Wk 68-69: San Blas to Shelter Bay (73nm)

We slowly made our way back to Colon from San Blas in preparation for our canal transit and the holidays, meeting friends old and new along the way (including an unexpected stowaway) and ending with a wonderful Christmas at Shelter Bay.

First Mate’s Log

Dec 15: What started as a quiet day FaceTiming family was jarred by a surprise visit from the Panamanian army. We heard a “hello” from outside, which we assumed were the local Guna coming to offer us seafood or molas, but Alec poked his head up to discover actually a boat full of people in fatigues, including a man in a balaclava. Several of the soldiers were already halfway through boarding our boat. We initially thought this might be some sort of pirate attack and prepared for the worst, but it turned out to be a friendly visit / photo op that was clearly being staged as a way to show that the army are working to protect cruisers in the area. I’d feel safer if they didn’t scare the crap out of us coming to visit!! Once mentally recovered, I decided to go for a last Atlantic snorkel (next time we have places to snorkel we’ll be in the Pacific Ocean!). Took the dinghy a long way out to a spot marked on the chart. Vis was fantastic and lots of pretty coral. Found a small cut through that led to the outer reef and a big drop off. There were a huge number of fish here, including the most parrot fish I think I’ve ever seen in one place and an enormous triggerfish who scared me half to death when I turned to discover him only a few feet away giving me the stink eye. Downside of the day was that the no-see-ums found me again, despite all our nets – really don’t like those bugs!!

Dec 16: It was my turn to skipper, with 46nm on the docket for today’s journey to Linton. On the way to San Blas, we stayed far from shore, in the deep water, to pick up a favourable current. On our way back, we decided to hug the shore, to keep out of what would now be an opposing force. Strangely enough, we discovered a counter current close to shore, meaning we veritably flew along at 7-8 knots for much of the journey (full disclosure – we motor sailed so we could make water, so this definitely artificially improved our speed too!). Arrived sooner than expected to find a bustling marina full of kind cruisers, including our friends on Azimuth! To top it all off, a dolphin came into the marina and we watched it go after fish right in front of the boat. What a way to end the day!!

Dec 17: Decided we liked Linton Marina enough to stay an extra day, with the added bonus that Lisa and Stephen would show me how to get the bus to the big grocery store in Colón. Alec stayed with Serenity to work through some more of the ever-present jobs list, while off I went at first light to catch the bus. The busses are all ex-US school busses, which brought back a lot of memories, though the driving style is a little different!! The busses are each painted with unique and impressive intricate air-brush art, and decorated with fancy exhaust pipes, colourful stickers and a smattering of flashing lights. You certainly can’t miss them! Despite the breakneck speed, it still took two hours to get to Colón, with precious little in between. I drastically over-purchased at the store, but thankfully Stephen and Lisa were kind enough to help me carry my bags. Our return was a heck of a mission, involving changing busses part way, the next bus being full and having to get a taxi back, but we made it in the end! Alec had also had a long day fixing things, but our just reward awaited us – a pizza truck comes to the marina on Tuesday nights and boy was it delicious!! Azimuth brought theirs round to Serenity and we had a nice final catch up over our food. Very glad we got to see these guys again here in Panama! But tomorrow we are off – Colón and the canal are waiting!

Dec 18: Busy morning doing last chores and taking last advantage of marina facilities. Refilled at the fancy fuel dock, said our goodbyes to Azimuth and were on our way. Wind was on the nose so it was a long afternoon motoring, but we made the best of it listening to podcasts, doing laundry and other bits. The wind and chop continued to increase, slowing us down a lot, but we made it through the breakwater with a touch of light left in the sky and had the anchor set just before dark. The dismal weather set in shortly after and we took the cue for an early night.

Dec 19: A rare sunny morning dawned, so I rushed to hang up my laundry while I had the chance. A day nicely split between jobs and chilling. Tried out a new podcast “Have you heard of George’s podcast?” that we really enjoyed, cooked up an enormous batch of chilli and finished the evening with the first episode of the BBC’s His Dark Materials (based on Phillip Pullman’s Northern Lights series).

Dec 20-22: Decided that a few days stuck in the bay in Colón was as good a time as any to try to, for once, actually get ahead on our jobs list. We tackled routine maintenance (Hydrovane, steering, batteries, gas, fire extinguishers, wiring and hatches) plus a few lingering projects (watermaker air leak, rain catcher mode for the Bimini, VHF intermittency) and life admin (insurance and canal prep). A nightly episode of the BBC’s His Dark Materials series was a welcome reward for our efforts, plus we worked our way through quite a lot snacks…

Dec 23: Headed into Shelter Bay Marina for a few days on the dock. This was partially practically motivated because we needed to replace our damaged shroud and buy a ton of food for the canal, but also we hoped would prove a fun place to spend the holidays. We headed in as soon as the marina opened (when we pay to moor, we want to maximise our time!) and got down to business on the rig repair. An unexpected stowaway made for quite an unusual day… see the Story of the Week below! Rig successfully fixed and tuned, we treated ourselves to a pizza at the marina restaurant to celebrate.

