THE BEST LAID PLANS
La Playita Anchorage, Panamá City, Panamá, Thursday, January 15, 2009

It’s a perfect Trade-Winds day in Panamá. The wind has picked up from the NE in the early afternoon, the sky is cloud-free, the temperature hovers like every day at this time of the year at around 30ºC, but the humidity today is only about 50%. About forty cruising boats lie at anchor here with flags from nearly as many countries

It would be a perfect day for sailing to the Islas Las Perlas about 40 Nm away to the SE. But Vilisar is staying put. There are two reasons for this. First, when we arrived in the Islas Las Perlas from Ecuador on Boxing Day, I discovered that the two long bolts that hold the uppermost gudgeon to the deadwood were no longer holding anything at all. They appear to have sheared off leaving the rudder dangerously weakened. We jury-rigged it all with webbing and, after a week in The Perlas to recuperate from the windward bash up from Ecuador, we motor-sailed up to Panamá City in order to get it attended to.


The anchorage itself is pleasant though perhaps a little rolly due to the marine traffic. Whenever you look out another huge container ship, bulk-carrier, car-transporter or cruise-ship is passing in or out of the Pacific-Ocean end of the Panamá Canal. There are some distinct disadvantages of the location: the only dock where you can land your dinghy, for example, is nearly totally unsuitable for dinghies and the people there seem intent only on gouging the gringo cruisers; and, because the anchorage is at the extreme end of the Amador Causeway, it takes quite a while to get to anywhere in Panamá City. You can see the high-rise buildings across the bay, but it takes at least an hour to get into town even to shop for basic groceries. There are busses but they are infrequent; the taxi-drivers seem to have two sets of prices and we are definitely not getting the cheaper tariff.

We took our time about checking in since we would only be granted a 90-day tourist visa. I wanted to make sure we would not be pressured to leave once Kathleen returned from Germany in mid-March. We hired Israel, an older taxi-driver, to chauffeur us around to all the stations of the cross involved with the check-in: Aduana (customs); Quarantina (Health); Migración (Immigration) and Capitania de Puerto (Port Captain). With Israel’s help this all went relatively smoothly and, to be fair, the bureaucrats were all friendly and pretty straightforward. We got it all done in a only a few hours despite the fact that we had to travel quite a few miles to touch base at all the offices. By comparison to the sleepy port of Bahía de Caraquéz or Manta in Ecuador, Panamá City is of course a hugely international harbour and therefore has a completely different flavour to it.


Parts of Panamá City are typical Third World; crowded, hot, dirty and teeming with people. Panamá is perhaps better off economically than other Latin American countries - it seems to have replaced Miami as the crossroads of finances for Latin America, and the huge numbers of new high-rises are the outward expression of this. But like most of Latin America, there are huge gradients in the standard of living and wealth of the people; i.e., there is a small elite with lots of money while most people are left to scrabble for their existence. Panamá is also considered a safe haven for flight money. Whenever Chavez opens his mouth, for example, more money pours in within a few days from Venezuela. Although they no longer actually “own” the Panamá Canal, perhaps international hot money thinks the U.S. Marines will always nix any threats to private property here. Whether its true or not, everyone here tells you that most of the money comes from illegal drug trafficking. Columbia is after all only next door.

Some parts of Panama City are definite No Go Areas and even taxi drivers will not enter them at night. The same applies apparently to some country highways after dark. Then there is the old Canal Zone, which contains all the Panamá Canal buildings erected pre-World War One (the first ship, the Ancon, went through in August 1914) by the U.S. Corps of engineers to manage the construction and, later, the administration of the Canal. It has been “civilisanised” now but, unlike the downtown areas, gives off somewhat the same atmosphere as a military camp, which of course it was for close to 100 years. There is lots of green grass and trees and the buildings have a garrison flavour even though many have been modernised as housing or offices. There are no strip malls and no billboards.

Never having been in Panamá City before, it also took a while to find somebody who could take care of our boat repair. Jim Lang is a New Zealander with many years of wooden-boot experience. He lives permanently here now and has lots of wooden-boat projects. Mostly he works out of the commercial-fishing yard at Vacamonte, about 40 Km west of here and has a team of local craftsmen. But he also works on boats at Balboa Yacht Club where they can be hauled up on the marine ways there. The problem is to get a few days on the ways since this, the dry season, is when the international fleet of cruising boats is having hulls painted or other work done before crossing the Pacific or passing through the Canal to the Caribbean. The earliest we could schedule was Carneval weekend starting 23 February. Not only is that a wait of about six weeks, a period during which Vilisar could not be sailed, I secretly wonder whether any locals will be prepared to work at all over Carneval.


With a sigh, I accept what I can get and am trying to get my mind around making the best of Panamá City as a batchelor. Kathleen is scheduled to leave for Baltimore and Frankfurt today, 15 January. At least, when she returns, I think the boat work will have been completed and we can get on with cruising while the NE Trades season lasts. I leave aside the ongoing fundamental discussion about where our next cruise should actually take us and, indeed, whether there will even be a next cruise. The hardships and discomforts of the windward voyage up here before Christmas are fading in our memories, and it is hard to be against sailing when the weather is so perfect. But, the discussion is ongoing.

Shortly before leaving Ecuador I had broken a crown off one my molars and our friends Philip and Leslie of S/V Carina bring me to a good dental clinic here in Panamá City after we arrive. After completing the Check-in Cha-cha, I find myself in a dental stool with Dr. Erasmus Aries, an American-trained odontólogo (dentist), while he probes inside my mouth. A very professional gentlemen in a very modern group practice. The bottom line is that not only will I need a root-canal job, but the crown will have to be replaced and I will therefore also need a completely new bridge. “In excess of $1,500”, he announces, which sounds more like $2,000.


I had not contemplated travelling to Europe with Kathleen. But, only two days before Kathleen’s departure, the economics have now changed. Hunting around on the internet Kathleen finds me a round trip ticket to Frankfurt for under $1,000 and we book it. I will not be going to Baltimore and will actually arrive in Germany two weeks before she does, although we will return at the same time (09 March), albeit with different airlines and different routings. I touch base with Jim Lang, rebook the marine ways for mid-March and pack my bags. I have a serious deficit on winter clothing! Shoes, as opposed to sandals, are a challenge as well.


We use the time before Kathleen departs to visit one or two sites of interest. Using local busses we spend a Sunday visiting the famous Miraflores Locks, for example, to watch cargo ships and yachts pass through. I had offered to be a line-handler for the S/V Legacy (Chris & Heather) on the 20/21 January but will now have to have that experience when we return. For the moment we can just watch other sailboats passing through. A day later we also go on a tour by motorised-dugout canoe up the River Chagras (the fresh-water source of all the water used for the canal locks) to visit the Imberra Drua Indian village.

This morning at 0600 I row Kathleen into the dock where Israel is waiting to take her to the airport. After the closeness of life together on a small sailboat, losing your mate is like separating Siamese twins. I find it a wrench each time but at least this time it is only for a couple of weeks.