Mr. Robinson's Island
The day broke sunny and bright with clear skies a gentle west wind which broke the back of the easterly swell and tamed the breakers on the reef. Sailorr and Margorie Grace had been planning on joining our Thanksgiving dinner with the Kunas; but, with the coming of the good sailing weather, decided the time had come to head north for their next destination, the Bay Islands of Honduras. It's a five to six day trip for them and right now all the forcasts look good. We buzzed around returning borrowed gear, trading books and charts, and saying goodbyes. We'll miss Bill and Deb, particularly; they have been with us on and off for thirteen months-since Santa Rosalia. Sailorr got on the way first, but by the time their sail had disappeared around the north island, Margorie Grace was on the way. Both reported three to four foot seas and light winds. By the time they are out fifty miles or so they should pick up the trades and have good sailing.
With the other two Americano boats gone we were left with four German, one English, and one Antiguan boat for company. All but the Antiguan skooner (which is anchored a mile away on the far side of the bay - at least we think it's Antigunan. Lois and I started to sail over to make sure of the flag but got chased back by an approaching thunderstorm.) joined us for the dinner with Mr. Robinson. All of the German cruisers are relatively young people, all heading for the South Pacific and then on around the world. None, including our English friends, Phil and Mary Anne, have been cruising for more than a year and a half, making us the old timers in that respect. Two of the boats have a four year old crew member, and within minutes of going ashore the two boys were hard at play with the Kuna children who seemed somewhat awed by the little blond terrors.
| Dinner consisted of a deep fried snail (very tasty-we'll have to do some more investigation on where to find these), shredded lobster, boiled and dried banana slices which tasted much more like potato than banana, boiled rice, and lots of fish which had been roasted on an open fire. For desert there was what Mr. Robinson called "smoked" bananas, chunks of banana with a slightly sweet and smokey flavor. After dinner Mr. Robinson stood in the light of the fire and told us stories of how the Kunas had fought the Spanish, and the Columbians, and the Panamanians, and had finally moved to the islands to find a place where they could have peace. He also recited a couple of tales from Kuna mythology. It was an interesting and unique Thanksgiving dinner. | Mr. Robinson's Island |
Along about one o'clock the rain had almost stopped and I was taking a nap when we got a garbled call from Climax on the VHF. That sort of surprized us because they had left here four days ago, heading for Chichime and then Colon, but we thought they must have changed their minds. The radio contact was so broken that, although we could get the name, we couldn't figure out where they were. I tried the HF radio on 6C with no better success. It wasn't until nearly three that we got another call, this time saying that they were on the other side of Robinson's Island and heading in with no engine and no wind, being pushed by their dinghy. Lois and I got in the Metz and headed out to see where they were and soon spotted them about three miles out wallowing around in the swells.
It was obvious we couldn't do anything to help in the Metz, so we went back to the boat, took the Ranger over and hung it behind Philmar, gathered up Phil and Peter from Ringoe, and hauled anchor. Fortunately, the seas were quite calm; not like the other day when we came in. A long, three to four foot swell was running but with no wind or chop it caused no trouble. We reached them in about a half hour and Tom used his big dinghy to bring a line to us which we tied to a harness I'd already rigged. An hour later we dropped them in the anchorage, our good deed for the day done. Tom said that they had gone to Chichime for one day, then had blown an oil cooler on the way out the next morning headed for Colon. They then had three days of no wind, unable to make headway and ending up twelve miles east of where they had started. He said they could have bypassed the oil cooler, but found that, though a misunderstanding between crew members, they had no oil aboard to replace that ruined by salt water. We sold them 5 gallons which we'd gotten in Panama and won't need. We still have a full change aboard which we won't need before we get back to Panama.
09:30 Hauled up and on our way. We say goodby to Philmar and Climax as we head west into just the beginning of a breeze.
10:10 Changed fuel tanks...now drawing from aft starboard, returning to forward starboard. Wind picking up, 15 knots now, and darkening in the west.
10:30 We pass an eastbound boat flying a French flag. Wind coming up rapidly now, gusting to 25 knots, seas beginning to build. It's pretty obvious that this is not going to be a day to go exploring for new anchorages amoung the reefs of the San Blas, so we do a 180 and head back for the Holandes anchorage.
11:00 Re-anchored in our same spot. Climax, who without and engine had no way to set their anchor yesterday, had drug in the wind and were almost aground before they managed to get out a second hook. Our awning was about to tear itself apart in the wind which was now blowing a steady thirty with higher gusts.
