Seabiscuit
Blog 26-Oct-2013
Location: Shelter Bay Marina, Panama (Caribbean side of
the Panama Canal)
Since our
summer visitors left, Dave and I have been taking it easy, enjoying our cruise
from Portobello back to Bocas del Toro and enjoying some of the activities in
town while we were there. We’re “on the
road” again, this time moving from Bocas del Toro to Shelter Bay Marina on the
Caribbean side of the Panama Canal.
We’re still trying to decide the best time to go through the canal,
either mid-November or early February, depending on non-boat travel and holiday
plans. But… That’s the nice thing about
living on the boat, we can play things by ear and make our decisions to go or
not to go when the time comes (weather dependent, of course).
After
posting the last blog from Portobello, we did some exploring and
re-provisioning in town.
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| Fort Entrance, Portobello |
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| Swallows sitting on our fishing pole, Portobello Harbor |
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| Fort Look-out Tower, Portobello |
We stopped a few places along the way back to Bocas. The first was the Rio Chagres. The weather was over-cast as we were entering the river so we had to pick our way in. There are some shoals near the entrance coming from the north and we bumped bottom a little before reversing and going in further on the west side. Once you get past the fort at the mouth of the river, it is deep and wide and there are no issues navigating up river. We woke up the next day to a group of capuchin monkeys feeding in the trees near our anchorage. They were very entertaining to watch as they swung from branch to branch and tree to tree.
We took the dinghy out and explored some of the estuaries, looking for
more wildlife and birds. We saw a
curious looking lizard that runs across the water on its hind feet while
standing upright. Back at the boat, a canal pilot and his wife were coming up
river after a day of exploring the fort ruins and they stopped by for a chat so
we picked their brains about going thru the canal and whether or not it was
safe to swim in the river (the guide books say watch out for caymans!) They said swimming shouldn’t be a problem so
after they pulled away, we both jumped in the river to cool off before dinner.
We stopped a few places along the way back to Bocas. The first was the Rio Chagres. The weather was over-cast as we were entering the river so we had to pick our way in. There are some shoals near the entrance coming from the north and we bumped bottom a little before reversing and going in further on the west side. Once you get past the fort at the mouth of the river, it is deep and wide and there are no issues navigating up river. We woke up the next day to a group of capuchin monkeys feeding in the trees near our anchorage. They were very entertaining to watch as they swung from branch to branch and tree to tree.
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| Capuchin Monkeys, Rio Chagres |
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| Exploring in the dinghy, Rio Chagres |
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| Seabiscuit at anchor, Rio Chagres |
From Rio Chagres, we did a long day trip to Escudo de Veraquas, arriving after dark. We did some fishing along the way and caught a nice tuna and had sashimi and grilled tuna for dinner.
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| Dave with tuna |
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| Sunset, Escudo de Veraquas |
On Friday night, there was a fair in town so we went with Hary and
Matilda from the marina. They are an
Austrian couple who have been rebuilding their boat, preparing to sail north to
Guanaja after hurricane season and after their boat repairs are complete. We wandered around the fair, drank some
German beer from a local brewery, had some supper and watched the locals enjoy
the traditional costumes and dances and the carnival rides.
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| Food booth at the Fair |
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| Girls in Traditional dresses |
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| Traditional Dress Display |
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| Kids enjoying a carnival ride |
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| Carnival ride |
Then it was back to everyday life, provisioning after the trip, filling water, doing laundry and washing down the boat and preparing for receiving the batteries and maintenance on the gen-get-home engine. We took some time to swim and cool off most afternoons. Somewhere along the way Dave caught a summer cold and was sick in bed for a few days. The new house and engine start batteries arrived on Tuesday morning. We had to move twelve 50 pound batteries out of the engine room, up on deck, to the dock and then to the end of the dock where our 12 new batteries were delivered in a water taxi. Then all 12 new batteries were carried back to the boat and lifted back into the engine room and hooked up. All has been working well since then.
Mary, the
marina owner, takes good care of the marina and had her workers replacing
rotted lumber in the dock structures.
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| Marina Dock being repaired |
Hary and
Matilda had been waiting for a new haul-out facility to open up so that they
could get some work done on their sail drive and other mechanical systems on
the boat. It finally opened and they
made their way out of the marina to the haul-out facility. Hary had arranged for a friend with a panga
to help tow them to the facility, but that didn’t work out so one of the local
water taxi drivers ended up hauling them over.
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| Hary and Matilda leaving the marina |
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| Hary and Matilda hooking up with a local water taxi for a tow to the haul-out facility |
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| Hary and Matilda being towed past Bocas del Toro |
Then, I made another trip to
Angola for a few weeks. While I was
gone, Dave did the 500-hours/12 month maintenance on the gen-get-home engine
and stocked up for our trip east.
We left the
marina on Sunday morning in a slight drizzle and headed towards Oktoberfest at
Rana Azul. They were set-up for a big
crowd, with roast pork as the lunch special, homemade pretzels, plenty of beer,
a DJ followed by live music, and the owner, Joseph, wearing his
lederhosen. We stayed most of the
afternoon, talking with friends and enjoying the atmosphere. I forgot my camera and didn’t get any
pictures, but you should be able to find some on Rana Azul Facebook page.
Interestingly, there was a British TV crew being hosted by a local British
expat taking footage for a documentary
of some kind that will likely air in January on BBC.
We left
Rana Azul Monday morning and went to anchor outside of Red Frog Marina so that we
could do some body-surfing at the beach.
It rained most of Monday afternoon so we decided to stay an extra
day. We did have some maintenance to do
as our bow thruster failed to work when we were leaving the marina and our
anchor light didn’t come on while at anchor near Rana Azul. So, we worked on the bow thruster Monday
afternoon... it turned out the solenoid was frozen. We figured that happened when we lost power pulling into our slip at Marina Carenero. We went to the beach on Tuesday morning. There was nobody else on the beach when we
arrived so we had the waves to ourselves.
We swam and body-surfed for a couple of hours, then had lunch at the
Palmar Tent Lodge. When we got back to
the boat we repaired the anchor light.
Wednesday
morning we left Red Frog in the rain and cruised to Escudo de Veraguas, fishing
along the way, but no luck catching anything.
We arrived at Escudo mid-afternoon and did a little maintenance. The pump for the stabilizers had stopped
working along the way, so Dave disassembled the pump and replaced the
impeller. Then we jumped off the swim
platform for a quick swim/cool-off and an inspection of the bottom of the boat.
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| Dave studying to repair the bow thruster |
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| Dave body surfing, Red Frog Beach |
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| Sunset, Escudo de Veraquas |
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| Western Break-water, Caribbean side Panama Canal |
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| Cargo cranes, Caribbean side Panama Canal, Note the cayuco with a sail in the foreground |
