dinner and drinks
in the refreshing air conditioned cabin.
They also replenished our depleted water supply with 30 gallons of water
from their water maker, which meant we could stay and play in the islands
longer than we had planned.
During our time in the San Blas, we anchored in five or six different
spots. It is definitely the quiet time
of year here, and we often had anchorages to ourselves. It was nice to have some swinging room during
the squalls when the winds picked up. The
lightning was a daily feature, but thankfully only a few squalls brought scary
lightning bolts and deafening cracks of thunder where we cowered down below
hoping we would not be hit. One boat was
hit in an anchorage near us, but they didn’t have any damage.
There were so many reefs and places to snorkel here that we never hit
the same spot twice. There was some
impressive coral, but like most of the Caribbean that we saw, not many
fish. We did see lots of rays though,
especially our favorite, the spotted eagle rays which were all over the
place.
After ten days in San Blas, we went to the island of Porvenir to
officially clear into the country. We
heard that clearing immigration and getting a cruising permit was much easier
and cheaper than on the mainland. After
we cleared in, we headed to our last island of Chichime, which was the only
crowded anchorage we saw while there. We
wanted to check out the island, but rowing in the choppy conditions didn’t
sound appealing, so we just snorkeled around the reefs instead. We waited for a couple days for it to clear
up, but the winds just kept building. Reefs
or islands surrounded us on all sides, and we weren’t sleeping well at night in
the tight anchorage. Instead of spending
another night, we decided to pull up anchor late that afternoon and sail
through the night to Colon. We only
spent two weeks in the islands, but it seemed like enough. It was a beautiful place, but there are only
so many nights we need to spend worrying about lightning strikes.
We made the 71 mile sail to Colon through the night and actually had
nice sailing for part of the trip. Our
eyes were glued to the horizon, as there were countless ships passing by. By sunrise, we could see around 50 freighters
anchored outside Colon Harbor, Latin America’s busiest port, waiting for their
turn to go through the canal. We passed through
the entrance to the Cristobal breakwater and into the Shelter Bay Marina, where
we would spend a week before going through ourselves.
Our biggest priority in Shelter Bay was preparing Saviah for her
transit of the Panama Canal. We had a
few projects we wanted to do, but first we needed to start the process for the
transit. It is possible to handle all of
the paperwork yourself or you can hire an agent to do it. Doing it yourself can be frustrating and time
consuming, as you have to run around to various offices in town, waiting in
long lines and dealing with taxis and busses.
We decided to use an agent and had a recommendation from some other
cruisers for a good one.
On Monday morning a guy came out from the admeasurer’s office to fill
out the paperwork and measure Saviah.
Our agent was also there, and the two of them gave us a rundown of what
the transit would be like and answered our questions. We also set a date for the transit which we
decided would be one week out, which would give us plenty of time to get ready.
The week was spent working on boat maintenance and replacing our navigation
lights, and some engine maintenance.
Andrew went aloft to inspect the rig, clean the mainsail track and
replace a spreader light. We also
cleaned out our water tank, topped off our propane tanks and made some trips
into town to provision for the next few weeks.
The marina is a bit removed from everything on the other side of the
canal, but they provide free daily shuttles into Colon, and drop you off in a
shopping center and pick you up a few hours later. This made it easy to get groceries and supplies
for a few projects.
The marina also had a nice air conditioned lounge where we could
escape the heat and spend some time on the computer doing research for our trip
up the coast. There was nice group of
cruisers there, fitting out their boats in preparation for various destinations,
and we enjoyed hanging out with them and swapping stories in the evenings. Our week there flew by, and on Monday
afternoon, it was time to head out.
Our agent came out to the marina and brought us eight big fenders and four
125-foot long lines that are required for the passage. We also met our line handlers, Jose, Miguel
and Reggie. During the transit you are
required to have four people to handle lines and one to drive, so we needed an
additional three people to go with us.
Reggie was a local cab driver who had done the transit many times before,
and the other two were young guys with not much experience. Our agent did the clearance paperwork for us
and with our Zarpe in hand, our little over crowded boat headed out of the
marina.
From the marina, we motored over to the Flats anchorage and dropped
the hook around 3 pm. Our tentative time
to start through the locks was 4 pm, but first a launch would arrive to drop
off yet another person, as if we had any more room on Saviah. That additional person is the pilot, who
provides instruction to us and communicates with the lock personnel throughout
the transit. There was another sailboat
in the anchorage waiting with us, which we were happy to see. It was the Swiss boat, Olimir, and having
them there would make our transit a bit easier.
Since there were two of us, we would be rafting together while going
through the locks. This meant we would
go through in the center of the chamber, which is preferable to the other
options, tying off to the wall or to a tug.
It also meant handling only two lines per boat instead of four and that
we could use our engines together, providing more maneuverability in the
chambers.
Around 5 pm, Reggie noticed the launch heading in our direction and
told us to start pulling up the anchor. This turned out to be rather difficult. We were anchored in water 40 feet deep, which
is much deeper than we prefer since we don’t have a windlass. Andrew went up to the bow to pull in the 150 feet
of chain. The first 50 feet was easy,
but after that it was covered in thick slimy mud which made it really slippery
and messy. It took about ten minutes to
get it up and by the end of it, the bow of the boat and Andrew were covered in
mud.
Our pilot boarded Saviah during this process and after the anchor was
up, we motored towards the Gatun Locks.
The Gatun locks are the first set on the Caribbean side and raise
vessels a total of 84 feet between three chambers. On approach to the first chamber, we came
alongside Olimir and tied together bow and stern lines and a couple spring
lines as well. A big ship led the way
and pulled to the front of the chamber, with our nested boats following slowly
behind.
