We've arrived in Panama

Seabiscuit Blog June 16

Location: Bocas del Toro, Panama

We’ve arrived!  Actually, we’ve been here over a week already.  We arrived at our destination (for the next 6 months or so), Bocas del Toro (Bocas), Panama on Friday, June 7.  To get here we did an overnight voyage from the Albuquerque Cays.  The Albuquerque Cays are about 170 miles N of Bocas.  We arrived at the Bocas Del Toro Channel at about 7:00 AM.  At 7:30 AM the wakeup call on the Bocas net came across the VHF radio telling us that the net started at 7:45 AM.  Every day on the radio they have the Bocas net.  It’s an opportunity for everybody in the local boating & land based expat community to hear the local events, talk about boat issues, hear about new boats coming or boats leaving, share treasures of the bilge (items for sale or trade) and get the daily weather and trivia.  As we were coming down the channel we reported in as a new boat and then waited in the bay outside the marina.  The trivia discussion that day was about absolute zero and there was some controversy about the right answer so the net when extra long.  The net uses the same VHF channel as the marina so we couldn’t call in for our slip until the net was over.  Once the net ended, we radioed the marina and backed into our designated slip.   The marine owner, one of her workers and folks from other boats were on the dock to greet us and to help with our lines.  In the slip just to the west (starboard) of us is another trawler, Grey Goose.  On our east (port) side we have an empty slip and then a sailboat from Houston, Chasing Sunsets.

Once we got tied up we introduced ourselves to the other boaters in the marina.  Next we had to do the paperwork cha cha.  Four officials boarded the boat including the port authority, immigration, quarantine, and customs.  We offered them cold drinks and they settled in to complete their paperwork.  After the paperwork was complete, they inspected the boat and we paid our fees; then we were allowed to get off the boat and to take down our yellow “quarantine” flag.  We were instructed that we would need to go into town before 2:00 p.m. to get our cruising permit for Panama.  We went to the marina office and checked in with Mary, the marina owner, and got a tour of the facilities.  Then we had a little lunch and asked Mary to call a water taxi for us so that we could go to town. 


Saturday night potluck.
Doug and Michelle (Grey Goose)
and Mary (the marina owner)
with Mary's ceviche and avocados.

Saturday night pot luck.  Rick and
Judy (Chasing Sunsets) with Judy's Texas Chili.

The marina we are at, Marina Carenero, is across the bay from the town of Bocas del Toro.  To get back and forth from town to the marina, you either take a water taxi or take your dinghy.  We have been using the water taxi service and it works well.  You call the dock where the water taxis hang-out and let them know where you want to be picked up.  For $1, they give you a ride to town.  When we got back from getting our cruising permit ($193 for one year), the other boaters invited us to join them for chicken fried chicken dinner at the Rip Tide.  The Rip Tide is an old boat that has been converted to a bar/restaurant.  It was a great opportunity to meet the other people staying at the marina and to get a feel for Bocas town and what it has to offer.  Almost everything in town is within walking distance and if not, taxis are readily available.  After dinner, we stopped at the local ice cream shop and then headed back to the marina via the water taxi.

Saturday night pot luck. Sharon
(Sunsation) and Rick, the back of
Michelle's head and Michelle's lemon cake.

Saturday we finished our paperwork at the marina, did some laundry and settled in.  Saturday nights at the marina are pot luck night, so it was another opportunity to swap sea stories with some of the other boaters. 

Saturday night pot luck.  Mary, Linda
and Helmut (NatiJaq) and Dave with Linda's
meatloaf and squash, Sharon's chicken and our jambalaya.

 Sunday we walked over to the Cosmic Crab (the restaurant and cabins next to our marina) for Sunday brunch, only to learn that this time of year is the slow season and they only do the Sunday brunch the first Sunday of every month.  So we ate at the breakfast buffet that they set-up for guests staying in their cabins and then took a walk around Carenero Island.  There are a lot of hostels and small cabins on the island.  The marina and the Cosmic Crab are on the west side, a surfing school and another restaurant are on the east side and the middle of the island is mostly jungle.  Sunday night we went back over to the Rip Tide for ribs.

B on the west side of Isle Carenero.

 During the week, we spent most of our time going to town provisioning and getting maintenance parts, doing boat chores and generally settling in to our new home.  Happy hour on the dock is every night at 5:00 p.m.  The weather has been nice, with one day of hot sun followed by a day of rain to cool things off again (it is rainy season here now). 



Helmut's 75th birthday party.

Friday during the day, we went into town to the beer distributor to stock up on happy hour drinks, sodas and water.  Friday night was Helmut’s 75^th birthday, so Linda planned a pot luck birthday celebration for him.  Mary graciously opened up her house and the party was on her upper deck.  Helmut and Linda live in David, Panama’s second largest city and keep their boat here at the marina.  They come down for about 10 days every month to work on the boat and enjoy the marina atmosphere. 

Last night (Saturday) we went into town with a small group to Gringo’s for Mexican food and margaritas.  Of course, we stopped at the ice cream shop after dinner and then walked down and listened to the fireman’s band play.  It is mostly young men playing drums and twirling their drum sticks plus three or four trumpets playing a few notes every now and then.

