PLANNING FOR PANAMA
Bahía de Caraquéz, Ecuador, Sunday, October 28, 2007

Our excitement has been increasing over the past few weeks as we ready ourselves and Vilisar to depart Ecuador for Western Panama. After months and months of lying off Bahía de Caraquéz in the estuary of the Rio Chone, the tedium of either working on the boat or trying to earn some money on the internet has slowly been replaced by an awareness that we shall soon be starting the engine, pulling up the anchor, and negotiating the tricky harbour bar to gain the Pacific Ocean again. On the one hand of course, our apprehension increases as we commit ourselves to the unknowns of a long voyage again. But it is balanced by the realisation that it is very much time for us to get moving again. Our hearts beat a little faster when we recapture the excitement of our original plan to circumnavigate the globe. After months of work by both us and by local experts – engine mechanics, marine electricians, electronics specialists, carpenters, machinists, welders, canvas workers, sail-makers - we think Vilisar is ready to go.

Voyage planning

As we approach our departure date we start studying navigation charts, pilot charts, Sailing Directions and weather forecasts. It is approximately 500 Nm from Bahía de Caráquez to Boca Chica in Western Panama. The voyaging trick is to catch the winds and waves at the right moment to maximise sailing efficiency and crew comfort. You don’t want to be beating to windward if you don’t really have to.

South of us there is a large, roughly stationary South Pacific high-pressure zone off Chile. Above the equator but never actually moving south of it during the year, the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ, also called The Doldrums) moves farther north in the summer to be situated generally at the southern end of Mexico. Between it and the Chilean high pressure zone, winds are steady and pleasant and predominantly from the SE from April till November. These Trade Winds will blow 10-15 knots and carry you across the South Pacific once you have passed The Galapagos Islands. In closer to the coast of South America, the winds tend to be more southerly and the waves and swells move in a predominantly northerly direction.

Our rhumb line for the voyage is nearly straight north from Ecuador with a little westing added in to get us to Western Panama. For this voyage, in other words, the larger weather picture is still for the moment perfect.

If we were to postpone our departure too long, however, and the ITCZ moved south toward the equator, we might have to push through the generally windless Doldrums. And, if we punched right through the ITCZ, we could well encounter balmy but northerly NE Trade Winds (or, in this case, “Noserlies”) on the other side. From a voyaging point-of-view, this means slow headway as you tack back and forth to windward. Or you give up in frustration and use the engine. We would also have to deal with much rain and local squalls as well.

The weather chart above shows the broad weather picture as it has been this past week. Last year was an El Niño year: the ITCZ moved south early and some sailing vessels encountered somewhat adverse conditions on the way to Central America from Ecuador. This year, however, is turning into a La Niña year, which means that the ITCZ will likely be slower to move south; we might be able to sail the whole thing with following winds and seas. Note, however, that on the chart the Central American end of the ITCZ is anchored just over Western Panama. The other weather charts show the direction of the waves this past week. If you are interested you can read Goggle the “East Pacific Tropical Weather Discussion”, which is disseminated daily on-line by NOAA with forecasts for up to five days ahead.

At present the weather looks set to be co-operating for our departure on Saturday, 10 November, from here in Bahía de Caráquez. The harbour bar is made up of huge sand bars stretching across the river mouth and for miles out into the Pacific and we will not have the benefit of a pilot as we did when we entered the estuary those many months ago. We do have a set of closely-spaced GPS waypoints that have been used by other yachts. If they are wrong, however, you will be on the sand bar pretty quickly with the tide falling, a torrent of water pouring out of the bay and Pacific waves pounding us. Sometimes sailing can be serious stuff! We have plotted in fact two sets of GPS waypoints for the exit, and while they are not exactly the same, they parallel each other closely. We also have the GPS track of our entry last year. The three routes run closely parallel. A good cross-check. But still, we are largely at the mercy of someone else’s (who’s?) navigation aids.

We shall be crossing the bar in mid-afternoon. Since we do not want to travel up the coast during night because of the plethora of fishing nets and drift lines expected, unless the waves are quite large we shall anchor in the “waiting room” to wait for dawn the next morning – in other words, just off the town of Bahía again but just on the other side of the isthmus where Bahía lies and probably less than a mile as the crow flies from where we are now.

Parking for the night after exiting the harbour will allow us to finish any stowing necessary and to make any adjustments to the rig and sails, or the windvane steering, or the engine or …. whatever. If necessary, we could put back into Bahía de Caráquez.

