Panama to Grand Cayman

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 29)

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

by Mike

On the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal there is a new marina called Shelter Bay Marina. We stayed there overnight. It’s very nice. There are lots of buildings around there left over from the US presence. Most are run down.

We spent the morning biking and walking around the area and filled up with diesel. There are thick forests around. Could be rain forests, I guess. Since it was raining.

I was walking down a trail in a forest with a canopy high over my head. It wasn’t thick enough to make it dark, but it was nice and shady. The mosquitoes liked it there, too. When I was pretty deep in, I could hear the rain increase. And then it started pouring. Except there was nothing but a light, misty sprinkle on me. I suppose that the tall trees have evolved to the point that they capture most of the rain for themselves.

When I got back to the boat I asked if it had rained hard, just to make sure I wasn’t hearing things. It had.

We left around noon for the Rio Chagres. This is the river that forms the lake that is used in the Panama Canal. We went to the mouth of it and drove up it. The thick forests were nice to look into as we went along the shore. We anchored up the river a few miles and got out the kayaks. Elizabeth and I paddled upstream and then the rain began. It poured. It felt good.

Two interesting animals were there. One we saw and one we heard. The howling monkey sounds like I would expect a lion or jaguar to sound. Once the rain started, they started howling. The roars echoed through the trees. They would be really scary if you were in the woods close to one. They are loud. And they sound mean.

We went up a small creek feeding the river and saw a lizard walking on water. It was on a leaf near one bank and ran upright on its back feet to the other bank. It looked like a cartoon character.

Fullerton and Bob hopped in when we got back. Bob stayed in his kayak kayaked to the mouth of the river, where we picked him up and headed out to sea. We raised the sails and headed north in some stiff wind.

Panama Canal

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 28)

Monday, July 6, 2009

by Mike

We got up bright and early at 4:00 to get ready for the three line handlers, which would arrive promptly at 4:30. After some phone calls to and from our agent, and so forth, they showed up at 5:15. We left at 5:16 and hurried to arrive at Buoy 6 to meet our adviser at 5:30. We drove around in circles near buoy 6 until he showed up at 6:35.

We had drive a couple of miles to the first lock and were eager to get started. The advisor advised us that we would wait until 8:40 to enter the lock. We were allowed to enter the first lock around 9:30, a mere five hours of waiting and 30 minutes of doing since we got up.

Apparently when the US ran the canal, things were well regulated and run on a pretty good schedule. Not so much now. It’s frustrating to deal with people that have such little regard for pre-agreed times. It must be a nightmare for ships and shipping companies to spend weeks pressing for time and then get to Panama and wait. For a day, and then maybe another day. Why not make it three?

The lock system itself is impressive. It was completed in 1914 by the United States. It was used in WWI and WWII. While there have been repairs and upgrades to several things in the Panama Canal, the locks are the same as they were in 1913. They are 110 feet wide and 1000 feet long. For a long time they were the world’s largest concrete structures. They have functioned flawlessly for nearly 100 years. That’s a lot better than most sidewalks.

It was amazing to see ships 103 feet wide and 966 feet long so neatly placed in the locks by tug boats. Once in the locks, they are tied front and rear on each side with strong cables to locomotives. The locomotives follow the ships through the locks and keep them from hitting the sides. This takes skill, practice, attention, working together. It also requires straight walls.

The walls are 1000 feet long and 100+ feet tall. They look to be a perfectly straight. And they must be perfectly straight to allow a 966-foot, multi-story-tall ship to drive in, go down (or up) 30 feet, and drive out without hitting a side. All with only three and one-half feet (3.5’) of clearance on each side. That is some serious concrete work.

There are a number of horizontal gashes on the concrete side walls of the locks. Some are a few feet long and some are 30 feet or longer. We were speculating that during hectic times in WWII maybe a locomotive would go down, resulting in the ship pressing against a wall. And perhaps a young crew would be saying “I don’t care just get this thing moving … fast!” thinking of the admiral’s orders. Maybe that’s how some of the gashes got there.

