Shelter Bay Marina, Panama

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

009-22.060 N
079-57.060 W

Ahoy from the crew of the BlueJacket!

I've been quite remiss in writing a blog, but both Sue & I have been incredibly busy running a charity named Touchstone Furniture Depot. It's a furniture bank located in Marlborough, MA which provides free furniture and home goods to people in need. Sue is the director and I'm the president and while we were at home we were putting in an amazing number of hours. Last year we received 283 referrals from social service agencies and we distributed over 2400 pieces of furniture and home goods. In 2015 I expect this number to double or triple. Managing all of the volunteers who make this possible is a daunting task and as a result we postponed our trip to the boat as long as we could. And believe me, even though we're in Panama , that doesn't mean that we're still not working on TFD.

Anyhow, enough of that and lets talk about cruising! On February 17th we departed Boston between snow storms and flew to Panama. The shock of going from almost 100" of snow and temperatures which were hovering in the single digits (F) to 90s and high humidity was quite intense. We arrived at the marina to find BlueJacket waiting for us. Prior to our arrival I had all of the bottom paint sanded off and once I wanted to inspect the bottom and the job that they had done. Then the yard was supposed to paint the bottom with 2 coats of epoxy barrier coat and 3 coats of bottom paint. It looked great, so I gave the go-ahead to start painting.

The plan was to apply the epoxy and while it was still tacky, apply the bottom paint, which creates a good bond. I saw them start applying the epoxy and then they asked for the bottom paint. Unfortunately I was busy with other projects and didn't pay close enough attention, as they only applied the barrier coat to select areas and then applied a coat of the bottom paint. By the time that I saw this, it was too late and they had to strip off the bottom paint (at $300 a gallon) with a chemical stripper, re-sand the bottom, apply 2 coats of barrier coat and then apply 2 coats of bottom paint. All of this added 5 days to the schedule, which was very costly to us as we were staying in the hotel and eating all of our meals at the restaurant.

On Wednesday we finally launched BlueJacket and got ourselves into a slip. We had been able to get a lot of projects done while BlueJacket was on the hard, but there were lots of other tasks that needed to wait. We're currently finishing up a long list of items and hope to be out of the marina some time this week. One of the major issues that we have is that we need to get the sails up and it's been blowing 15-20 kts on a constant basis. These are the trade winds and there's no diurnal effect where you get nulls in the wind at dusk or dawn. And even when we do get the sails up, we'll want the winds to relax as people who have come in lately have reported that it's really rough out there.

One of the neat things about being at the Shelter Bay Marina is that it's an old US military base which was used to protect the Panama canal. It's a large area surrounded by dense jungle which teams with wild life. Luckily for us there are old roads which wind though the property giving us vantage points from where we can peer into the their habitat. It's amazing how noisy the jungle is, as it's filled with lots of lots of birds calling to one another. The parrots have to be among the noisiest, but regularly there are troops of howler monkeys which can be incredibly loud. Even when its relatively silent, there's a sound, almost like a gentle falling rain, which is caused by all of the plant material falling from the trees.

Another interesting aspect is that there are several artillery batteries spread throughout the property. I've partially explored some of them, but they're filled with good sized bats and it's a bit disconcerting to have hundreds of them fly by you when you shine a light into the room where they're roosting! I also found about 25 fairly new barrels which, according to the labels on them, contained ammonium nitrate. You just have to wonder who was doing what with these! I've been told that the US military still uses this area as a jungle training ground. I can believe that based upon the camouflage suit that was hanging on a pole on one of the trails. Given how dense the jungle is, one can easily imagine someone putting this on and disappearing into thin air.

Due to the shortened cruising season we're planning on just staying in the Panama area. There are a beautiful set of islands known as the San Blas islands which begin about 75 to the E of here. Everyone always describes them as like being in the South Pacific with beautiful palm tree lined islands dotting the area. The snorkeling (diving is not allowed) is supposed to be fantastic too.

We had hoped to take the boat to Cartagena, Colombia, but after looking at the costs associated with clearing into Colombia and then clearing back into Panama, we may just take a ferry or plane there and explore the interior of Colombia when it gets too hot here.

I had better wrap this up and it's 6 AM and it'll be time for a jungle walk as soon as the sun comes up. I hope that everyone is staying warm and safe!

-- Geoff & Sue

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Log ID: 2255