We spent the rest of the day on the boat. In the anchorage there is only a short chop even with strong winds, but it was too much to go diving, or sailing, or even visiting....so we just read our books and took the rest of the day off.
08:30 We hear from Marjorie Grace and Sailorr. They've had another rough night of it with 35 knot winds and high seas. They're about half way to the Bay Islands now.
09:30 Thru the Eden Channel in Limon Cays. It's wide and, for the most part deep, with only a few spots under fifty feet.
10:00 Anchored at Porvenir by the airport. We are immediately besieged by cayucas full of mola ladies but put them off, saying we were going to the island and would look at their molas later. Ashore, we tried the telephone in the booth in front of the Government building. It appeared to be working but I was never able to get an operator, even with the assistance of a friendly local. The sun was hot and the booth was like an oven so after about ten minutes of trying I gave up....we'll work through the High Seas system even if it is a bit more expensive.
While I was fighting with the phone Lois had gone over to a bench in the shade to get out of the sun, and the ladies converged. By the time I got through trying there were a dozen or more surrounding her all waving their molas, so many she couldn't hardly see any one, let alone make a choice. We ended up buying one, a very nice one, for $10.00 just to stop the clamor. Back at the boat it was the same thing. There, Lois held off the ladies while I did a battery check and dipped the fuel tanks to see how much we'd moved forward. They had some nice ones too, and she ended up buying one large mola and four patches before I started the engine and waved the crowd off.
11:30 Headed out again. Just outside Porvenir, anchored off Sail Rock, was a tall ship, a three masted square rigged steel vessel named the "POGERIA" from Gdansk flying the red and white flag of Poland. We made one pass at an anchorage in the Limon Keys but after finding no channel through, decided instead to run another few miles to a group which Christian and Virgini had recommended.
13:00 Tried calling the High Seas Operator but the danged radio wouldn't work! Later, when we got anchored I tried again and it worked fine but it was too late, both Kris and Nan had left for the day. Bah!
14:00 Anchored at some unnamed islands off the Moran Channel after a couple of scares and some fancy maneuvering through the reefs. This coral reef cruising can sure keep the adrenalin level high! Fortunately, the sun was high and bright and the reefs show clearly as a lighter color of blue, but I haven't yet learned how to tell a slowly shoaling sand bottom from the more frequent, fast shoaling coral heads.
This is a nice anchorage although the water isn't as clear as it was farther from the mainland. Most of the islands appear uninhabited. One family came out to show us their molas but had nothing worth buying...Lois gave them some candy. Later a couple of nice young men, Roman and Fernando, came by and offered to take me diving tomorrow.
Sometime after noon we decided to haul up and move. While our anchorage is very nice, it would be a real problem to get away from in anything but perfect weather; so we picked our way through the reefs and headed for the Ciedres village island about three miles to the south. It is village similar to that on Isla Lena and we knew that there would probably be lots of Kuna visitors, but we weren't prepared for the reception we got. Before we even started to anchor there were twenty or more cayucas around the boat with more setting out from shore. Lois paniced, and I have to admit that I also felt intimidated and was not unhappy in deciding that we could do without a visit to this village. Bill and Deb told us that the chiefs at Tigre village have ruled that cayucas may not hassle the yachts...that molas will be offered only in the village. I think we'll pay a visit there.
Leaving a large group of disappointed mola sellers behind, we pointed our nose north again and made the two hour run to Chichime. There we found Ringoe, the German boat, with Peter and Uschi visiting with Santos Miguel, the old medicine man of Chichime. They came to the boat for a drink and visit and we found that, like our friend Peter Leupold up in the Sea of Cortez, this Peter is also from East Germany. He was a merchant seaman and managed to escape by jumping ship in Denmark. Later we had a short visit from Nacho and Liliana.
With the weather not too pleasant for outside activity, I screwed up my courage and went to work on repairing our settee. The laminated arm with Rich made came unglued last summer and a young man at Pedro Miguel was to fix it for us. Unfortunately, he was a "Manana" type of worker and all he managed to do was to cut a piece of teak roughly to fit before we left, so today I fitted it in place. For a guy who is a complete klutz at woodworking, I managed to make it come out looking pretty good.