Dec 24: We took the marina bus into town to the big supermarket to stock up so we could feed our many line handlers during the canal transit. As you might expect, the mall was packed and elbows were needed to get down the grocery aisles, but we managed to get all our errands done and still make the return bus in time. Back at the marina, I butted heads with the ladies who ran the laundry, leaving me to have to hang wet clothes all around the boat to dry while we tried to clean and reorganise all our stuff to make space for 4 extra people to sleep. Alec discovered one of the boats down the dock, Venture Lady, was due to transit the canal with us, so we invited Alison and Andy around for a sundowner and had a great time getting to know them. We were so exhausted by the end of the day we couldn’t face cooking, and decided Christmas was as good an excuse as we might ever get for a second restaurant night in a row!

25 Dec: Merry Christmas! Okay, I admit, we actually openned our presents last night. We were too excited. There was no one around to tell us we couldn’t! Spent a lovely day in the kitchen preparing all the food for the canal transit plus cooking up our contributions for the Christmas cruiser potluck that evening. Celebrated with some sparkling fizz when the canal food was finally done, and then headed down to the pot luck with some astonishingly good roast potatoes AND guacamole, all courtesy of chef Alec! Had a wonderful Christmas dinner with our friends from Venture Lady, and met quite a few new faces, including a couple from Godalming (practically next door to Alec’s family home in Clandon!). Retired at what our new friends dubbed “cruisers’ midnight” (i.e. about 9pm) with full bellies and full hearts :).

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Story of the Week: Snake on a Boat

If you don’t like snakes, now might the be a good time to stop reading. “Snakes?” you say. “What do they have to do with anything? I thought in the First Mate’s log you said you were working on fixing your rig?”

Before Steve the rigger came by to replace our faulty wire, we wanted to check the rest of the rig over to be sure we didn’t need him to look at anything else while he was with us. It had been pouring with rain for days, this morning no exception, but by 10:30ish it had slowed to just a drizzle and it seemed the best window we might get for me to head up the mast. I always start at the very top, checking the backstay and the instruments and lights, before coming down to where the cap shrouds and forestay attach a few feet below. On the way up, I hadn’t noticed anything untoward, and completed my inspection at the top quickly. I shouted to Alec to lower me a few feet to check the other rig connections, but as I started to descend I noticed something was off. There was something different. My brain was clearly struggling to reconcile the information it was receiving from my eyes with its expectations of reality. After a few double takes, it dawned on me that, yes, that was a reasonably sized snake curled (quite happily it seemed) near the top of the forestay where the roller furlex is.

Many four letter words ensued. I made a rather futile attempt to distance myself from my foe by grabbing onto the backstay to swing away from the mast, but this merely afforded me a foot or so of clearance. My shouting brought Steve over from his boat nearby. When he enquired as to the problem, I politely informed him that there was “a ****ing snake on top of the ****ing forestay!!!!!!!!” In my defence, it could have been some sort of horrifically deadly viper, so I’m sure my reaction was justified.

After a few minutes of not dying (in fact, the snake seemed utterly unperturbed by my presence), I started to get a little less panicky. Thankfully, I had my phone with me, so I took a few pictures of Mr. Snake and texted them down to Alec and Steve to see if they could work out what type it was. Steve jovially reported that it was “merely” a boa constrictor, whose bite would really bloody hurt but would not be life threatening. In fact, he’d seen them on boats before (though admittedly never up the mast), and said it seemed to be they sometimes came aboard seeking shelter after prolonged rains. Delightful.

This is where things really took a turn, in my book, as Steve calmly called up that all I needed to do was grab the snake behind the head, pull him off the forestay, and chuck him into the sea. To reassure me, he emphasised that they are good swimmers, so he’d be fine. That didn’t help me really, though, because to be honest I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to be fine or not at this stage. There was much deliberation and the commotion meant many of the residents of the other boats along the dock had poked heads out to see what all the fuss was. I soon realised that my only option to save any sort of face was to return Mr. Snake to the sea as instructed. I then spent a good 5+ minutes reminding myself that 1) I like snakes (its true, though the context really threw me for a loop), 2) this one wasn’t really all that big and 3) if I grabbed him quickly and in the right place he wouldn’t be able to bite me.

Eventually, I rather surprised myself by actually managing to do it. Mr. Snake was mildly annoyed that I’d grabbed him, but didn’t freak out as I’d expected. In fact, he helpfully uncoiled himself from the forestay, making my job much easier. As soon as he was free I gingerly tossed him away from the boat and watched him splash safely into the water. He popped his head straight up again and swam casually away along the surface of the water. Just another afternoon in the jungle I guess? Alec managed to get video proof, which I invite you to enjoy:

I have to say I am proud of myself for not only managing to remove Mr. Snake but also leaving him unharmed. Once he was off my boat I found I liked him much better and so I was pleased to see him happily swimming off. Another wildlife encounter for the books – boat life really is full of surprises!

Parting thoughts: Happy Merry!

I shan’t even try to follow my snake story, so I simply want to say that I hope you all had the most magical of holiday seasons! Christmas far away from loved ones is not as exotic and glamorous as we sometimes try to make it look, and being on our own reminded us just how lucky we are to have so many wonderful friends and family to miss. Thank you for all your support during our crazy boat adventure, it has meant the world to us!