"THIS does not suck."

The drifter carries us on light winds from the Hollandes Cays to Corazon de Jesus, where Teri and Charlee will catch the next morning’s flight to Panama City.  It’s the only flight daily.  (Arriving, we smile and wave to see our Danish friends aboard Vela anchored here.)  We “dress rehearse,” hoisting the outboard onto Sea Cow and motoring over to the island where the airstrip is.  Airport security looks like it won’t be much trouble. 

We are near the Rio Diablo and after Rima cools off with a few quick swims, a neighbor dinghies over from a French boat to tell us there are crocodiles in the water here.  We watch carefully if we get in the water at all. 

Charlee, Teri and i dinghy over to the airstrip at 6am.  Nobody is there.  Their flight is due at 6:30.  We hope their tickets are good, and then a few locals boat over too.  They weigh the baggage and ask the passengers’ weights…  The plane arrives. 

Several people disembark.  This seems like it must be the biggest event in the village’s daily life.  Soon i wave goodbye as the plane takes off.  Thank you T&C for making the effort to share some of this journey with me.  I appreciate having history with dear friends and adding to it.  Back aboard Akimbo, we are three. 

Rio Diablo has a steady traffic of dugouts at its mouth but appears quite shallow and is muddy.  We read in a guidebook that a trip up nearby Rio Azucar is worth doing.  As we depart Corazon we see Vela doing the same and we invite them explore Azucar with us.  They accept.  We take them in tow on the way upstream until the outboard touches bottom.  We then paddle until we find grassy bank…which turns out to be where a trail starts.  Following it, we soon come to another faster and shallower stream.  The fresh water feels good.  Across the stream there is a sign nailed to a tree that says something about a project.  Rima crosses and disappears into the jungle, Tizz finds another path further along the bank where the Danes and i stand.  When they both get back, Rima says the trail is lovely, under beautiful jungle canopy, and leads to a sustainable agriculture sight.  But the Danes are ready to turn around and we join them.  They tow us back out – it’s nice to bird watch more than navigate. 

They depart for Green Island, while we decide the anchorage is good enuf for a night.  In the afternoon, we witness the locals boating back and forth from their island to a cemetery for a funeral.  From what we can see, it appears the village is burying a cherished citizen.  Remember Serapio?  He took our shopping list and a half deposit back in the Coco Banderos… he left his phone number, and (thanks to Tizz’s phone) we called him when he was late, he said he wasn’t ready yet but would bring our stuff in the morning, instead he brought our deposit back to us.   Well, he goes by at Rio Azucar and stops to say hi.  We ask after the deceased.  He replies it was a man, not old but young, 55, same as Serapio. 

Everywhere we anchor, dugouts come along side to sell us something.  Molas...lobster....

Next day we have wind again.  Yahoo!  We sail 16nm to the Lemon Cays, arriving in time for lunch and snorkeling.  There are tents on one island, a dock and huts on another with the sound of a generator and music…  It’s July 14, Bastille Day, Tizz reminds us.  So we hoist a French flag on the backstay halyard.  We’ve waved to every boat that passes, many French ones among them, now we greet them with “Viva la France!”  In return, a few French crew dinghy over and thank us.     

Another day’s sail takes us to lunch at Dog Island where we enjoy the clearest waters in the San Blas yet while we dive on a wreck in shallow water. 

There are wrecks all over the place to humble skippers and remind us to NOT sail at night here.  From here we sail to Porvenir for our obligatory formalities.  Here it is a pleasure to recognize Pen Kalley.  Sophie and Bernard were our neighbors in Curacao.  We meet again at the Immigration office…where we are all surprised at how expensive formalities have become.  They are short of cash.  We loan what they need and later visit them aboard their boat for cocktails and appetizers – smoked salmon and ice is our contribution.  He is an engineer on sabbatical, and she a doctor, in their mid-thirties.  Bravo!  Their boat is a 40’ race boat.  Spartan compared to Akimbo, but very efficient and fast.  They enjoyed a day of 202nm from Cartagena to here. 

Senor Flores, the Panamanian immigration agent, fits perfectly the generalization i’ve made about his ilk…even if he is NOT wearing a uniform.  He is a bureaucrat, is not a happy man, and does his best to spread his unhappiness to the rest of us...while demanding $200, no less.    Whereas the Kuna man representing the Maritime Authority, even if he DOES fleece us of $210 more, is pleasant about it.  Then there is the Kuna man taking $30 for the Kuna people.  So… Panama is a close second to Belize for the worst formalities to get thru, and is certainly THE most expensive country for the process.  I won’t be back.  I’d rather round the Horn.  Obviously Panama doesn’t really want me to come back.  Yachties are not all that profitable for the countries they visit…when compared to the money the cruise ships bring in (and you might remember my reasons for boycotting that industry).  Like too many things, it’s the lost potential for good that saddens me – which isn’t to say there aren’t some good parts of those things, it’s to say that they could be so much better.  Enuf.  Soon this trip will have no more “formalities.” 

