Pitufa.at

The last few days we’ve been terribly busy mounting new solar panels, running through chandleries, buying provisioning–something seems to be weird with the time in Panama, it flies by and the days are never long enough for everything we want to do.
Today Christian’s sister arrived and we have a good excuse to have a break and spend some days off swimming (last time we went swimming was in the San Blas at the beginning of November…), snorkeling and relaxing. We’ll head to Taboga (a little island near Panama City) tomorrow and then on to the Las Perlas archipelago.

This year we didn’t get into a christmassy mood at all–Panama’s just too tropical for our associations of snow, red noses and stiff half-frozen fingers holding on to mugs of mulled wine…
We’ll make an effort today by baking Christmas cookies, if that doesn’t help we’ll start singing carols
We’ll spend a quiet Christmas eve aboard Pitufa, and maybe it’ll be cool enough in the evening for some mulled wine.

Merry Christmas to everybody out there travelling along with us on our blog!

Today we ventured into Panama City for the first time and even though our quest for an evaporator (for the fridge) and electronic parts lead us to the non-touristy, less pretty parts of the city we’ve decided that we like it here. The bus system is very convenient (you have the choice between comfortable but awfully cold metro buses and loud, packed old schoolbuses) and fortunately Panama City is considered safe for tourists and so we had the chance to wandered through posh residential areas, buzzing streets with elderly, slightly run down houses and plenty of litte shops, broad avenidas with flashy skyscrapers and big shopping malls–the contrast between areas in the same neighbourhood is really interesting.

Going through the Panama canal is quite a complicated procedure. First every boat needs 4 lines 125 feet long and as many tires as possible (as fenders). Then 4 linehandlers have to be on each boat (usually fellow cruisers) + the skipper. Our linehandlers from “Zenna” and “Tagtraeumer” will arrive tomorrow in the afternoon at Club Nautico. We’ll then go over to the Flats anchorage, where an “advisor” from the canal authority will come on board. We’ll then proceed to the Gatun locks, where the boat will be lifted up going through 3 locks in a row. Yachts go with big ships into the lock, they can either tie up to the wall (risky in the violent current and eddies), tie to a tug (quite a hazzle) or go “center lock” (either alone tied up in the middle of the lock with four lines, or in a packet with another yacht). We’ve chosen the last version and will be going with another yacht center lock.

We’ll arrive in the Gatun lake at night, spend a night anchoring there and then at 6 o’clock in the morning another advisor will come aboard (hopefully on time). We’ll rush full speed over the lake (about 4 hours), descend through another set of locks (Miraflores) down to the Pacific. If you’re interested you can take a look at us through the webcams at Miraflores (around noon here, late afternoon in Central Europe) at

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html

Sounds simple? Let’s hope everything works out fine!!!

At least for us just about everything’s complicated and a pain in Panama. Today it started pouring down as soon as we started filling up our diesel tanks (very convenient), then we discovered that our cruising permit (valid 1 year, costs 200 usd) accidentally got into the papers the port captain in Portobelo took from us on arrival there. We desperately made phone calls until noon, but the port captain is on vacation, nobody’s authorised to look into the papers etc.. We tried to explain all that to the secretary at the maritime authority in Colon, trying to persuade her to phone in Puerto Obaldia where we bought the permit in the first place. Her answer was that nobody had the number of the office there, so in the end we had to pay for another cruising permit. We spent 3 hours in the office watching her swearing and muttering, she finally typed our (one page) form (ten items to enter) on the computer, shouted at me when she discovered that we were NOT from Australia (she had to type it again), the printer didn’t work, she got out a typewriter and then charged us 20 usd extra, because of overtime (after 4 o’clock…).

The rain didn’t stop all day, half of Colon was under water, cars with bow waves like ships everywhere… We did some grocery shopping, returned to the boat with dripping wet bags and can’t wait to get away from here!

We’ve finally got a date for the canal transit: Saturday, 15.12.12. We’ll spend the rest of the week in Colon, doing shopping and getting the boat ready for our linehandlers. At the moment fitting 3 overnight guests into Pitufa seems quite a challenge, the forecabin’s stuffed with all kinds of things up the ceiling, but we’ll find space for all the stuff somewhere

The sun’s out again (soon we’ll be complaining about the heat and empty water tanks ) and it seems our luck has turned as well. A fellow cruiser will come to our boat to weld the crack in the boom today, we’ve borrowed a welding machine from another boat and a generator from yet another. Spending time in a big anchorage like Portobelo feels like living in a village: after a while you know everybody and cruisers are usually willing to help each other out

If everything goes fine we’ll sail to Colon tomorrow, the admeasurer will come to the boat on Monday morning (preparation for the canal transit) and then we’ll hopefully get an appointment to go through the Canal soon!

Ever since we got to Panama life has become difficult. Before we got to Portobelo we made a short to-do list: repair refrigerator, weld boom, do provisioning, order electronic equipment, organise canal transit. Now we’ve almost been here a month, each day busy from dusk till dawn, but we’ve managed to accomplish hardly anything. Just to give you an idea: yesterday we had an appointment at the dentist at 11, that means hop on the bus at 9, 2 hours to Colon. We wait for ages at the doctor’s leave at 2, take a taxi to the post office, only to discover that they don’t sell boxes there. They send us on to a shop that does packaging, unfortunately water has gotten into the shop sometime before destroying all their cardbord boxes. Without further ado we search through the stationary shop and find some unused boxes bring them to the counter and the woman actually manages to wrap our things up. 3 o’clock: Back at the post office the woman at the counter is overwhelmed by the task of sending a parcel to Europe, fills in dozens of forms, asks us about procedures (no idea), asks around at the office, etc. 3.45: We hurry to the port in order to get an appointment for the measurement for the canal transit, only to find out that the secretary has left at 1 already, but at least the coffee slurping gentlemen allow us to leave documents there. 5 o’clock: lunch at a shopping center, browse quickly through the electronics department, hurry back to the bus station (almost 6 already, last bus at 6!) and spend 2 hours on the bus squeezed in somewhere at the back with the head next to a loudspeaker blaring enlightening christian songs, holding on to bags while more and more passengers are squeezed in on the way, some of them hanging out of the doors. 8: back at the boat, level of exhaustion very high, level of achievement very low.

Last night at 3 o’clock Leeloo woke us with her triumphant howling announcing a successfull hunt. I reluctantly got up to check what she had, when I lifted her up she let go of the black shape in her mouth, who fluttered excitedly into the aft cabin–a bat. I opened the hatch, but the poor guy desperately flew round and round without ever looking up (so much for the infallible echolocation system…). Christian finally managed to trap him under a cardboard box under which he then steered the bat to the hatch to show him the way out.

After all that nightly excitement we slept long (till 7.30) and woke up with sunrays lighting up the cabin. Hooray! We seized the chance and hiked up to the fort towering over the bay–quite an impressive view. We hurried back to get breakfast and managed reaching the boat before the next rainshower

It’s been raining constantly since Monday, the longest “dry spells” lasted about half an hour. As soon as the rain stops or eases up a bit dinghies start buzzing over the bay full speed in order to get to the village or back without getting soaked. We stayed under deck for three days, only venturing out to dry off the cockpit occasionally and to fill some buckets into the watertank. Leeloo’s also pissed off. As soon as she goes outside the rain welcomes her splashing horizontally into the cockpit and she returns loudly complaining to bed. Wednesday morning was the last time we saw the yellow thingy in the sky that’s supposed to shine all day and burn down hot in the tropics…