San Andres, Columbia

Leaving the Chagres River in the rain we thought it best if we got going before they opened the damn gates again. By the looks of the current they had opened a couple of them already. When we got to the mouth of the river it was a mess with the outgoing current and the seaway coming in at it. We had about 6 foot standing waves with the silt all stirred up where we could not see the shoals. we had our incoming track on the GPS to follow out plus the waves broke noticeably on the reefs. We leave with all our water jugs full and the boat well cleaned. It was nice to have fresh water to clean with.

San Andres is a Colombian island north of Panama and closer to Nicaragua than anything else. Being a Colombian island we needed to use an agent to clear us in and out. I think he was scamming us also. He charged us for a tourist card which we never received anything indicating we had received. The island is a popular Colombian tourist destination. Lots of beaches and resorts and plenty of light life though we were always back on the boat at night to avoid any passable problems. We split the rental of a gulf cart with Serene to tour the island which we were able to do in about an hour or so. There are thousands of motor bikes on this island. We only planed to visit 2 days but had to wait on the weather and spent 4. Not a bad place but there was only so much to do here.

220NM 56 hours sailed 36 hours motor sailed the remainder

Chagres River, Panama

Just a short distance from Colon harbor this was a world of difference from Colon. The entrance was a little tricky with a 6 foot deep reef guarding the river entrance we had to travel a "s" shape track into the river. Once inside it was deep and had long stretches with a few bends. It didn't take long before we saw our first family of Howler monkeys in the tree tops. We motored about 3 1/2 miles upstream and anchored at a lovely bend in the river. We could see toucan's and parrots from the boat here. The were 2 other boats with us and one other that was already there. We took a dinghy ride up to the damn and saw a sloth and more howler monkeys along with many birds. We stood under a large tree watching the monkeys for over an hour careful not to be right under them. Our second day on the river we heard that they were going to open the damn gates because of all the rain to lower the Panama Canal's water level. We chose to stay put because no one in charge came and told us we had to leave. We put out lots of scope and stood ready. The current picked up to close to 5 knots we figure. Every ones speed transducers were fouled and we all had to rely on our GPS for our speed, which wouldn't work for this. We had a bit of debris come down the river with a few trees, one getting caught in one boats anchor chain. They were able to get it off without any damage. One the way into the river i looked down to our rudder cap to see one side of it had fallen off. Once anchored i discovered that electrolysis had eaten away the cap where it did not have much metal left to it. I used some nylon blocks, screw clamps and fiberglass cloth and resin to reinforce it until i could find a replacement. This was one of the highlights of our trip for sure.

13NM motored

Colon, Panama

Now for those that know, we came from the Michigan area and that I (Dennis) worked outside the Detroit area which is know far and wide as being a crime riddled and dirty city so this will be a very serious claim. Colon Panama is DIRTY. We have never seen a city in such poor shape. Our cab driver locked the doors. We had seen part of the city already traveling here by bus but now we get to see more. We first need to anchor the boat, Colon Harbor is HUGE. Must be more than 10 square miles. They leveled the Yacht club before we got here so there is "The Flats" which, without the yacht club, is in the middle of now where. The only marine is Shelter Bay Marina and is 5 miles away by the break water. We had heard that there was no anchoring allowed for yachts anywhere but the flats. Once inside we could not believe it. There was so much room. Its not so much a harbor but a bay. We tried to claim ignorance and anchored outside Shelter Bay Marina. At dusk a patrol boat comes by and in Spanish tries to tell us to move. In English i say i don't understand. He tells us in English "No parking" I ask him "Minyana" (tomorrow) and they leave. In the morning another patrol boat shows up and in English tells us to "Move NOW" . Inside the marina or over to the flats. Oh well, over to the flats we go. Serene is in the marina and we made plans to share a cab to clear out of the country. Now we have a 5 mile dinghy ride back to the marina. We help Serene get some fuel and we fill our jugs at the same time. Then the fun begins. We get a cab and lucky us this guy really helped us out, we started the Panama check out mary-go-round. Use and agent, it costs the same and its less hassle ,hindsight is great. We find the port captions office no problem, our cab driver used to work there. We go to office #1 and they ask us for copies of our paper work, we don't have copies, you think they have a copy machine there? Off we go to find a copy machine down the street. Back to the office they fill out their form for us. From here we take their form to office #2, same building right next door. First question, "DO YOU HAVE COPIES OF YOUR PAPER WORK?" If we needed 2 sets of copies don't you think we had been told by office #1? We were able to complain our way out of it explaining office #1 had copies. They fill out another form and charge us $2:50 then they send us to.............office #3. Here they do nothing more than fill out a receipt and charge us $1:50,which we need to take back to office #1 to get our exit zarpe. 1 1/2 hours down. We ask where the immigration office is to get out passports stamped and they give us directions. This used to be done at the yacht club but now that its gone? We find the office we were directed to and the lady tries to tell us we need to get a visa. We explain we are not staying we are leaving, we don't need a visa to leave. She gets crappy with us and now we don't know what to do. We find our cabbie and he goes to the office and in excellent Spanish finds out we are in the wrong office. We need to go to pier 13, something or another. This takes us through the local dump and the worst road we have ever seen. We get to the pier office to find out the officer took a nooner. We get a cell phone number and find him in town, where we just were. Now this pier is just adjoining "The Flats" so you can see there is absolutely nowhere to come ashore when you are anchored here. Now we go back to Colon, find the immigration officer, who jumps in the back seat of the cab with us and proceeds to stamp our passports on the back of drivers seat head rest. He insists on a "tip" which at this point we are just to happy to oblige. Start time 11:00am, Return time 4:30pm. Total time to check out of the country, 5 1/2 hours and a hell of a cab fee.