Finished with customs and immigration after two and a half hours, after visiting and snacking a little more with Sophie and Bernard, early afternoon we sail to Chichime.  I find it pretty much as i left it three years ago.  Except that there are more yachts visiting.  At dusk someone dinghies by warning of another storm coming, probably to arrive before dawn, and he suggests we don’t have enuf room to swing at anchor for it.  We move and discuss how we could have better met the last big squall.  Sure enuf, around 3:30am i watch a lot of lightning go by west of us.  “Wow,” i think to myself.  “His info source is really good.”  But it’s almost 9:00am that what he was talking about arrives.  Rima looks up from swimming…gasps and sprints to get to the boat only moments before it hits.  I start the engine and free the wheel and standby.  A gust into the low 40s pushes us almost onto the nearest island.  Akimbo stirs up a little sand as i gun the engine and get the wind blowing on her other bow…so her swing at anchor is away from the island.  For the next half hour or so i get better at idling in gear until the bow aims into the wind and then gunning the engine enuf to swing away again.  It’s all soon over.  I take it as our time to say goodbye to the islands.  We weigh anchor, hoist the drifter, and start west.  Thank you San Blas!  I am grateful to have experienced your beauty and challenge again.

The wind soon dies.  We motor for over six hours.  The current turns against us and we give up Isla Grande for nearby Playa Damas and only 35 miles for the day.  They guidebook describes PD as a rolly anchorage not recommended for overnight.  We find it adequate and enjoy having it to ourselves.  Even better, it’s not too buggy.  Tizz reads that Puerto Lindo, just past Isla Grande, might be a nice sleepy little stop.  Sounds good.  Half way thru the day, the wind comes up and we enjoy sailing under full main and genoa.  We round Isla Litton to count 51 yachts at anchor but plenty of room for more.  Okay, so it’s been discovered.  On the way in we pass a fish farm and we see a mast from the spreaders up sticking above the water, complete with roller furled genoa, green uv covered leach.  Rima and Tizz row Sea Cow around to explore.  I hang out on board. 

With only ten miles to go to Puertobello, before weighing anchor, i take the next morning to fashion a new canvas bag for the BBQ.  We start out motoring but again soon enjoy sailing upwind.  Puertobello is bracketed by an old Spanish fort on either shore.  This is where they staged their fleets for sailing the Central American riches back to Spain.  We explore the fort near town.  There is a fancy resort on the opposite shore of the bay.,,but nothing over one story tall.  It feels good to hike around a bit.  Picturesque and historic, but the guidebook describes PB as dilapidated.  We concur.  

The church brags of its black Christ (a perfectly rendered, life size sculpture of a black Christ, looking up with supplicating eyes from the burden of dragging his cross – adorned with a bejeweled purple robe), encased behind glass.  In general, a disappointing place until one stumbles across a very nice art gallery and a busy music school.  A soccer game on a small, cement edged field near the town square, with teams waiting to play the next game.  These things speak of some vitality.  But otherwise, the town feels hopeless to me.  Maybe my feeling is exacerbated by one of the waiting soccer players.  I raise my camera to take a picture of their game and he stops me, demanding $2.  “Oh bah!” i reply.  Much as i might understand it, i have grown over-weary of it. 

We enjoy popcorn and movie night tonight.  We stay another day to explore further and return to the gallery, buy some groceries and take a short hike in the jungle, which appears healthy.  Impenetrable.  How could the conquistadors have hoped for anything more than a toe-hold here? 

July 21.  We start mid-morning for Shelter Bay Marina and Colon, at the Caribbean end of the Panama Canal.  No wind, we motor a few hours until i tire of the engine’s noise and rally to attempt sailing.  The swell rolling by threatens to shake the light breeze out of the sails, but we manage around three knots of boat speed.  East of us dark clouds cover the horizon in general.  There’s no sound of thunder from them and they seem to gather wind.  We spend the last few hours beating against plenty of wind.  We tack between several ships at anchor outside the harbor.  There must be forty or so of them and some tacks are timed to stay out of the way of the ships on the move.  The rain arrives.  We heave to to wait for a container ship coming out the entrance/exit thru the breakwater, and then spin round to sail into the harbor.  Out of the swell, we drop sail and motor in to the marina, home for what may be the next week while i navigate the Canal's bureaucracy.  Shall see.