| In the afternoon Santos Miguel, the old medicine man and senior citizen of the island, paid us a visit. He brought his flute and rattle and played for us and told us stories of his people and the islands. He said that when he first came here there were no coconuts on the islands, only mosquitos. He worked with other Kunas as they cleared the islands with machetti's and planted the coconut seedlings, sleeping at night in their cayucas to avoid the mosquitos. He has eight daughters, two or three of whom are still here on the island with him, along with a dozen or so grandchildren. He was still here when Phillip and Mary Anne and Peter and Uschi arrived to help us drink up the champagne which Climax gave us after we towed themn in. We had a pleasant evening getting better acquainted with our British, Swedish, German, and Kuna friends. |  Santos Miguel at Chichime |
There's not much to say about this day: wind and rain...rain and wind! We had one real boomer go through-thirty knot plus winds-for a little while we were afraid we were going to loose our awning. Both Ringoe and Philmar had planned on leaving today but they stayed on, holed up in their boats. During one lull Lois and I managed to get off for a few minutes to make a run around one of the islands in the Metz, but other than for that we also stayed at home.
Santos Miguel came out in his cayuca bringing a basket of pretty shells he thought we might like to have, small pink crowns. We took a couple of them and he dumped the rest in the bay. He said they made good soup. We also had a visit from a big cayuca full of young divers. They had a real haul of lobster, crab, fish, and conche. We bought a fish and a crab from them. The fish was one we have never caught, but have seen while snorkling...some type of poggie I think. It was very good eating!
09:30 Placed a call to Nan through WOM in Miami while we ran east. She had some disappointing news; Bob will be here on Monday but Kristie isn't coming. Nan seemed to indicate that it had something to do with money, so we immediately called Kris offering to pay her fare, but she said it was her business that was keeping her...she just couldn't get away so close to the holidays. Lois was pretty shook up-it will be fun having Bob here but she sure misses her kids!
10:30 Anchored between the islands off Rio Diablo. This time a cayuca with two Panamanian military men arrived soon after we had the hook down. They were polite, taking down information from our passports, drinking a couple of beers apiece, and wishing us a pleasant stay. We went ashore at Edvino's place but found that he was off at the Holandes for the day. Doing a little shopping on our own, we bought some of the good Kuna bread, but found that there was little to be had in the way of fresh fruits or vegetables. We'll have to wait for Edvino for that.
We were sitting on the boat in the afternoon when a cayuca approached with a very non-Kuna looking man and woman as passengers. They were Joel and Evelyn, a couple from a French boat which we had passed on that windy day we left the Holandes. They are visiting the family of a Kuna who has been acting as their guide, a young man named Brasilio. Later they stopped by for a drink with us. They've been in the Caribbean for four years and are now headed through the canal and northward...the first people we've met who were planning on going to the Pacific Northwest rather than to the South Pacific. Joel has spent some time in British Columbia and Southeast Alaska and speaks fairly good English. He was quite interested in our Pilot Charts and we discussed the northbound options. For a small sailboat the Common Wisdom seems to be that the route via Hawaii is much better than trying to sail northward along the coast. The charts would seem to bear that out. As a powerboat, we can wait for windless days and drive north, but a sailboat must always be working against the prevailing coastal northerlies.
Edvino showed up at dusk, took our grocery list, and left us with two crabs and five lobster. We should eat well while Bob is here!
Edvino was here early this morning, bringing groceries. He made three trips bringing grapefruit, bananas, potatoes, onions, cabbage, tomatoes, margarine, and beer. I cooked the lobster and crab and stuffed them in the freezer, so we are pretty well fixed for our visitor. On the last trip Edvino brought along his son, Edvino Luis, who is three years old today. Lois gave him some cookies and a toy flute, and sent a box of cake mix home to Filorilelia. He's a typical three year old...the cookies were soon all over the rug, but grandma Lois didn't seem to mind. She'd give me hell if I made the same mess!
We told Edvino that we were thinking about going out to Isla Verde for a day or so and he asked if we would take he and his cayuca along. He fishes out there for bonito and by riding out with us he can save some gasoline for his outboard. We of course said, "Great! You can show us where to anchor." It's only about four miles out there and we were soon working our way around the reef and behind another of the Kuna's lovely plantation islands. This one, although relatively large, has no buildings or people living on it, probably because it is easy to work from the village. There are several smaller islands on the same reef, one of them unplanted with coconuts. It looks rather odd, just a green covered bump, beside all of the parklike palm plantations. We anchored the first time a little close to a shoaling bank and, although Charley was still saying we had 18 feet of water, I hear a grinding sound as we were backing off to set the hook....we had scraped a coral head. After re-anchoring in a flatter spot, I went down to look and found only a little paint scraped off the bottom of our big bronze rudder shoe.
