We reached the most northerly point on our trip on Monday 11 June at
13 degrees 57 minutes North 71 degrees 43 minutes West – about 120 nautical miles north of the northern coast of South America above the Gulf of Venezuela where Columbia and Venezuela meet - gybed to port and continued on to Shelter Bay on the Caribbean side of the Panama Cannel where we are moored at present. There are hundereds of mosquitoes here.
The paper work to transit the cannel is quite horrific. Thankfully we have an agent assisting us. The Canal Authorities came and check out the boat and measured it and have given us the OK to go through. Seems they are doing quite a bit of maintainance on the locks which is supposed to finish today, Sunday. This week they have only been using one of the two channels which has reduced the number of boats which have gone through. Ther were over 40 big ships waiting outside the breakwater at the start of the canal when we arrived. So hopefully they will be back to normal next week. The agent has arranged with the scheduler for us to go through on Friday 22nd June so we still have another four days to kill. That is unless a spot comes vacant due to a cancellation. So we are all hoping we will get through earlier. When there is enough space behind a big ship they raft up 3 yachts together and slip them into the locks.
Apart from the last two days on this leg we had good winds since we left Trinidad on the evening of Wednesday 6 th June. The wind averaged in the low twenties with the odd gust above thirty and we made good time getting up to 150 nautical miles a day.
All of a sudden everything came together in Chaquaramas, Trinidad, on the Wednesday afternoon, maybe because the Thursday was a public holiday in Trinidad, which was great for us as once the fibreglass repairs to the starboard rudder were dry and the new port saildrive had been installed and after a quick sea test we cleared customs and immigration, filled up with diesel and were on our way through the channel aptly named The Dragon’s Mouth ( The one at the bottom of Trinidad is called the Serpent’s Head). This was all very fortunate as as you know sailors never leave a port on a Friday.
Joyce and I had earlier in the day paid a visit to the local supermarket and stocked up on food and beer. Lots of things we are not used to on offer like goat meat which was the most expensive cut of meat at R100 a kg. We stuck to beef mince at R45 a kg. A different price structure too with packets of jelly costing R13 while a tin of beer cost half that. Not much fresh fruit or veg available although we did buy some super bananas from a road side stall. Schweppes bottles a magic grapefruit fizzy drink that is not too bitter, something like dry lemon which is very refreshing as it has been extremely hot on this leg and very humid. Not much rain except for the few odd drops so the boat was very sticky to the touch and slippery in parts. We were also very sticky and it does not take long after a wash before you are full of salt again. On the last night before we arrived there was a humungus electrical storm and lots of rain but we were all asleep except for George who had to battle it out. Stupid flying fish also keep jumping onto the boat, one hit me on the sholder on his way into the cockpit. Chris counted 16 on thetrampoline one morning.
While the wind has been good to us they had also swept up the sea and it has been very lumpy. Not nice on the cat as it slams down as each wave passes by sending things flying and keeping us awake when we try to get some sleep. Also because the sea is splashing about we could not open our cabin hatches which makes the cabins very stuffy.
Fortunately this has been one of the shortest legs on the trip totalling only approximately 1200 nautical miles and taken 8 days so we have survived. The new saildrive is going great guns and we have been using the port engine rather than the starboard one to even out the hours each one has been running and because George noticed that the starboard engine which was serviced in Trinidad is leaking a bit of diesel. Not much so no big deal and Chris sorted it out here.
There is a good resturant in the marina here with a two hour happy hour from 5 to 7 pm Monday to Saturday with all local beers US$1 each which we have taken advantage of. The first two after our shower on arrival did not even touch sides. The mosquitoes when we got back to the boat were a bit of a shock. There a masses of them but they are very lethargic and easy to swot. Must be the heat and humidity. Tabard seems to keep them from biting us but they buzz about all night. On Saturday afternoon the agent was very helpfull and even gave Chris and me a lift down to the locks on the Caribbean side to watch two huge ships pass through. There was not even 6 inches to spare on either side as they passed through. Everyone here seems to take it easy on Sundays so we followed suit and Chris and I hired bikes and cycled about 12km to the ruins of an old Spanish Fort which was attacked by Francis Drake and Henry Morgan after which we had a swim in the Caribbean.
Tomorrow we are going into Colon to get as much of the supplies as we can for the trip across the Pacific. The supermarkets here are suppose to be good as there is still a big american influance in the canal zone.We are theoritically in transit and not in Panama so once we are through the canal we will not be stopping in Panama City but be straight on our way to the Galapagos.
For those of you who are not on Facebook or may not have got a notification, I posted some photos on Facebook of our trip so far while I was in Chaquaramas. They are in the public domain so even if you are not a Facebook used you can access them by going to the Facebook site and typing in Rob Browne, Hout Bay. Don’t forget the ‘e’
otherwise hundreds of Rob Brown’s will come up. Then go to the photos section of my page.
Cheers
Rob
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