We tried not to leave a mark with the Minnow.

Some history on the canal is interesting:

·       The canal was first proposed to the Spanish King Charles in 1534.

·       In 1856 the Panama Railway crossed the Isthmus of Panama.

·       In 1879 Columbia (Panama was then a state of Columbia) granted a French Company the authority to build (and operate for profit) the Panama Canal.

·       In 1889 the French Company ran out of money after spending 1.4 billion francs, and incurring 20,000 deaths. Fiscal mismanagement and corruption contributed.

·       In 1894 a Second French Company tried again and soon went bankrupt.

·       In 1903 Panama seceded from Columbia, the US promptly recognized the new government, and a canal treaty was signed. This treaty gave the US the equivalent of absolute sovereignty over the Canal Zone.

·       In 1914 the Panama Canal opened for traffic. It was completed below the estimated cost of $400 million and earlier than projected.

·       In 1999 the Panama Canal was turned over to Panama.

In Panama

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 26-27)

Saturday/Sunday, July 4-5, 2009

by Mike

We stayed parked at the Flamenco Marina Saturday and Sunday waiting for our turn in the canal. Elizabeth got here Saturday night. We planned to go scuba diving Sunday, since we had to wait until Monday to go through the canal.

We got stuck waiting at the dock most of the day. We were waiting for different Panama people for different things. Central Americans have no problem being a few hours late on almost everything. A few hours late for an agreed meeting time seems to be normal. For them, that is.

Finally in the afternoon we took off to scuba dive near Taboga Island. It was low visibility with a strong current, but it was still fun. Due to the current, we went down the anchor chain. It was funny trying to get neutrally buoyant. We were hanging onto the chain and were horizontal to the surface … like human flags.

We got back to the dock after dark and waited until morning.

To Panama

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 25)

Friday, July 3, 2009

by Mike

A little rain this morning. A little sun. Fullerton spent time some outside with a kite this morning. He says he does this for therapy and relaxation. Usually it seems to fluster and frustrate him, and entertain us. I’m pretty sure his blood pressure goes up after most episodes of kite almost-flying. But it’s sure fun for everyone else on the boat. Today his kite flew! Fullerton was walking on tiptoes the rest of the day.

We neared Balboa, Panama in heavy rain. I actually got chilled as we stood in 35-knotswinds and pouring rain and tried to locate other boats or buoys through wet glasses and blowing rain. We avoided them all and parked in light wind and sprinkles at 2:30.

Saturday, July 4, 2009, Mexico to Panama (condensed version)

by Bob

Here are a bunch of pictures: http://crusto.com/panama

Panama! I think there is a song about that. Or maybe that was Ipanema. The Minnow is in Flamenco Marina outside the Pacific end of the Panama Canal. We hope to go through the canal on Monday.

I'll backtrack. After Socorro we did get to Acapulco. At our next port someone told us that 28 people were gunned down in drugger fights while we were. But we didn't notice anything unusual, except that there wasn't much business at the Acapulco marina.

We headed out of Acapulco for some favorable winds to Cost Rica. But the winds ended up not being so favorable. In fact, we were motoring directly into 30-35 knots winds and their associated waves for a day or two. Then Mike broke the boat.

I was sleeping, and he woke me up. After the mental haze cleared a bit, I noticed that the forestay was flopping around. The forestay is the cable that holds the big sail in front, and it holds the mast forward. Luckily we have two of them, and the other one was in good shape and holding the mast. A shackle had broken or come loose, turning loose the bowsprit and breaking a metal piece, which turned loose the forestay.

We headed for the nearest port, Huatulco, had the broken piece welded, got diesel, replaced the radome (the stay broke it when it was flopping around), got a battery, fixed a few other things, and headed out again in one day. That was pretty good, I thought.

Some other people at Huatulco expected Mike and I to sink the boat when we crossed the gulf of Tehuantepec. I guess they didn't have access to weather forecasts. But I will admit that Mike and I don't appear to be competent sailors. Or competent at anything.