Check out procedures

To leave the country by car or plane, on the one hand, the procedures are fairly simple. Show up at unannounced at the border station or the airport and go through the cha-cha steps: Migración, maybe Aduana, security checks, tickets, etc. in whatever order they occur. Arrive or leave Ecuador by yacht, however, and it gets a lot more complicated. And expensive! First, you have to hire a ship’s agent who does the vessel formalities for you. The formalities are still basically quite simple in Ecuador. Foreign-flagged vessels now of course have to inform (through the agent) the Armada del Ecuador (Ecuadorian Navy) in advance of your route through territorial waters and beyond. They must sanction it but so far this has just been rubber stamping. But a royal pain and very expensive now because of the agent. Eventually the Armada issues a Zarpe, which is an acronym of some sort for an exit permit. A Zarpe means you have left the port in good standing (i.e., you have paid all your bills). You present it at the next port-of-call when you arrive. The whole concept is rather old-fashioned and many countries, including Canada, the EU and the U.S.A., for example, no longer require it. Because using agents was only made mandatory after we arrived here and because we are only doing one leg of the round trip, the local one is only charging us $50 (he normally charges $150 for a round trip into and out of Bahía de Caráquez.) Of course, there are still fees to be paid to the Port Captain as before. But they amount in our case to about $34 (they cover his admin charges and fees for Lights & Buoys and for VHF radio usage in the country).

With your Zarpe in your hot little hand, you take a two-hour ride over to Manta to clear Migración. You pay a little fee (it varies from tourist to tourist for reasons we cannot understand; we were charged $10 each in cash this time and received no receipt). They stamp your passport and you are now “gone”; you have only a limited amount of time to leave the country on your boat. Up until now, Aduana (Customs) has never taken any interest in yachts although there are rumours that they are going to do so.

Altogether then, it will have cost us about $104 in charges to leave the country plus travel costs to Manta.

Provisioning

Fortunately we have already tanked up with diesel fuel because the price is about to rise from $1.50 (delivered to your vessel) to approximately $3.00. We carry about 75 US gallons in two large metal tanks port and starboard of the diesel engine. That amount of fuel adds weight to the stern of the boat. Additionally, we also carry four 5-gallon jugs of fuel lashed on deck to the forward side of the cabin structure at the foot of the mast. Our two 20-pound horizontal propane tanks are nearly completely full at present since, with restaurants being so cheap, we have done so little cooking here in Bahía.

We also carry four back-up jugs of potable water on deck in addition to the two tanks (approx. 60 gallons together) under the berths amidships in the main cabin. We don’t want to risk contaminating our water tanks, so we buy bottled drinking water even though there is piped water in the town. Even the locals don’t drink that, as a rule. We fill the deck jugs only 3/4th full: if we ever have to abandon ship in an emergency, these jugs can be tied together and will float.

After visiting Migración in Manta, we stopped at the large supermarket to provision. Our voyage is only going to be less than a week plus whatever time we want to spend in the islands of Western Panama. We still have some canned goods on board that we need to use up; they’re starting to get corroded on the outside. Other boaters carry six months or more of supplies on board. But we prefer to provision as the need arises. When we travel to the South Pacific, for example, we shall stock up well since French Polynesia is said to be terrifically expensive while Panama is cheap.

A day or two before we leave, we shall visit the local mercado to stock up on fresh items like fruit and vegetables, bread and eggs.

Other preparations

As departure date approaches, we need to clean Vilisar’s bottom and propeller before we leave. It was all done and the bottom freshly painted with anti-fouling just a couple of months ago in August. But we can see that barmacles have been attaching themselves to the hull at the waterline again. I swear those suckers thrive on bottom paint! On Saturday and Sunday, therefore, we plan to use the high tides to lean the boat up against the wall at the beach again, clean her and give the bottom a good inspection again.

Then it’s all about saying goodbye to all our acquaintances locally as well as other cruisers we have gotten to know here. Like Vilisar, many other boats are also getting ready to put out and by the time we leave some three or four yachts will already have left. Sisiutl (our friends Penny and Phil from Seattle) are already in Panama after a fast 3-day passage in their catamaran. Plan B (Gary and Mavis) left a day or so ago headed for Panama and eventually Hawaii. And leaving the same day as us, Bill and Doreen aboard Lanikai out of Oregon will head out of the narrow harbour-bar channel. Soon to follow will be Karl and Alexandra aboard Muk Tuk with their two pre-school boys, and, Alexandra’s parents, Erich and Ericka aboard Timoun. They are buddy-boating to Chile after Karl has largely remodelled, refurbished and re-painted (red) their steel schooner Muk Tuk over the past half year (in addition to doing a super repair job to our mast). Boris and April on Intelichea (Long Beach) are headed for Panama and so are Jan and George on Clair de Lune, Brian and Marilyn on Ikarian (Vancouver, BC), and probably others as well. At this time of the year I can hardly keep everybody’s sailing plans straight. Six weeks from now the anchorage will only be half as full.

We will miss those we are leaving behind. Suzie at hostal Coco Bongo, for example. Though we have not made many close friends in town, by virtue of being anchored at the Bahía Yacht Club, we seem to have become better acquainted locally. We know the shopkeepers and local restaurant operators where we show up regularly. And Tripp Martin at Puerto Amistad and his wife Magi. We have nodding acquaintances with many others our town as well.

We are eager to get going. That’s just part of the cruising life. But we will retain fond memories of our stay here. And, who knows? We might get back here again.