Zooming through Panama

Once I had escaped Costa Rica (relatively) unscathed, the next thing was to reach the canal. I hadn’t really looked into it too much and naively assumed that the canal would be the hard part, turns out getting there is a challenge in itself.

The first part is pretty easy, after getting checked in (and being driven around by the extremely helpful port captain in his extremely shitbox car (and I used to own a car in that 3 of the door handles were missing, a fact that caused me to fail my first attempt at a driving test before the examiner even got in the car so I’m a bit of a shitbox connoisseur)) it was a pretty straight 80 mile run to Bahia Honda, a very common stopping spot. I did this with just one overnight, taking advantage of the strong trades blowing over from the land. It’s by far the most protected spot in Pacific Panama and has two friendly families that live there that will trade fruit and food for old clothes, shoes etc. I got some bananas for a pair of old shoes, score.

I stayed there a few days to wait out a blow which was a good job as my water pump was pissing water everywhere. I’d ignored it for a little bit but it had got way worse. Would I have spare parts or would I be forced into a complicated, weird journey like a latter-day, shittier Phileas Fogg to get parts?

Well, sort of, was the result. I had spare bearings (which was a good thing as the pump made a crunching noise when rotated by hand), and I found two spare seals – both mangled in different ways, from my previous time I had to rebuild the pump . Well, it’d have to do so I tried to unmangle the least mangled one as best I could and installed it (at this point I found that the impeller had 3 fins left, see previous post). I also had another whole pump, but it’s parts needed replacing – but good job I had it as the original one had a bearing rusted into the case and stuck so I could just use the other one.

I turned the engine on and…. it leaked a lot still. I was about to go to bed all sad and then thought about the lip seal some more. I had installed it backwards from how I did last time as I thought I’d done it wrong before, looking at the instructions again showed me that I had it right last time and backwards this time. I wasn’t sure it would make that much difference but stayed up later to reverse it and… it worked! No leaks! Hooray!

Interestingly I had way less trouble this time around than last time I did it in Victoria, despite not having access to a workshop and have to improvise a press using wood, a repurposed impeller puller and lots of zip ties. I ordered a bunch of parts to Panama City, enough for me to replace the mangled (yet still holding) seal and fix the other pump so I’ll have a spare ready to go.

Of course, when I went to put everything away I found two, pristine and untouched seals. Ah well.

Bahia Honda (and Panama itself) has some of the largest insects I’ve ever seen. This giant grasshopper was making so much noise in the cockpit I actually went outside to see what was happening. Unfortunately it’s defense mechanism when startled seems to be to fly repeatedly into your face, which was fun at 11 at night.

Look at his lil jacket though.

It was actually considerably bigger than all 3 of my resident geckos so it was probably safe to sit there all night.

Leaving Honda, to get to the canal was another 200 miles including rounding Punta Mala (which translates as ‘Bad Point’, also ‘Evil Point’) which is the entrance to the Gulf of Panama.

The problem here is the currents, it can be up to 3 knots while during the dry season the trade winds blow directly out of the north, often up to 30 knots, meaning it’s a 100 miles upwind and upcurrent slog.

The point itself can live up to it’s namesake as well, with swell, current and wind all added together to make some pretty awful conditions.

Knowing all of this, it was hard to tear myself away from the shelter of Bahai Honda, but I eventually did. I did a couple of rowdy day sails in a row, at this point I was far south enough that the wind angle was pretty much either a closer reach or a close haul, so I got a lot of practice reefing in the 15-20 foot winds. The anchorages were pretty roadsteadish, with a bunch of wind waves and swell coming in. Not terrible, all considered.

The last bit before Punta Mala involved going around Punta Mariato – the furthest South I’ll be going. It actually was quite a moment as I realised that from now on, every bit of sailing I will be doing now will be taking me homeward bound. Technically.

So close to the Southern Hemisphere but just not quite there….

 

Anyway, after anchoring at the anchorage just before Punta Mala (a cool little surf town which I got lucky in and had no real swell) I metaphorically girded my loins for the next day. I was up at 4am, had the sail up (straight into a double reef) and was out the anchorage right at first light, trying to hit the tide change from low slack at Mala.

It actually was great – the current was less than predicted on the approach, round the point it was flat seas, and the wind was the predicted 10-15, while the incoming tide helped mitigate the prevailing currents. I cleared the point without issue and then it was just another 80 odd miles or so North, meaning an overnight.

It was the first overnight I’d done since the start of last season (from El Salvador to Costa Rica) and the first solo sail overnight since heading to Chiapas the end of the season before that one. Although then I had MQ Point with me as a buddy boat, so it was the first actual, totally-on-ya-own-kid overnight since I had gone over the gulf of California on Gudgeon, years ago.

And it was fine. The winds stayed North the whole time but shifted a bit 30 degrees either side, so I was able to sail a bunch, and I arrived at Panama City the next afternoon.

Which actually led to the scariest part of the whole journey, as after the shipping lane ends it’s a complete free for all, with dozens of giant cargo ships moving, anchoring and departing.

It looked like this on the AIS

 

Just a super chill and casual 113 targets there, neat.

I had to negotiate through that mess which ended up me talking to a LNG freighter who told me to cross ahead of him. Which I did.

This is a view that you never want to see

I could see by my CPA it was going to be fine, and he’d slowed down for me and instructed me to go but still, not my favourite moment.

Anyway, eventually I made it in to the anchorage – it’s right by the canal entrance which is cool and means you get the experience of getting waked out by a Panamax class freighter, excellent.

It’s honestly pretty trippy just BEING here. At the Panama Canal!! Seeing dozens and dozens of giant ships anchored. At night they look like a city skyline.

I have around 10 days before my transit date, so I am going to spend that trying to find 4 line handlers, fix a bunch of stuff, and just relax a little bit. I’ve been on the go pretty much the whole last month or so! Getting to town is easy at the local marina (60 USD for the dinghy dock for the week though, ouch) and Oyster (super lux yacht brand) is having a world sailing rally or something, so the marina is full of multi-million dollar yachts, which makes quite the comparison as I rock up in my little portabote.