The wind and waves were good all the way to Costa Rica, although we had to motor a good part of the trip.

In Costa Rica we docked for a day, played around, picked up an unsuspecting passenger (Fullerton), got diesel, and headed out the next day for Isla del Cocos, or Cocos Island, or something like that. It's a couple hundred miles off the coast of Costa Rica, a nature preserve. They claim it's the largest uninhabited island in the world, but I don't think they considered places like Kiska Island or Amchitka Island.

On the way to Isla del Cocos, we caught a giant Pacific Blue Marlin. It was 115 inches (29,210,000,000 angstroms) long, maybe 400 or 600 lbs. I'm not sure how long it took to bring it in, but it was daylight when I started reeling it in, and dark when we finally got in onto the boat. We had 80 lb test line, and the hook pretty much fell out of the fish's mouth when we had it on the boat. It was pretty exciting.

At Cocos we dived there three times, hiked and kayaked, and then headed northeast to Panama. There are a lot of sharks there. They're mostly white-tipped sharks, but we saw a few hammerheads. There are lots of birds around the island, too. There is supposed to be a lot of treasure there, too. But we couldn't even find a geocache, let alone treasure.

We had a pleasant down-wind ride to Panama, complete with dolphin escorts much of the time. Fullerton took on some kite therapy in a futile attempt to regain some sanity.



Shortly before we got to the entry of the Panama Canal, there was a big thunderstorm with wind, lightning, heavy rain -- just like home. We couldn't see very well, but we missed that big ship coming out of the canal channel by at least a hundred yards due to our inept seamanship and superior luck.

We are now docked. We only have to repair one rudder, because the bums at Webasto wouldn't send us parts we need for air conditioner repair. Some electrical parts in the air conditioner control box caught on fire. This happened just two weeks after the air conditioner was "repaired" by a Webasto service center.

We didn't realize it until I noticed some black smoke stains on the metal control box down in the engine room. (Of course, the air conditioner wouldn't run, but that is not unusual for this air conditioner.)

So I tried to order parts. They said we had to order from a dealer. I asked for a referral to a dealer who had them in stock and could ship them to us, and they gave me Thomas Marine in Miami. Those guys were real jerks, and after a dozen or more phone calls and emails to Thomas Marine and Webasto, we still can't get parts. The moral of this story is that if you buy Webasto, don't catch it on fire.

To Panama

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 24)

Thursday, July 2, 2009

by Mike

We continued toward Panama. With the depth showing 4750 feet we stopped the boat in light wind. Bob and I decided to go for a swim. Bob did a flip off the front and I dived off the bowsprit. The water felt great. The stings were probably from jellyfish, although we never saw them. Our swim didn’t last long.

Fishing Report:

We fished all day. Got one little non-keeper.

Fine Arts:

Franz Liszt made a piano transcription of Beethoven’s nine symphonies. They were both good piano players, and good composers, and Liszt was an extra-good player. And he did a really, really good job putting these symphonies in piano form. I’d guess his piano playing experience and ability contributed to the complexities of these transcriptions. For example, in some cases, the thumb and pinkie get two notes each. Not something you see every day (except in jazz).

We have the sheet music of the transcription for symphonies 1-5 on the boat and Bob and I have at them occasionally. They go very slowly when we play them. I mean extremely slow. Liszt not only got all the moving parts going at the same time, he also used different parts of the keyboard almost at the same time to create some great effects. Every now and then, when Bob and I are tackling a section of one of these, it sounds extra good. But it’s pretty seldom. They are just too hard to play (for us).

Today we both played a little of them. It was sad. I turned on Gardiner’s symphonic performance of the finale of Beethoven’s third – a simple theme and variation – and told Bob to play along and keep up (note that Gardiner likes a fast tempo, haha). It prompted us to dig into the Minnow’s music vault and bring out a Russian performance of these transcriptions.  We wanted to listen to how these transcriptions were meant to sound. They sound incredible.