Edvino went off fishing and we spent the rest of the day just fooling around. We went out to a tiny island and snorkled a while on the reef. Didn't find anything but lots of pretty fish, coral, and sponges. The weather was nice...cloudy but no rain, a very comfortable day.
I still have plenty of things to do my worrying over. Top on the list right now is the fact that Gennie's starting circuit is getting more and more erratic. It has gradually been getting worse and today I had to twice go down and fool with the relays and solenoids to get her started. I'm still not absolutely certain where the problem is, but I'm afraid it is in the starter solenoid itself. If so I'll have to pull the starter to fix it, not a happy thought with Bob coming on Monday!
Except for my maintenance worries, it was a nice, quiet, peaceful day here at Isla Verde. We did a wash and cleaned house, getting ready for our visitor. It rained a bit on and off all day. Sure hope we get some good weather while Bob is here. Supposedly, we are at the start of the dry season but you'd never know it from what we've seen so far.
We reached Porvenir just ahead of a big squall which, with a series of others like it during the afternoon, ended our need for watermaking for a while. It also discouraged all but a couple of the Mola Ladies, letting me concentrate on my problems while Lois juggled water buckets. I trimmed the damaged hose and put the reusable fitting back on the trimmed end. (I had insisted on reusable fittings even though Jimmy had warned me that they were more susceptible to working loose. I think we'll buy another hose with swaged fittings when we get back to Panama.) Being very careful to save every drop I could of our precious oil, I again re-routed our hoses to the proper configuration. I think we will abstain from using the watermaker with the cruise hydraulics until we can get a better hose installed...around here we really don't need to do that anyway. It rained most of the afternoon...sure hope we get a bit of better weather while Bob is here!
We didn't know what to do but decided that it would be easier for him to find us than for us to find him; we are a bigger target. The immigration office closes for siesta but at 2:00 when it opened I was back with our friend Juenco again, asking if he had any suggestions. He was again helping me by talking to Aereo Taxi when another guy came running out of the office saying that my amigo was on the radio...they do have radio communications between Porvenier and the military in Rio Diablo, a route which we were planning to try next. Sure enough, there was Bob's voice; he was in Nargana. To shorten up the story: I told him we were on the way and would be there in three hours; we quickly hauled anchor and ran the twenty-some miles to Rio Diablo; and there Bob met us, standing in a big cayuca with three Kunas and all the junk he'd brought for us. We got him aboard, poured him a drink, and heard his story. I didn't have a tape recorder and can't quote all of Bob's somewhat colorful remarks, but here's the jist of his story:
"I had a bad day yesterday. Nothing would go right and, to top it all off, the plane from Miami was two hours late; I didn't get in until about eleven. They told me that I had to be at the Paitilla airport not later than five, so I was up again at 3:30. I got out to the Aereo Taxi office and found about seventy people milling around in a room not much bigger than your boat...none of whom could speak English. I finally managed to find a guy who understood me just well enough to sell me a ticket to the San Blas...to something Diablo. I had some concern about that, but Kris was certain that you had told her Rio Diablo."
"When I finally got on the plane I could hardly fit in the seat and didn't have much of a view of the outside world, but off we went through the rain and clouds. The first place we landed was an unmarked dirt strip (probably Ciedres). I asked where we were and no one could tell me. A couple of stops later we landed on an island where they said something about Diablo and told me that this was the place to get off. I looked around for the Sea Raven and saw nothing....we hadn't seen a single yacht anywhere. I asked if this was Rio Diablo and they said, 'No problema! Taxi.' They unloaded my stuff and the airplane left."
"Here I am, seven in the morning, following a couple of guys through a stick house village full of bare breasted ladies...I haven't seen that much titty in years...carrying $5000 in cash in my vest, no Sea Raven in sight, I don't speak the language and I don't know who I can trust. They load all my stuff in a cayuca with an outboard on it and the driver and I set off to the east. (Rio Diablo is west but Bob doesn't know that.) Pretty soon the motor quits, so the guy starts paddling back to what I now know is Isla Tigre. There we change to another cayuca, this one driven by a guy named Chris who speaks a little English and manned by three other guys who could paddle if the motor gives up. After a few more false starts we finally figure out that we should probably be heading for Rio Diablo, five miles to the west, rather than Cayos Diablo to the east, so off we go, me and my junk under a plastic sheet, splashing through the waves."
