THE PANAMA PASSAGE

View from Captn' Jacks

Tuesday

Tow start the KTM and we are on the rode by 8. I can’t believe the amount of police on the road. There is literally one cycle cop every 5kms along the road looking for speeders.

Captain Jacks Hostel, Puerto Bello PA.

We had one security check where they checked our passports and drivers license. I pulled out my international drivers license for the first time. By now it’s been in my jacket for 8 weeks getting folded, mutilated and wet. Anyway he looks at it as if he’s never seen one before. He didn’t even get to my picture and hands it back with a shrug. He goes through the same thing with Max and John then waves us on. After all the stories of roadblocks and crooked cops we haven’t had to pay a bribe yet. Having 3 of us instead of 1 helps a lot. Plus my helmet cam may play a part.  Anyway we managed to hook around Panama City without getting lost. The next thing we know we are on the bridge going over the Canal with a great view both ways.  A very impressive sight. After crossing we found ourselves on a beautiful jungle road winding it’s way to a big, fast toll road to Colon. From there we turned North up the coast highway to Portobelo. We made it!!!!!!!!!!!

Puerto Bello Street

This is where we catch the sailboat to Cartagena, Columbia and has been in question since the POS KTM started acting up. I was so happy to get here I didn’t even get out of my riding gear before the celebration began starting with beer and ending with a “Don’t Screw with Me”, dark rum and orange juice. We stayed at Captain Jacks, a hostel that I fell in love with at first sight. Bar, Restaurant and private room. Can’t beat that for $11 bucks a night. Talk about a place to meet interesting characters, this little port is a magnet for world cruisers. Not the kind we get in Skagway but the kind that sail their sailboats boats around the world. I met this one guy (of course I forgot to get his name) that holds the Guinness Book of World Records for circumnavigating the globe sailing west to the East. Captain Jack has also sailed around the world living in some way cool places along the way.

Loading 1 of 4 KTM950 to take out to boat
We will run into them later on the trip

Portobelo once was the richest port in the whole Caribbean but now is a very laid back village with fishing and drinking it’s main pastime. The locals seemly are living right at minimal poverty. There is one grocery story, a few places to stay and some of the most impressive ruins I’ve seen. The fort there was built in the 1500’s and most of it is still there. It was built by Spain to house the gold and silver brought overland from the west. Of course this place became a magnet for pirates. This is the place that inspired Pirates of The Caribbean. Pirates destroyed the town at least three different times. Very little restoration has taken place so most of it stands untouched (except the northern portion which the Army Core of Engineers felt necessary to dismantle and use the materials for a breakwater while constructing the Panama Canal). There is also a 2 story customs house still standing that was built in the 1600’s that is being used as a museum of sorts. 

Bummer!

Wednesday Nov. 8

The day has come. Today we load the bikes on the catamaran Fritz The Cat. I have to say I’ve been feeling a little anxious about this. Loading my 600# moto on a sailboat that is moving up and down on a 8” wet plank sloped at 30 degrees has giving me pause. When we arrived at the dock they were in the process of loading another guys KLR. There were 5 or 6 locals “helping” which didn’t do much to help my anxiety. The guy was trying to ride the bike up the ramp and began spinning the rear wheel. It looked bad but with the “help” of the locals they got it on board. I should take this moment explain my thoughts when I first laid eyes on the boat. “It’s too frigg’n small to hold 6 bikes and 15 passengers!”. The boat is 15 mts x 8.5 mts and after loading and stowing all the gear I  still think “it’s too frigg’n small!”

Waiting for my turn

Anyway it’s what we have and I’m making the best of it. After watching the first two bikes get loaded it was Max’s turn. Of course we all know by now it won’t start so they have no choice but to push it up the plank. It went up without a hitch. No screaming engine, no spinning rear tire, no problem. This is a boat that has made this crossing 94 times. I’m assuming they had bikes on it most crossings and each time the poor rider had to ride their bike up the plank. Anyway it was so easy to push Max’s bike we decided to try pushing my fat gal up the plank. No sweat! All that worrying for nothing! They found room to lash all 6 bikes down and we are on our way to Cartagenia Columbia! The captain is a big jolly Austrian with an infectious laugh. He has a girlfriend of 18 years who also helps on board and a young guy named Jose who helps with the boat and cooks.

Bikes all loaded

 Briner has accurately described the boat as a “floating Hostel at sea.” Fritz assigns every one a cabin. Max and Johns cabin is 2.5’x 7’ x 6’ high. In it there is one small fan that works and a 8” x 12” vent hatch at the top for limited ventilation. There are also two beds, an upper (Johns) and a lower (Max’s). The lower one is shaped to fit within the pontoon and feels much like a sarcophagus must feel like if lying in one. They are the lucky ones. I’ve been assigned to a large bed in the salon that measures 7’ x 6’. This bed is to accommodate 4 people! These are not friends, nor family but complete strangers. I decide to take my changes on the aft deck and find a small corner that I can call my own. This works well as long as I can out last our rum-drinking friends on board who use this area as party central.