Boat Chores

B studying "the list"

So, let’s talk a little about boat chores and what that really means.  As you can imagine, living on a boat, there are always maintenance items, general housekeeping items and fixing of things.  While underway, it isn’t always easy or necessary to do these things immediately, so they get put on “the list” of things to do when we arrive at our destination.  Of course the list grows and grows.  It is nice to finally arrive somewhere and to check things off the list.  On an earlier blog, I mentioned that the dinghy wasn’t working well.  We knew we would need it at some of the anchorages, so it was at the top of the list to fix while we were underway.  We ended up disassembling and cleaning the carburetor four times before finally getting the outboard motor to start-up and run without any problems. 

Dave with the chain locker hatch cover
rigged up to the come-along.

Another major issue was our anchor windlass.  It started giving us problems last summer and we operated all summer only using the port anchor.  While we were in Alabama at Barber Marina, Dave disassembled the windlass to look for issues and change the gearbox oil.  All pieces and parts seemed ok, with no signs of metal shavings.  We tried to open the chain locker to see if the problem was with the chain, put the hatch cover wouldn’t budge.  Dave had two nuts welded onto the cover so that we could connect the come-along and try to get it to break free that way, but still no luck.  Whoever had the cover off last time used the red form-a-gasket material when they put the cover back on and it was stuck tight.  When we arrived in Mexico, we still couldn’t deploy the starboard chain, so we knew the problem wasn’t fixed and “fix the windlass” went back on the list.  The problem got even worse by the time we got to Providencia and we couldn’t get the windlass to pay out either the port or the starboard chain and had to free fall the chain in order to anchor there and in the Albuquerque Cays (more on our route and stop-overs below and in the next blog).

The chain locker (in the forward cabin)
with port and starboard chains.

Last week, Dave disassembled part of the windlass and decided the problem wasn’t with it, but was probably with the chain balled in a knot in the chain locker.  So, out came the come-along and by pulling on just one corner of hatch cover we finally got the hatch cover off.  The problem did turn out to be with the chain and not with the windlass.  The upper part of the starboard chain had spilled over into the port chain locker and the port chain was piled on top of the starboard chain, preventing it from moving.  In order to get each chain on its own side of the chain locker, we payed out the chain from both lockers.  Another item on the list was to unclog the bilge suction from the chain locker to the bilge manifold in the engine room.  We had tried to pump out the chain lockers while in Alabama but no joy, the line was plugged.  While the chain was out of the lockers, we unclogged the line, flushing the mud out with fresh water and then testing the flow using the bilge pumps.  When that was finished, we heaved the chain back into the lockers, bringing in 50 feet of port chain and then 50 feet of starboard chain, with Dave checking to make sure they each stayed on their own side of the locker.  With the chain in the locker, all that was left was to scrape away the old form-a-gasket, cut a new gasket and install it and the chain locker cover.

Watermaker membranes resting on the
watermake bracket in the engine room,
waiting to be installed.

Other items that are now checked off the list include replacing the grey water tank level gauge, repairing the cabinet door for the pan cupboard, replacing fuses in the navigation system and install cleats for the blinds.  Along with that are the every day things like cleaning, washing the decks, vacuuming, etc.  The next major project is to install our watermaker.  This was initially on our list to install while we were in the shipyard in Alabama but we decided to wait and do it at another time when the boat wish list funds got replenished.  Well, it turned out that one of the boats here had a spare 24V watermaker, so we purchased it from them and they are going to help us install it sometime next week.

 Our route and stop-overs

Our route and stop-overs from the time we left the USA until arriving in Panama are detailed in the table below.  To summarize, we ran the main engine 232.9 hours, traveled 1600 nm, used the generator 33.2 hours and had an average cruising speed = 6.87 kts. 

Date	Location	Main Engine Hours	Trip Log (nm)	Avg. Speed (kts)
Apr. 25 – 28	Elberta, AL to Pensacola, FL to Isla Mujeres, Mexico (3 days)	78.9	580	7.4
Apr. 28 – May 5	Isla Mujeres, Mexico
May 6	Isla Mujeres to Puerto Aventuras, Mexico	9.1	58	6.4
May 6 – May 8	Puerto Aventuras, Mexico
May 9	Puerto Aventuras to Bahia Ascension, Mexico	8.1	52	6.4
May 9 – May 11	Bahia Ascension, Mexico
May 12	Bahia Ascension to Bahia Espiritu Santo, Mexico	5.2	34	6.5
May 13	Bahia Espiritu Santo to Xcalak, Mexico	10.5	78	7.4
May 14 – 15	Xcalak, Mexico to Roatan, Honduras(overnight)	26.1	152	5.8
May 15 – 25	Roatan, Honduras
May 26	Roatan to Guanaja, Honduras	6.1	39	6.4
May 27 – 28	Guanaja to Vivorillo Cays, Honduras (overnight)	23.6	151	6.4
May 28 – 29	Vivorillo Cays, Honduras
May 30 – 31	Vivorillo Cays, Honduras to Providencia, Colombia (overnight)	30	196	6.5
May 31 – June 4	Providencia, Colombia
June 5	Providencia to Albuquerque Cays, Colombia	11.4	84	7.4
June 6 – 7	Albuquerque Cays, Colombia to Bocas del Toro, Panama	23.9	176	7.4

 That’s probably enough babbling for one day, so will follow-up this blog with a short one to tell about the rest of our time in Roatan and our trip from Roatan to Panama.