"We got to Rio Diablo about ten; still no sight of the Sea Raven! We went to the police station...Chris knows his way around...and asked if they knew the boat. Oh yes, it was out at that island. Which island? That island out there! So off we go again heading for one of a hundred little islands in the distance. One of the guys finally spotted what he called a "ship" far in the distance so we ran toward that. It turned out to be a sportfisher with a guy who spoke some English and put out a call on thr radio, but who didn't seem too interested in working my problem. He did say that he had seen the Sea Raven in Porvenir and that, if I couldn't make contact, he would take me up there tomorrow."
"By this time I had seen a lot of islands and could see that if we were ever to make contact, we had to somehow get into the communication channels of the San Blas; so back to Rio Diablo, or Nargana, we went. It was there that I finally managed to contact you through the radio at the post office. The next three hours was spent touring the town(s) trying to keep Chris and his friends out of the bars."
Well, it was quite a day...and a stroke of luck that we managed to make contact at all. We stuffed ourselves on crab for dinner and crashed. Tomorrow we'll sort things out.
We spent a while in the afternoon working over the Hawaiian slings and spear gun which Bob had picked up at the flea market, then went over to "Mr. Robinson's island" to visit the people there. Mr. Robinson was off in Ciedres but we met another man named Pete Murphy who spoke very good English and with whom we could chat. He told us that he has lived here on this island for forty years and had spent fifteen in the canal zone working for the canal company. He has a little community of maybe two dozen people on the west end of the island which is really much neater and cleaner than Robinson's end. All the area between the palms is carefully groomed and swept and the stick houses are clean and neat. Seeing a pile of coconut husks, I asked him to demonstrate how he husked them. This he gladly did, producing a pair of long handled blacksmith tongs which had been sharpened at the end like a pair of flat nosed pliers. He jamed this tool into the side of a coconut and then spread the handles, opening the jaws and neatly splitting the tough husk open. About three jabs and it was clean. Slick tool...sure is a lot easier than doing it with a hammer and a pry tool!
We spent about two hours on the reef, then went over to the other side where I'd found the conches yesterday. No luck there either. Later a Kuna and his lady whom we'd seen near where we were came by with a boat full of the things...guess we should have followed them.
After lunch we set the Ranger over the side, put a sixpack of beer in the little cooler, and went for a sail. It was a perfect day for that, a nice five to ten knot breeze, not too hot, and flat calm water. We sailed back and forth in the anchorage a while then around the north island. Our only mishap came when we bumped a coral head with our centerboard which we thought we had retracted but which had slipped down...we came to a sudden stop and almost shipped water before getting things back in control.
Bob and I both had plenty of sun by the time we got back to the Sea Raven. We just lazied around for the rest of the afternoon, then watched our video of our canal transit while we recorded a copy for Bob and Kris. Just a very nice day in paradise!
11:30 All packed up and ready to go. We ran out of the anchorage and westward toward Porvenir again. Several new boats at various anchorages in the Holandes...I think they have come in from Columbia.
13:00 Our cruise generator starts kicking off. I think we are very marginal on oil...and we ain't got no more. I shut the system down. We can get along without it until we get back to Panama, at least if Gennie keeps humming along to keep our freezer cold.
14:00 Porvenir. We anchor and Bob and I go in for a visit with Juenco. He is again very helpful, calling Aereo Taxi for us and changing Bob's reservation to fly back Saturday morning from Tigre to have them pick him up here at Porvenir. He wishes us well and we head for Chichime.
16:00 Anchored at Chichime. Nacho and Lilianna come to visit immediately, bringing Donna Jean's mola with them. It is a beautiful curtain for a doorway on their boat. Lilianna has done a very nice job! She also has a bunch more molas with her and Lois couldn't resist them...managed to buy another $100 worth! they are as nice as any we've seen.
Had a nice dinner of lobster, crab, and conche. We do eat well! Nacho has promised to go diving with us in the morning.
When we loaded up the snorkling gear and went over to pick up Nacho we found him in high rubber boots working at husking coconuts. A Columbian vessel had come to buy coconuts and he was frantically getting as many as possible ready for them. He told us that they were paying $25.00 per hundred, the best price in quite a while. Since he was tied up he had arranged for a young man by the name of Tocelio to show us where to dive. He was a nice young man but I think he soon got discouraged with us as divers. He pointed out a hole with four lobsters in it but I wasn't able to get any out. I didn't have any tool and wasn't quick enough to grab them with my glove. By the time I got through they were so far back under the rock he couldn't get them either. After that he lost enthusiasm. We stopped at a couple of other places, found one conche, but nothing was as nice as our dive at Holandes.
