The Panama Pacific Coast
November 13th, 2004
We have been in cloudy Panama for 11 days now. The skis finally cleared yesterday, putting an end to my less than sunny mood and giving us a chance to see just how beautiful this area is. We have just begun to detect a slight change in weather pattern indicating the ending of the rainy season. Thank God! I am looking forward to ridding the boat of the excessive green fuzzy mold growing in every corner and closet of the boat. Unfortunately, my cousin Tina says that one never really gets rid of mold on a boat while in the tropics. Darn,
The Panama Pacific Coast is dotted with lots and lots of islands, with thick jungle vegetation leading right down to the water line. Most of the islands are uninhabited, unlike the one we stopped at 2 days ago which has a population of about 600 people. The island has no roads so all transportation is via dug out canoes. Upon anchoring, we were promptly met by two such dugouts with a handful of kids offering bananas and limes in exchange for anything, food, clothing or school supplies. When we visited their tiny village of 3 small tiendas (stores) we discovered that no one had eggs, milk or meat to sell. One local man who has made an effort (and living I suppose) supplying food to visiting cruisers had to go to his relatives to find 4 eggs and a chicken, which because of the demand, was right off the chopping block!
The feeling of remoteness associated with stopping at an uninhabited island 40 miles off shore is a bit eerie, even for me. Yesterday, when we anchored at one such island, I had an unusual uneasiness about me, which I could not quite explain. I didn’t really feel comfortable diving in an unfamiliar location, so very far away from help, so we decided to take a dinghy ride just to see the perimeter of the island. Imagine our surprise and elevated pulse when we saw what we thought looked like another boat next to our boat as we rounded a point while returning to the boat! It turned out to be a few curious local fishermen interested in selling us lobster or red snapper in exchange for fishing lures. We have never run into any scary situation while on the Pacific side, but know all too well that circumstances are often different on the Caribbean side
We will continue our island hopping for the next several days until we reach the Panama City area where we will begin the process of, and the waiting for our turn to transit the Panama Canal.
Transit the Panama Canal with us, probably shortly after Thanksgiving. I hope all of you have a terrific Thanksgiving and are able to spend it with family or close friends. I don’t know what we will do, or where we will be for that matter, but we will be thinking of all of you, on this, our second Thanksgiving at sea!
Love,
Jeri and Michael
