05/29/2010, Shelter Bay, Colon, Panama
When I woke up on Sunday morning, we could see the high
mountains (one thousand metres) of Panama to our South. We headed West
and more and more converged with the coast. There are plenty of very
beautiful coves and cays here; a stretch that Imelda, the children and I
will explore on our way to the San Blas Islands. It is a remote place
that only slowely gets discovered.
The wind was completely gone and it felt hotter than ever! We stopped
Queenie for a refreshing swim in the sea despite the sea temperature of
29 degrees. We drifted ENE at 0.8 knots with the Equatorial Counter
Current. However, our drift was the same as the boat's.
We quickly approached the opening of the breakwater of Colon / Cristobal
harbour and the Atlantic opening of the Panama Canal. It was slightly
confusing as we approached; not helped by a partly faulty VHF system and
not knowing who controlled the traffic and the rules of the approach. I
was later to understand it is Cristobal Signal Station that controls
the movements; fantastic name isn't it old fashioned signal stations
just like at Bridgetown, Barbados, not VTSs (the modern "Vessel Traffic
Schemes").
We made the last mile along the inside of the Western brakewater passing
by lots of anchored ships into the little corner called Shelter Bay. It
is a remarkable location both just a mile or two from the one of the
most important cross roads of the world, but also immensely remote in
the rainforest and kilometers away from the next settlement. Shelter Bay
Marina is built at the former US Military Base Sherman and some of its
scattered buildings are slowely being reclaimed by the rainforest.
It is something special to arrive at a legendary cross road. The Panama
Canal is one of the most important of those. There is an immense amount
of shipping around. I think we have more AIS targets (i e ships popping
up on our "Automatic Identification System") here than in the English
Channel.
It was a mistake to think that we smoothly could clear into Panama on a
Sunday. We kept the time schedule, but it was going to be both time
consuming and expensive. We got conflicting advice from all parties we
spoke to. However, we had soon appointed a Shipping Agent.
As our taxi scuttled past the massive Gatun locks; I felt the
significance of the place. It is a master piece of engineering and of
key importance for trade. It is either here or around Cape Horn you pass
from the Atlantic to the Pacific; barring the North West Passage. The
taxi continue to speed pass the rough down town of Christobal and
through the military road blocks into the harbour. We had arrived at
Fenton's Ship Agency. We were very well received and one of the most
curious things was that they didn't want to charge a fixed price for
their services. It was up to us to tip.
The ship agent was going to wisk us through eeriely empty (on a Sunday)
harbour offices, walk us around the rough streets of Cristobal in search
of a working ATM to get some more US dollars. It was a bizarre
experience meeting officials called out this Sunday to help us (but also
asking one nonsense question after another for bureacracy's sake) in a
an equally bizarre setting of these massive docks. It got dark before we
had returned to Shelter Bay and could start the real work of shutting
down the boat.