We were back at the boat having lunch when two other sailboats came in. One was the "Lazy Rebel", a Canadian boat, and the other a boat form Oregon...both had come directly from Venezuela. I had steered the Lazy Rebel into the anchorage on the radio and after he had anchored Peter, the skipper came over to say thanks. He and his wife Eleanor have spent the last two years working their way down the Atlantic coast and through the Caribbean. They're heading for San Francisco where they have a daughter. The other boat, the name of which I've forgotten, has a man, his wife, and four kids aboard. We're meeting more and more boats heading our way.
We made one more dive on the reef before packing up and heading for Porvenir. The close in reef is actually prettier than the one to which Tocelio took us...lots of colorful fish. We got to Porvenir just about martini time and parked next to another sailboat we hadn't seen, the "Cedilla" from Saint Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Looks like they have a man, woman, and two kids aboard. We had a dozen small conches which we'd bought from a fisheman earlier for three bucks and were sitting on the deck enjoying the sunset when a sailing cayuca came by and offered us five lobsters for $10.00, not big but very nice. Couldn't turn that down so we stuffed ourselves again with langusta, something Bob seems to enjoy.
It rained a good portion of the morning and we fooled around on the boat putting things back in our at-home-by-ourselves configuration. Lois was feeling kind of teary...she hates to say goodby, and misses her kids and grandkids. About noon a couple of other boats showed up: the "Donna Rose" from Honolulu and the "Johnathan Seagull" from Hombeurg flying a German flag. There's getting to be quite a crowd. We decided that we might as well get a start on our run to Rio Diablo, so soon after noon we hauled up and headed out. There was quite a swell running as we came out of the anchorage so instead of taking our usual route through Canal Eden we ran downwave around the end of Islas Limon, then had the wind behind us all the way to Robinson's island. One squall after another kept the trip from becoming boring.
At the Holandes we dropped anchor, napped for an hour, then I tried to start Gennie to cook our dozen conches. The starter wouldn't go! This time I was able to determine that it is definitely the starter solenoid causing the problem by jumpering directly to the terminal with a clip lead. I worked for half an our in the hot engine room before giving up. Red faced and foul tempered I poured us drinks and we started examining our options. We are starting to loose our redundancy. With the cruise generator drive low on hydraulic oil and Gennie not starting we can't run our freezer. Our alternator will keep the batteries going but we could be down to the barbeque for cooking. Looks like we either make a run for Colon or I pull Gennie's starter, leave Lois in Edvino's care, and fly to Panama for a starter solenoid and hydraulic oil.
After the second martini I decided, without much hope, to try again to start Gen...she turned over first try! It may be that the problem is somewhat heat sensitive, but whatever the reason we gave thanks, popped our conches in the pressure cooker, and had another great seafood dinner a la Lois! Tomorrow we'll run into Nargana, find Edvino, get any molas he may have and then start heading for colon.
| Edvino was home and waved at us as we passed his house and anchored between the two islands. We got ourselves settled then went in to say goodby to Florilelia, pick up the molas, and give Edvino our shopping list. I hadn't really expected our mola to be done but both ours and Winsome Flyer's were ready, and Tortuga's blouse was almost finished. All are nicely designed and very well made...Florilelia is a real mola lady! We went though quite a stumbling discussion about how to get Tortuga's blouse into the U.S. mail system, and I'm not sure yet that I really understand what Edvino was proposing, but it ended up that he wants to ride with us to Colon. From there he would go to Panama and Florilelia will fly in (with the mola) to meet him later in the week and they would somehow get it into the U.S. military mail system...I think. I told him he was welcome to go with us tomorrow but that we couldn't wait around until the mola was finished on Friday. |  Filorilelia & Molas |
| We gave him our shopping list then went back to the boat. He had a little steel box and a hasp which he wanted to use as a strong box, so I took it and mounted the hasp while he did the running around. He spent a good part of the afternoon making half a dozen trips for supplies...gasoline, beer, pop, fruits, vegetables, and bread. On the last trip he brought his family, all dressed up in their Sunday best. We took a bunch of Polaroid pictures and videos of Florilelia and her molas, and of Lois and me with her. Looks like he is going to go to Colon with us...that ought to be fun. He says he has an uncle there. Maybe we can get him to do our shopping in the big city???? |  Filorilelia & Friends |
Before we left we ran back over to Edvino's house where he found two ancient ladies,las abuelas (the grandmothers), seated them side by side holding his two boys, and took their pictures with the Polaroid camera...they were very proud!
