GETTING STARTED IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST PART!
Las Brisas anchorage, Balboa, Panamá City, Panamá, Monday, 22 June 2009

Last-minute preparations for a departure are fraught at the best of times. There are so many things that you need to do in the final hours: shopping for fresh produce; topping up water and fuel, installing offshore-sailing gear like the windvane-steering tab, jack lines, and even bending on sails that were being stored out of the tropical UV rays in the forepeak. We had intended to leave several weeks ago and had even stocked up on potatoes and onions and lots and lots of tinned foods. Then we decided that we should have the welding work done by Ali, the German welder here in the anchorage. Although we are totally happy with the work and have enjoyed Ali’s individualistic character and his endlessly-interesting stories and yarns from his over thirty years aboard a sailing vessel, the welding work (safety handholds in the cockpit and mounts for the solar panels) took more time than we had expected. Meanwhile we were either eating up our rations or the fresh fruits and vegetables were starting to go bad. Man! How can we get out of here?!

In time, all the welding is completed and we are back to last-minute things again including another hectic visit to El Abastos, the wholesale fruits and vegetables market, carting jugs of diesel out to the boat, etc. One of the biggest and newest items for us has been re-activating our Iridium satellite telephone. We already owned the Motorola 9500-model phone, a re-conditioned apparatus that we had bought second-hand for C$ 700 from Strykers at Port Hardy at the northern tip of Vancouver Island in 2002. At that time I was still translating every day for the Franfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a national daily newspaper in Germany. Although we were able to get excellent communications in even the remotest fjord or channel in northern British Columbia and SE Alaska, we alas were only able to use the phone for about a month before the newspaper announced that they were going to discontinue the English-language print edition. This was a personal financial blow made worse by the fact that, due to our inexperience on how to use the satphone economically, we ran up a bill for one month of over $1,000. Without work, it took months and months to work that off. With no income, we were reduced to eating blackberries and catching fish while we lay at anchor in Comox, British Columbia.

After that experience, we de-activated the satphone. The equipment has been living for the last seven years since then in a locker in Vilisar’s forepeak. Expecting to cross the South Pacific this season and knowing that Kathleen’s family would be worrying about us, we had the phone checked over by Rollo at Electriconico de Ancón. After installing a new battery, the phone seemed to be working well despite its age.

In the end we approach Marina Satellite Services in Balboa-Ancón and purchase a prepaid card valid for two months with renewal options. All this seems to take days and days and we are still at anchor at Las Brisas de Amador at the Paicfic entrance to the Panamá Canal. (If you are interested in Iridium services and costs, see below ‘Iridium satphone’.)

Finally, however, we decide that we will use the Saturday to get the boat ready and leave on Sunday after first stopping at La Playita to get the last few gallons of diesel fuel and to top up our water tanks and jugs. There seems still to be a million things to do. Stowing is complicated now by so many fresh foods that, in some cases, tomatoes or carrots for example, need to be individually wrapped and stowed. Kathleen has spent hours up in the cramped forecastle to get everything properly stowed. We took a tip from Lyn Pardy (Care and Feeding of the Offshore Crew) and bought a dozen small (approx. 12”x16), square, perforated-plastic baskets ($1.25 each at Costo in Allbrook Mall) that can be spread out and loaded with individual items when needed or stacked into one small pile when not. We even used several baskets for books and other items. In our second visit to Los Abostos, we selected different types of onions since the ones we first bought were ripening far too quickly. Rotting begetables in your boat is not something to aspire to. We also bought small watermelons (they keep well if not bruised), eight colourful small squashes (they keep for years!), and more garlic and ginger. In addition we bought more perishable items like carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, and a couple of strange vegetables that looke rather like zucchini that we shall try out. Live adventurously!

But, although primed to leave early Sunday, by Saturday night we are still feeling unprepared. We debate leaving Las Brisas in the afternoon, stopping just around the point at La Playita for fuel and water (we could actually tank up more conveniently at nearby Flemenco Marina, but, as Markus and Tina (S/V Blue Callaloo) point out, there are a lot of immigration and customs guys around Flamenco, and we were supposed to have left Panamá weeks ago!), and then motoring the seven miles over to Isla Taboga for one night. This would get the anchor up, break the ‘suction’ of our old anchorage, allow us if necessary to clean the prop and bottom in less polluted water, get a good night’s sleep and finish readying the boat.

The best laid plans of mice and men ……etc.! Sunday starts hot and humid and the daily afternoon downpour starts before we are ready to pull up the dinghy. All the sail covers and the awning, which must be stored below are soaking wet. The rain lasts for hours and, finally, we decide to take it easy, not get too excited, and leave on Monday morning. This takes all the pressure out of the situation and in the evening I prepare a nice stir-fry with chorizo sausage, green peppers, carrots and onions (lots of ‘em so they get used up before they rot) over steamed white rice. Delicious! Just after dark we continue our on-board Canasta tournament and the lights are out by about 2130.

If it’s not one thing it’s another!