These big ships are tied with a cable to locomotives on either side of
the chamber, and they pull them through.
For small boats like us that are going through center chamber, we run long
lines from the bow and stern to cleats at the top of the chambers on each
side. In order to get the lines there,
the lock employees throw messenger lines down to us from up on the chamber wall
as we are approaching. These lines have
monkey fist knots on the end, which just add weight for heaving purposes. After they have tossed them onboard, we tie
them to our much stronger lines, which they bring back up and wrap around a
cleat. You have to pay attention when
these lines are being heaved, as you don’t want to be hit with a monkey’s
fist. We also covered our solar panels,
so they wouldn’t get broken if they were hit.
By the time we reached the locks, the sun was setting, and we were glad
to have our new working running lights. With
our lines secure, they closed the massive lock doors, and water flooded into
the chamber. There is a bit of
turbulence from the nearly 27 million gallons of water that come into the
chamber, but our line handlers did a good job of keeping the boats steady. Most mishaps occur from this turbulence,
especially on the way up, but since we had four line handlers on board for two
lines it was easy to keep the boat in-place and bring in the lines as the water
level went up.
After the water level rose, the forward gates opened, we brought in
the lines and motored forward to the next chamber. We passed by a building on the center wall
with a big sign commemorating the centennial anniversary of the locks next
year. The US Government starting
building the locks in 1903 and the first boat transited in 1914. It took over ten years to build it, at a cost
of almost $400 million and the labor of 75,000 men. Over 27,000 lives were lost in the process of
building it due to accidents and disease, although 80 percent of these were
during the first attempt by the French some years earlier. Since its opening, 900,000 ships have passed
through. The canal was owned and operated
by the US Government until it was transferred to the Republic of Panama on
December 31, 1999.
All went well with the first three locks, and by 8 pm, we were in
Gatun Lake. Since our top speed is only
6 knots, we would have to do the transit over two days. Once we were in the lake, the pilot directed
us to the mooring where we would tie up for the night, and then the launch pulled
up alongside to pick him up. We tied
both boats up to this large mooring ball with a web of lines, which would have
been a disaster if we had a big squall in the night. The three line handlers remained on board for
the night, and we cooked dinner for everyone and went to sleep around 10
pm. Five people are way too many for little
Saviah in the tropics, and it was cramped and hot.
The next morning, a new pilot arrived at 7 am, and we were underway
again. It was 28 miles to the next set
of locks, and the pilot informed us that we needed to be there by 11 am,
meaning an average speed of 7 knots was necessary. We told him we wouldn’t be able to make it,
but thanks to some favorable current, we were able to maintain enough
speed.
The first part of the trip that morning was the 20 mile crossing of Gatun
Lake. This is a man-made lake that
extends most of the way across the isthmus and was formed by erecting a dam
across the Chagres River. The watershed around the lake is a diverse ecosystem
with lots of animals, including crocodiles, sloths, monkeys and jaguars. There are also many species of birds as well,
and we saw a dozen toucans flying around one of the islands.
The pilots that provide instruction throughout the transit are
employees of the canal that do this as a side job on their days off to make a
little extra money. The first day our
pilot was a tug operator and on the second day, we had one of the security
guards. We really liked both of our
pilots, who doubled as tour guides and gave us all sorts of information about
the locks. They told us a bit about the
history and the major expansion that is currently underway.
Right now, there are two sets of locks on either side, and they are
building a third, which is supposed to open in a couple years and is estimated
to cost over $5 billion to build. As
ships are getting bigger, they are trying to keep up, and the new one will have
lock chambers that are 1,400 feet long, 180 feet wide and 60 feet deep. These big ships pay according to their
tonnage, and the cost of the transit for many of them is several hundred
thousand bucks. We thought the $800
required for Saviah was steep.
It took a few hours to get through the lake, passing by all sorts of
ships coming the other direction, including huge car carriers, cruise ships and
tugs that threw up a 5 foot wake. After
the lake is the Gaillard Cut, which is where most of the excavation took place
during the building of the canal. This
narrow section stretches for seven miles before reaching the Pedro Miguel
locks, where we arrived right on time at 11 am.
We went alongside Olimir again and tied up to get ready for the next
lock transit.
Everything went smoothly for our first down lock, and we came out on
the other side to Miraflores Lake. We
stayed tied up as we motored through this small man-made lake and then headed
into the Pedro Miguel Locks. Again, we
had it easy while the line handlers tended the lines and the water level began
to lower.
The last lock is the highest, due to the more extreme tidal variation
in the Pacific Ocean, and we were a little nervous as this is where most
incidents happen from turbulence. We
almost had an incident when the door was opened, the water was swirling around
and the lock employees untied only three out of four of our lines. After the lines are off, you want to get them
onboard quick and get the boats moving to get steerage. We were just sitting there starting to drift
sideways as they realized the mistake and slowly walked over to let the last
one go. Fortunately we were able to
straighten the boats out using the engines together. It would have been a bummer to end the
transit with the bowsprit getting slammed into the wall.
After we motored through the last gate, we untied from Olimir and
breathed a huge sigh of relief. We were
excited to have completed the transit without issue and be back in the Pacific
again, 15 months after leaving it. We
motored out into the canal and after the launch boat picked up the pilot, we pulled
off to the side near the Balboa Yacht Club, where another launch picked up our
three line handlers and all the lines and fenders that we borrowed from our
agent.