The wind had blown all night so before we left we put the Metz on deck and put out the poles...I was glad we had done so, before we were clear of the first reef the swells were rolling us around enonugh for me to drop in the fish. Once we got into the main channel and could turn due west the swell, although big, was on our quarter so we wallowed along comfortably enough. It was about one o'clock when we found our way into Chichime just behind the Cedilla. Not long later another sailboat, the "Shannonigan's" which we've been hearing about for almost a year but have never met, pulled in. Later Don and Jill, the crew, came over for a visit. They had been ahead of us when we first got to Costa Rica and were back in the States working when we saw the boat in Puntarenas. Don is from South Africa, Jill from the States and they are heading for the Cayman Islands.
| We had several visitors during the afternoon...we just left the Metz on deck. A family came by in the canoe which we'd seen being adzed on the beach the other day. It was finished now and looked pretty good except for the worm holes in the bottom which kept the lady busy bailing a steady flow of water. After talking to them Edvino said that it had been a driftwood log and that the cayuca really wasn't much good. He said it probably wouldn't last five years. He says the best cayucas come from Columbia where there are still big trees in prime condition...one of those, if kept painted, he says will last twenty years. Nacho and Lilianna also came out for a short visit (just as we were about to sit down to dinner, naturally). |  Dennis & Family in New Cayuca |
Nacho gave us his address:
Fortunately, Lois' super supper of frietos didn't get too cold. Edvino acted like he had gone to heaven...I guess he doesn't get much beef in the San Blas.07:48 On our way. Things seemed to go alright for a while..until we got out into the seaway that is. There wasn't much wind but there was a big swell from the northeast, another from the north, plus chop bouncing from what seemed to be everywhere...Even the flopper-stoppers didn't stop the flop. About this time the hydraulics started growling. A quick trip to the engine room showed that the regulator was chattering, evidently because of a lack of oil. I put what oil I had collected in my pitcher in the reservoir and added about a quart of non-detergent motor oil which I found, but the chattering continued. After a lot of fiddling I found that I could minimize it by cutting the RPM to about 800 and having the cruise generator control about half on. We ran for almost two hours that way. I'd have disconnected the pump if there was any way to do that but there isn't...any time the engine is running the hydraulic pump is running and I was afraid that it could burn up if it had no oil.
10:00 Passing the Escribanos reef I empty my pitcher again in the reservoir and the groaning of the regulator stops. Evidently I'd collected enough oil from the damaged windless hose to keep it from getting air instead of oil.
While I was down fussing with the hydraulics one nice thing happened...Edvino hauled in a nice big barracuda, putting it to sleep with my carved club and solving our problem of what to have for dinner. With the hydraulics problem stabilized, we slogged our way on for the next four hours to Isla Grande with the seas tossing us this way and that until we were all pooped. Once we made the turn there things settled down a bit but we decided to stop at Mike Starbuck's place in Playa Blanco rather than going on to Portebelo as we'd planned.
15:00 Mike welcomes us to Playa Blanco with a call on channel 16. We anchored out a ways, not wanting to haul in our flopper-stoppers, took down the Metz, and went in to meet Mike. He's a relatively young man, maybe 45 or 50, good looking with close cropped curly greying hair. He met us in a shirt and sweat pants with a rum punch in his hand. He lives alone in this little bay inaccessable by land with one young Panamanian couple who work for him and live in a house across the bay. His house is completely open, built of beams and planks cut free hand with a chain saw, bamboo, and balsa. The roof is corregated plastic ...he said he originally had a frond roof but the scorpions and other critters convinced him that the old ways aren't necessarily the best ways.
We had a drink with him and invited him to share our fish for dinner then went back to the boat. There's a bit of a roll out where we were anchored so Edvino and I put out a stern anchor while Lois fixed dinner. About then the outboard quit and we couldn't get it started...water in the gas again! Bah!
We did have a good dinner and visit with Mike. He's doesn't appear to be the kind of guy that you'd expect to be living out in the jungle three miles from the nearest road. He's certainly not a hermit! He spends lots of time on the radio and loves to have people come to visit. His biggest complaint is that he can't seem to find a lady to share his little paradise, and that it is...nice sand beach; relativly calm warm waters swarming with fish; coconuts, bananas, breadfruit growing in his yard. He has a nice little launch which he uses to run to Portobelo where he keeps a suburban van. It's an hour's drive into Colon from there.