I waken at dawn. The rain from yesterday has washed the sky clean and the air is invitingly sunny. At 0700 we drink a coffee and I go on deck to bail out the dinghy and unbolt the two parts. Kathleen comes on deck and we are just about to pull the dink up and place the first part over the forward hatch. It is then that I notice that the big brown sail bag with our new tan bark jibsail is not there. I had moved it last week and draped it over the hanked-on genoa to protect the latter from the UV rays and to give myself more room on the foredeck. The bag is long and heavy, and it seemed to be parked there solidly. But, as the Newfoundlanders say, there it was! Gone!

I was bowled over. It was our brand-new Yankee and the bag was new as well! Yes, we have a back-up jib, albeit rather old and full of repairs. And we have a small genoa that is already bent on. We also have a large red drifter. So we can carry on with the voyage if we have to. But what happened to the sail?

Either it was stolen off the deck (hard to imagine a local stealing a sail bag and even other cruisers would not likely steal something that might not fit their own boat). The other answer is that it fell overboard. This is possible I guess, although given its weight and size it could not just be blown overboard in the relatively light winds we have been having. Possibly it just sort of slid off over a few days.

We get out the binoculars and scour the exposed beach and waters in the bay. I also put the dinghy back together and row along the beach until I come to a big cabin cruiser where two local guys were working. I am on my way to ask around the dinghy dock and to report the loss at he marina office. I don’t have much hope, but at least it is some sort of action. Nobody any the wiser there, of course! Back at the cabin cruiser, Eduardo tells me he is a diver. He has the hookah compressor and is willing to come over immediately while the tide is out to scour around beneath the boat. At low tide we are in about 10-12 feet of water. The water here in the anchorage is very murky and basically polluted. I have already tried snorkelling this morning and visibility for me was only about five or six feet.

Eduardo and his helper Julio buzz over in their fast dinghy (these guys are just he crew on a boat belonging to a wealthy local; the dinghy and 75 hp outboard is worth more than Vilisar) and set their compressor up on deck. Unfortunately, it takes about 1500 amps and our little 500-amp inverter, even with the engine going, is not up to it. Julio and I make a tour around the anchorage to see if we can line up a 110-volt portable generator compatible with the compressor. Amazingly, the only generator we can find are 220-volt generators. Ali Europeans. In the end, Ali, the welder, brings his old but reliable 220-volt Bosch generator and an inverter that can down-step the power. But the inverter is only rated for 1000 and, although the compressor will start, it dies when it is put under load.

All this takes an hour and the water has risen quite a bit. Eduardo says he can bring his cabin cruiser over in the morning (he has to work on his boat today) and run the compressor off his onboard stationery onboard generator. He knows that works.

Ali stays for a coffee and a few more stories. By the time he leaves, it is already 1100 hr. and the sky is beginning to look ominous in the north toward Puenta de Americas. As sure as God made little green apples, we are going to get more thunder, lightening and heavy rain. It looks like it will be at least one more day before we leave Panamá City. Maybe more. We resign ourselves, happy that our mishap does not involve injury. If we can’t find the sail we shall just leave anyway with the sails we have.

Iridium satphone

We had the old 9500 model Motorola telephone handset checked out by Rollo at Electronics de Ancón apposite Freeway Laundry in Ancón. We then approached the agents for a number of marine sat services including Vizada, a French company who apparently own the Iridium satellite network. The agents here in Panamá are nearby: Marina Satellite Services SA (Calle Williamson Place, Bldg 752C, La Boca; telephone +507/314.1701; it’s near the YMCA and Freeway Laundry in Balboa-Ancón).

The choices available were as follows:

1. A monthly subscription at $41 per month plus minutes at $1.31 each ($0.79 a minute to another Iridium user). Minimum subscription period: 12 months. Billings monthly, payable via Visa or Mastercard. This works out to $492 just for the subscription but before you have made any calls. Marina Satellite Services SA also require a one-year, $500 deposit for first-time users (repayable at the end of twelve months).

2. Pre-paid cards are also available from one month ($145 for 75 minutes = $1.93/minute) up to 12 months ($698 for 500 minutes= $1.40/minute). No deposit required since the cards are pre-paid.

Iridium is primarily a voice system. But you also get a free subscription and a user ID to www.skyfile.com, Iridium’s own internet service provider (ISP). Since it is POP mail, you can prepare everything off-line and do an up- and download in one fairly quick flash on-line. (We made the mistake in 2002 of trying to use our Hotmail address. Big mistake! Be careful who you give this address to since they will forget to avoid sending photos and long attached files.)

Since we are planning to sail only until the South Pacific cyclone season starts in November (we hope to find a place to leave Vilisar safely without having to rush through to New Zealand), we decide we were better off to buy a 2-month pre-paid card ($272 for 150 minutes = $1.81) and, if we have the money and the need, renew for another one or two months when the card gets close to expiring. All payments can be made via Visa or Mastercard, and we only need to inform Marina Satellite Services SA in order to extend.

The techies at Marina Satellite loaded the Skyfile email software, and made a few test calls and email transmissions to make sure our phone actually works before we actually leave. It took them several hours, but they were patient in every way. Most of them speak English there, which made the tech conversations a little easier for us. After everything was installed and working, we actually spent another few hours in their waiting room using their wifi while they occasionally brought us coffee and the like.