First Canal Transit!

Greetings from Shelter Bay Marina!

   We have been here for a few days now and enjoying some down time as well as preparing for the Pacific Ocean. In order to transit the Canal, boats are required to have 5 people on board as "line handlers." Ian the captain of Yantina asked me if I would transit with them Saturday into Sunday, so I got my first canal experience this past weekend! Quester is going through tomorrow along a with 12 other Oysters. I have some pictures of the first transit, and as you can see they rafted up 3 Oysters and had them motor in together. A strong cross breeze made for an stressful few hours of motoring through the locks. We went through the Gatun locks into the lake on Saturday afternoon tied up next to a 46 boat named Flower Girl. We spent he night at the anchorage on the other side of the locks. The morning started out with some excitement when the anchor alarm going off at about 5:15 am, due to the fact that the wind had shifted. Normally this isn't a problem, but since the canal is such a high traffic area we had to anchor extremely close to shore, and when the wind shifted we spun dangerously close to a rock bulked. Ian and I were able to pull up the anchor and avoided catastrophe, and just motored around until our canal transit adviser arrived at 6am.
 
  The morning continued with excitement as the yacht Babe! accidentally started playing chicken with a 800ft tanker crusing at 15 kts. After the tanker let out 5 loud blasts from the fog horn they managed to steer clear of any danger with a few hundred feet to spare. We continued along the channel an onto the "cut" which is the narrowest stretch of the canal. We passed two Panamax (Panamax is the largest possible ship the locks can fit measuring 975 ft long and 105 ft wide), tankers heading east along the way through the cut and had to thread the needle between the ships and the shore. Ian let me pilot Yantina the whole day on Sunday as we motored through the canal and up alongside Dreams Come True and tossed over some dock lines to complete the raft. Dreams Come True was the middle boat, and In Flagranti (my favorite Oyster name... http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/in_flagranti ) was the other side.

   We made it through the Milaflores Locks without incident and underneath the Bridge of the Americas and anchored at the La Playita Marina near Panama City. Look for another update of Questers crossing when we get there on Wednesday.

Panamania!

Greetings from mainland Panama!

Today we sailed from Isle Grande to Portobelo, Panama. We originally pulled into port here because we needed a repair on our main sail, and were happy to find a nice little town in the harbor. I was even more excited to find a small bar/restaurant run by Captain Jack from New Jersey. After a successful run with a chemical company, Jack bought, Fantasy, his 45 ft sailboat and cruised the world, finally settling in Panama. He has provided cruisers with everything from food and internet to parts and hotel rooms and is a lifesaver. Our new friend Manuel is repairing the sail tomorrow and will hopefully have it back in the afternoon. We will spend another night here tomorrow and then complete the Caribbean part of our trip in Shelter Bay Marina. This is the last stop before the canal transit. There is a live feed for the locks of the canal which you will be able to see here: http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html
Right now it looks like the oysters will starting transiting through on the 16th through the 19th. When we know our date for sure I will update so you can watch the chaos as a dozen Oysters are crammed into the locks together. Should make for an interesting few days. We will use our time in Shelter Bay to make some small repairs and get the necessary provisions for the next month or so, since we are not banking on being able to resupply in the Galapagos.
I will update from Shelter Bay as soon as we get a definite on our dates, so check back in a few days.

A big hug to the Rich family for all you guys are going through, my thoughts are with you guys.

San Blas Islands, Panama

            Our sail from Cartagena to the San Blas Islands of Panama started off well with strong winds, but eventually the seas caught up with the wind and made for another wild ride, although at this point, we are getting use to it (sort of). With just me Deb and Mike and 3-5 meter waves, sleep didn’t come too easily, but we survived. It took us 3 days to get to Porvenir, which is the main Island in the San Blas chain, and the only one with a customs office. Although we were initially a bit frustrated that we had to spend the night anchored off of Porvenir because customs was a two day affair, we had a friendly Kuna Indian paddle by in a dugout canoe selling lobsters. We bought two and boiled them up for dinner and they tasted fantastic.

            The next morning we sailed 12 miles east to Elephante Island since we heard it was the only one with a resturant and internet, which is where I am at the moment. While they do have internet, there are only two wires running across the bar to plug into your computer, I am able to post some pictures of the San Blas Islands.

            I went spearfishing today, and was initially planning on swimming around a nearby island, a scary close encounter with a Portuguese Man o War made me change my plans. Instead I dove around the boat, but was unable to find any lobster or big enough fish to shoot. Hopefully tomorrow it will be a little sunnier and I will be able to find some dinner. We are planning on spending a few more days here before leaving for Portabello, and than Shelter Bay Marina next to the Canal. 

I will try to update in Shelter Bay.

Colombia!

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Santa Marta and Cartagena

            We arrived in Santa Marta, Colombia on the 19^th and had quite an exciting end to our Journey. With the Caribbean Sea spraying into the cockpit being driven by 40kt winds, we finally rounded the last point and found ourselves in the protected (sort of) Santa Marta Marina. We later learned that just a few weeks ago, the winds got up to 50+ kts in the marina, and we saw several boats getting bimini tops and covers repaired. Santa Marta is one of the biggest cities in Colombia, but we spend most of our time near the marina on the main road with a few shops and restaurants. We took a taxi ride over to the nearby fishing village called Taganga for lunch and a visit to a dive shop for some needed parts.  The next day we heard about a nearby town on top of a mountain where Coffee beans are grown called Minca and scheduled a ride up. We met up with our guide and piled in his Land Cruiser for a ride up the dirt road and arrived in time for lunch, before heading out on a hike to a beautiful waterfall. We cooled off with a brief swim and a leap from a little cliff into the deep pool at the bottom of the falls.

            After 5 days in Santa Marta we departed for Cartagena, and broke the trip into 2 days by spending the night in an anchorage along the way. We experienced high winds again along the way which made for a rough and rolly ride, and were relieved when we turned into the harbor and out of the big seas. This time of year is incredibly windy in the south western Caribbean Sea, and some of the Oysters have experienced winds well over 50 kts.

            Cartagena had a new marina that is not yet open to the public, but the owners were nice enough to allow the Oysters to tie up for a few nights. Pandemonium beat us there, and a few days after arriving we were joined by Purusa and Aequitas. Cartagena a very old city with a rich and interesting history, however, you have to be fluent in Spanish to learn anything from the museums. Luckily I knew a few keys words in Spanish that have allowed me to get by: Bano, Cerveza and Wifi. I was also fortunate enough to stumble across a Hard Rock Café in the old walled city which, to my relief, had a few English speaking waiters.

            So far we haven’t had the best luck fishing, and are still waiting to get one on the boat, although I had a 45 minute battle with a 75 lb Wahoo, he was able to get off the hook while I was hauling him up onto the swim platform. Hopefully our luck improves soon.