Finally Departing Shelter Bay Marina

Thursday, March 19, 2015

009-22.060 N
079-57.060 W

Ahoy from the crew of the BlueJacket!

It felt like this day would never come, but if finally has. We're ready to cast off the dock lines and head out of the marina!!! The major problem has been the weather. There's been a low pressure system, known as the Colombian low, which has been sitting off of this corner of the Atlantic, and has been generating big seas and big winds for months. The seas have been in the 3-5 meter (10-16') range since we've been down here and the winds have been blowing 20-25 kts on regular basis. The chart to the left shows the wave heights that we've been dealing with. We're trying to get to the area pointed to by the arrow and if you can read the legend, the seas were in the 4-5 meter (13-16') range. There was absolutely no way that we were going to pound our way through those conditions for 80 miles! A Danish boat came in which had crossed from Antigua and got rolled in 40-45' seas. But thankfully those conditions have finally subsided and we can make our way to the San Blas islands.

It hasn't been all that bad being stuck here at Shelter Bay Marina (SBM). The marina is in the middle of a huge section of dense jungle, but there are roads and paths that wind their way past old US military buildings/bunkers and give you a view into this amazing habitat. If you're a bird watcher, this is a great place to see all kinds of species. We really like early morning and late afternoon walks when the birds adn monkeys are much more active and it's also cooler. You really need to look up to see all of the birds and animals in the canopy and at the same time watch your feet as there's lots of activity down below too. The following video (which I hope shows up) shows cutter ants moving leaves while howler monkeys make a racket in the background.

Another thing that was cool was exploring the old military bunkers that are located throughout the property. I didn't spend a lot of time wandering around the interior because they're filled with bats and it's a bit disconcerting to shine a light into a room and then have hundreds of bats fly out past your head! I'm glad that Sue wasn't with me... Another interesting find was about 25 fairly new empty barrels that had previously contained Ammonium Nitrate. Just who was doing what with that?!? These grounds were (and still are?) used for jungle warfare training. While walking along one of the trails I spotted this jungle warfare suit hanging on a post. Given how dense the jungle is, I can easily imagine someone putting this on and disapearing into the underbrush.

Prior to our arrival we had the bottom paint completely sanded off and upon our arrival I expected to inspect the bottom and give them approval to apply an epoxy barrier coat and then the anti-fouling bottom paint. Unfortunately I didn't watch them closely enough and they only applied the barrier coat in some places and then applied the first coat of bottom paint. I saw this just as they were finishing. They then had to chemically strip off $400 worth of bottom paint, re-sand it, apply the barrier coat everywhere and finally apply the bottom paint. All of this took extra days. The final job looked great, but it cost us a lot in hotel and restaurant charges.

We also used this time to undertake a lot of boat projects. Once we got through the normal ones, we started on some which have been on the back burner for a long time. For example, the leather on the wheel was from 1997 and was in need of replacing. But before that could occur, the wheel needed to be painted, so I stripped off the old leather, spent many hours sanding the wheel, priming it and then painting it. That was a long job! And you know that when you start getting into jobs like re-caulking the bathroom, you're more than ready to go...

I will say that SBM has to be the most international marina that I've ever been at. The docks are filled with boats from around the world waiting to transit the Panama Canal and head to the South Pacific. As you walk along the dock you are constantly hearing languages/accents from everywhere. We had South African dock mates, we shared a slip with some Britts, there were 3 young guys from Norway who were getting ready to cross the Pacific in a small boat, just a few slips further down was a boat from Holland, there were lots of Germans and other boats from Denmark, Australia, New Zealand and the list goes on and on. It was quite amazing and on 2 nights we had pot lucks where we got to meet cruisers from other docks. That was a lot of fun.

After a month at the marina the winds and seas finally subsided enough for us to start our passage to the San Blas Islands. These are a beautiful chain of islands that many people describe as looking like the South Pacific. We plan to spend about 2 months in them and once the rainy season starts to appear, we'll head back in.

-- Geoff & Sue

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Log ID: 2257