07:45 Anchored off the fort on the north side of Portobelo. The little Swiss schooner Aries is here and Voyager is anchored across the bay in front of the village. The next two hours were a mad rush to get the boat ready so that Lois would have no problems while I went to town with Mike. I drained the rest of the hydraulic oil, then went to work pulling out the hose which we'd gone to great effort to install two months ago. It came out easier than it went in, but we still had to tear everything up to get it out. We removed both of the new hoses on the high pressure side of the system. Once we got those out we went to work on the rest of the boat: got the Metz down, the flopper-stoppers stowed, the awning up, and even managed to get the bad gasoline dumped out and new put in the outboard tank, but I still couldn't get the Johnson to start. Oh well, Lois said she'd rather row anyway. She talked with Iris on the radio who said that they would be around until tomorrow. That made her feel better.
Mike showed up about nine thirty and I sent him over to visit Voyager while I took a quick shower. By the time he got back I had my clothes on and Edvino and I were ready, although I was so pooped that I almost fell into his boat. We ran across the bay to one of a small group of weekend cabins where Mike keeps his car, unloaded our stuff, and were soon heading for town. It's a pretty drive along the waterfront and the road, though full of chuckholes, is paved and faily good. After about an hour of driving we turned onto the main Panama-Colon highway about nine miles out of Colon. From there it was another hour and a half to Panama.
We dropped Edvino at his sisters place in what Mike said was one of the worst and most dangerous districts in town, then started our shopping tour. Mike bought a 100 lb sack of feed for his ducks and geese and got his freon tank refilled (I also bought one of the big cylinders of freon at the refrigeration place...it was the cheapest I'd seen since leaving San Diego.) We had lunch at a restaurant next to the Big 99 grocery then headed out to Marco where Mike was taking a set of outboard controls to Mel. We found Mel in his office talking to Russ from Pedro Miguel. He was very helpful, having his guys put new swaged fittings on my hoses and even offering to give us hydraulic oil to replace what we'd lost. He didn't have any new oil though, and we ended up going to the Gulf distributor to get the oil. After that we did some more running around then ended up at the highrise apartment of Mike's friend Bill Riley where we stayed for the night. Bill is the manager of a paper box plant, Industria Panamena de Papel, S.A., and also the president of the American Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Panama. His apartment covers the entire seventeenth floor of a building near the center of the city. It has a spectacular view of the city, the waterfront, and the Pacific entrance to the canal.
Mike had had a date for the evening but his lady had to break it so instead he spent it with me...I'm sure not a very satisfactory substitute, but he was nice about it. We went to dinner with Bill and his lady Nelly, a very pretty Panamanian girl who works for Merrill/Lynch here...not high class, just Big Macs from McDonalds...then went for a visit with Bob and Kate Rogers, other friends of Mike's who live in the housing area at Amador Air Force Base. They are very concerned about the political problems of Panama and are preparing themselves to leave if things get any hotter. Nice people, nice day! I hoped that Lois also was doing OK.
At Mike's diver friend's house near Portobelo we unloaded all our stuff from his van, loaded it into his little boat, and ran back to the Sea Raven. Lois was doing fine. She said that Bill and Iris from Voyager had come over for a visit...they had later gone on to Mike's place at Playa Blanca...and that she had been cleaning house and sewing pretty little beads on some of her shirts. No problems. I got Gennie started (Lois hadn't tried to run her so the freezer needed some running) and we pretty much loafed away the afternoon. I got out my tools, all set to pull and clean the plugs on the Johnson, but it started on the second pull...must have dried out while I was gone. We ran across the bay and poked around another old fort on the south side. In the morning I'll see if we can get the hoses in and be on our way again.
11:30 Everything hooked up, stuff stowed, and anchor up...being very careful not to overload the hydraulics as I crank in the chain. We're off and running toward Colon with six foot seas pushing us along.
14:30 Anchored on the flats at Christobal. I thought about getting cleaned up and trying to get into migracion before they closed for the weekend (our visas expire Sunday) but I was hot, dirty, and tired and the wind was blowing about twenty-five knots so decided we'd work that problem on Monday. We spent the afternoon resting up from the morning's effort, went to the club for an early dinner, and then had a nice chat with Doug and Gayle on the Winsome Flyer. They've decided not to try going north this year. They are going to move their boat into a slip, fly to the States for a couple of months, then fool around down here until May or June when the northers stop blowing in the Gulf of Mexico. More?