20 1/2 NM motored

Portobelo, Panama

From Porvenir we needed to stop over at Isla Linton then completing the trip to Portobelo the next morning. Portobelo is a sleepy little town with a lot of history. This and Colon were the two main ports for trade on the Atlantic side of panama from the 16th to the 18th century. In 1668 Captain Henry Morgan captured and plundered the city. The fort ruins were fascinating to wander around. Panama has a great bus system and is very cheep. We took the bus to the outskirts of Colon to a great grocery store. We were due for a good stocking up so in the end we had to take a cab back to the boats with the cab filled with bags on every ones laps. We took a road trip across to Panama city to see the Miraflores locks. This was a very interesting tour and we also got to see how the new locks are going to look when completed. The bus ride across Panama was $4.00 each. Our cab through the city was more than that. We were able to cross both ways do the tour and be back to the boat by 5:00. Portobelo had the Panama Independence celebrations while we were here. People from all around come the this little town and it was packed. They had a parade of school kids from very young to collage age and the schools would all compete to be the best in dance and music. Water is never a problem for us in this country as it rains all the time. The lightning makes us nervous but we have not seen many ground strikes.

Isla Linton 44NM motor sailed, Portobelo 10NM motored.

Kuna Yala,Panama

We had light winds on our way to Obaldia Panama. Being this far south we are below the trade winds and see light and variable winds with frequent rain. We are at 8 deg 39.8 north which puts us a little over 500 miles from the equator. Puerto Obaldia is just a tiny town, more of a military outpost than a village. On our way to check in we were greeted at the dock by army solders. This is on the border with Columbia where the FARK still rebel. Also known as the San Blas, this is the land of the Kuna Indian tribes. Most live a traditional life style, fishing in dugout canoes and living in thatched roof huts. The woman make and sell beautiful molas and dress in a traditional style. They were very welcoming to outsiders wanting to visit their villages. They seem to inhabit the small islands instead of the mainland, some barley above the high tide water line. One island we saw water in the streets at high tide. We often had lobster and crab which we bought from the fishermen for $2 to $3 dollars each. To take pictures of the woman they wish to be paid a dollar each. At some of the western islands we had the women coming out to the boat in dugouts to sell there molas. It was cute at first but soon got annoying. We had all the molas we wanted and they didn't take no for an answer very well. This area is only charted in a guide book that we used to avoid the shoals. We had no real charts that showed this area in detail. The guide book was very good though. We spent 3 weeks traveling the islands that stretch approximately 200 miles along the southeastern Panama coast. We enjoyed the eastern communities more as they were less visited by outsiders and less focused on selling to tourists. Rain and lightning are regular events here. We have a light show every night and plenty of clean rain water to fill our tanks. There are quite a few boats that seem to have claimed one or two islands here and only leave to go to Cartagena or Colon to provision. We visited Puerto Escoses,Suledup,Isla Pinos, Usrupu, Aridup among others finally clearing out of Kuna Yala at Isla Porvenir.

A lot of motoring as there is not much wind down here.

Cartagena,Columbia

Columbia is a place that has had a lot of problems in the past but we found the coast very safe. Getting here was quite the ride from Radadero. This coast is known for its fierce conditions and we are here at the best time of year for moderate conditions. We left Radadero at 1:00 am and had a great downwind run to Punta Morro Hermosa . For this area we were seeing winds of 25 knots or so but the seas were running around 3 meters. We tucked in for a night of rest before motor sailing over to Cartagena. The city could be seen from a long ways off with all the high rise buildings along the water front. We anchored up by Club Nautico where an agent would be to assist (mandatory) us in clearing in. He spoke English very well and we had no problem understanding each other. There is not much to look at in the new city the real place of interest in the old city. The short walk there was quite nice also. The old city is very well preserved/ restored and takes several trips to see it all. 4 couples went out for dinner one night and had a pleasant walk back after dark. The old city really lights up at night and was quite a sight. The amount of vendors is hard to adjust to. They approach you everywhere, even when you are sitting in the cafes. They will line up and politely take a turn at you to try to sell you there wares. You get used to saying no real fast. Things are very inexpensive and most all you might want you can find here. Many boaters get work done here because of the cheep labor. With all the high rises we had expected a bright skyline, instead there were very few lights in these buildings. Made the city seem deserted. The harbor water was rather nasty and very warm at 90 deg. Growth on the bottom and ground tackle is incredible. Radadero 15NM sailed,
61 NM fast sail 9 3/4 hours to Punta Morro Hermosa, 52 NM to Cartagena 11 hours, sailed 3.

5 bays, Columbia

This has got to be one of the most magnificent anchorages we have been in and no other cruisers. The bay we anchored in is Ancon Nenguange. We had intended on joining Serene on more bay over but we encountered a series of problems, one the wind continuing the build on the nose ,two, water in the fuel, again. We had a very easy sail the first day and had to motor sail through the night then by morning the wind started to shift and build. We kept going slower and slower. We were running out of daylight so we decided to tuck in one bay early. Wow, what a sight with the mountains coming right down to the water. Serene joined us here while i drained more water from the fuel tank again. We found out this is a day park that the Colombians travel to from the city for the day to hang out at the beaches and snorkel and lay in the sun. Even with these people here we hardly noticed they were there.

84NM to Cabo De La Vela 22 hours sailed, 125NM 30 hours the last 5 were painfully slow, sailed 12.