At sea finally

The boat itself has a mainsail and a Jib and uses a 75hp diesel engine to supplement the wind. It actually has two engines but one seems to have some issue with the main bearings so we will use one for this trip. One is fine unless it quits then its wind power! Slower but quieter.  We have the bikes loaded, gear stowed and all the passports stamped by 15:30 and we set sail at 16:00. We are sailing SE along the Panama coast heading for the San Blas Islands. We reach our first stop in the San Blas at 23:00 and anchor for the night.

Thursday

Sleeping on deck allows me to wake with the sun and I’m up at 6. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. This is an island paradise!

We are anchored in a bay that’s protected on four sides with small islands and a reef with only a very narrow passage to get the boat through. The water is turquoise and there is a tiny island right in front of the boat that has two thatched huts. The family is just getting their day started and you can see a fire going between the huts and a woman shaking out the sleeping mats. I feel like a peeping tom but am intrigued with the whole scene. These are the Kuna people. They are the indigenous people of the area who occupy the San Blas Archipelago. They still live a very primitive lifestyle. Their main income is selling coconuts but they also make and sell different crafts, mostly beaded jewelry and occasionally sell back to the dealers the bricks of cocaine that wash up on their beaches.  Our skipper warns us not to take any coconuts off the islands but to buy them from the natives. The cost ….25c. We spend the day snorkeling around the reefs and drinking rum.

 The food on board is great and we get 3 large meals a day. Fritz was a chef in a previous life and has trained Jose well! Tonight we travel just 4 hours to our next anchorage.

Friday

After breakfast we all go snorkeling. Some of the guys take along spear guns and return with a lionfish. These things have poisonous stingers on their bodies but evidentially are worth the trouble of cleaning because they taste so good. We then moved to another place and anchored up. The snorkeling here was superb with many different types of coral and a huge variety of fish. The biggest I saw was a Stingray about a meter across. Another night of rum and music sleeping on the deck and living the dream….

Kuna house

Saturday

After breakfast a bunch of us took the dingy over to a nearby island to meet some locals and explore a little. While we were motoring across a couple of Kuna women are paddling a dugout canoe (their main means of transportation) out to our boat but when they saw us they turned around and followed us back to their village. The village (an Island about 300 yards long by 75 yards long) consisted of a half dozen thatched huts, three dogs, a few scrawny chickens, a duck (a type I’ve never seen before) and maybe twenty men, women and children. The women dress in colorful skirts and have these beaded strands woven around their ankles and calves. The children and men dress much like we do. They are very friendly and immediately go get their good they sell and spread them out on the sand (I guess we are not the first white people they’ve had visit them).

A Kuna Woman

 I’m bummed I didn’t bring any money; shit I didn’t even have a quarter for a coconut! From a distance these islands look perfect but when you get close you see that they all are lined with plastic garbage that has washed up from all over the globe. They do use some stuff to build their homes, nylon rope, some pieces of roofing and the like but they have little use for the plastic bottles, various plastic shoes (these never travel in pairs) and all other sorts of garbage that doesn’t decompose. So there it all sits along the shores of these beautiful tiny islands. At 17:00 we wey anchor and begin our crossing to Cartagena. The weather hasn’t been the greatest with lots of rain but it so turns worse. Thunder, lightning and relatively big seas take its toll on just about everyone on board. My little corner of the boat becomes the sick bay and I’m out of a home.

The captain has a no hard alcohol rule while out on the open ocean but has little trouble enforcing it, the last thing anybody, including me, wants is a bolt of rum!  Most of the passengers that have enjoyed the privacy of their own cabins have now decided the open air of the aft deck out trumps the privacy of their rooms.

The social area, i.e. my sleeping quarters

Fortunately for me Briner is also feeling a little punky and decides what little space that is left on the aft deck would be better than his and Max’s stuffy room so I grab his bunk for the night. Now that we are underway we all take watch shifts. The skipper has the boat on autopilot and needs eyes out to look for other boats and wake him if we go off course. I volunteer for the early morning shift.

Sunday

 I’m up at 05:00 and enjoy the early morning with John watching out for boats and generally just shooting the shit.  The morning finds little improvement on the condition of the weather and of the people on board.

Sea sick passengers

No one is in the partying mood anymore and they just want to feel better. Around noon the weather improves and the sea dies down allowing us to go up front and get some much needed fresh air. I spend most of the afternoon laying around on the forward trampling (if that’s how you spell it). I also did some map work today and it almost looks doable to get to Cusco by the 23th. That is if all the border crossings go well and the POS KTM holds up. What could possibly go wrong!

Monday

Well the first thing that could go wrong did go wrong. When we docked this morning Fritz informed us our passports would not be stamped until tonight and our bikes are to remain on the boat until tomorrow morning. This means any chance of an early start for Medellen tomorrow has been nixed. We’ll probably spend all morning getting the bikes imported into Columbia and not get on the road until the afternoon at the earliest!

Cartagena!

Fritz The Cat, Caragena CO.

Captian Fritz and his lovely girlfriend Tulay