It was dark by then, and nice and cool outside. We started with the finale of the third and then sat outside and listened to the entire piano performance of the fifth. Then we listened to Karajan’s symphonic version of the fifth (60s version – it has a little more pep than the 70s version). Although we were able to criticize many details of each performance (and we did), they were both, uhm, magnificent. The only place that the piano transcription comes up short is when Beethoven gets all the instruments whipped into a frenzy in the forth movement. Even then, the ability of Liszt to create some amazing sounds, such as the building arpeggio sections that recur during the movement, from a single keyboard played by a single person, is amazing.

BUT, what’s the problem with fancy piano players and rhythm? They get moving and in a good groove, everyone’s listening and following along, they play the really fast parts perfectly with flawless accuracy. Then, the music building up to a big climax, they ruin the moment by adding a noticeable pause. They get so good and high on themselves that they forget to tap their foot! And then they claim its “artistic.” But every listener has to restart the foot-tapping each time they lose the beat. I can abide a ritard at the end of a phrase, and an occasional birds-eye. They’re written in the music. But not these random gaps in the music.

Personally, I think the habit starts when they’re learning to play. A lot of climactic chords use lots of fingers. As a beginner it’s common to take an extra split second to line up and stretch all the fingers. Then Chopin and all his romantic buddies showed up and made it socially acceptable, calling it “rubato.” Then “habit” becomes “art” and that’s the end of high-quality rhythm.

It’s one thing to play Debussy and company in herky-jerky fashion. It’s not that good anyway, so not much is lost. But for the sake of all that is proper, play Beethoven like Beethoven intended. With a beat. Beethoven even dedicated a movement of a symphony to the metronome!

Fortunately, for the artistic advancement of mankind, someone invented the snare drum. We got back on track with John Phillips Sousa and Benny Goodman. And kept on track with John Williams, Led Zeppelin, and Hannah Montana. Even tribal rain dances and rap have a beat … they just aren’t interesting since they don’t have a melody, and lots of people prefer them to Chopin.

Fine Dining:

Fullerton treated breakfast this morning. Eggs, bacon, biscuits, and gravy. The gravy was tasty and the bacon and eggs were great. The biscuits … as far as I know, no one broke a tooth on them, but there were some close calls. It’s easy for me to write this since he probably won’t read it until he’s off the boat.

To Panama

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 23)

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

by Mike

Not much happened today. A few minor repairs and some cleaning. Quite a bit of reading. Several Beethoven symphonies, and a few by Brahms. Brahms did good symphonies, but Beethoven’s are better.

We are heading on a straight line toward the corner of Panama. Then we’ll follow the coast around to Balboa, where the Panama canal is. It looks like we’ll get there some time Friday.

Fishing Report:

Fullerton cleaned the reels and did some work on the lures and stuff. Bob made a big ruckus, slowing the boat, reeling and reeling, adjusting the drag. “You gotta play the fish!” He reeled in a bunch of plastic.

No fish.

Cocos Island

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 22)

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

by Mike

It was cloudy and sprinkling first thing, with some blustery wind. But it cleared soon into a nice day. Mostly cloudy with a comfortable breeze.

That weather worked good for dinghy diving. We did two dives today. This place is packed with fish. Lots of fish. Most of them are tropical and colorful. Hundreds and hundreds of them. More than that even. We also saw moray eels, starfish, weird-looking growths that are probably animals, lobsters, big turtles, and sharks. Many of the sharks lay in the sand here.

On our first dive I went in first to check the anchor, which Bob and Fullerton were weighing, or considering, or fighting over, or something. The anchor was laying on top of the sand, but the rope was zigzagged and tangled around enough rocks that is wasn’t going anywhere. When Bob got in the water he dropped one of his weights. It landed a few feet from a four-foot white-tipped shark lying in the sand. It swam away when we approached. But it was still scary!

After diving, Bob and I took off on kayaks. Bob went to shore to hike (walk) and I went along shore to look (paddle).

Late in the afternoon we took off. Next stop Panama, gateway to the Atlantic.

Fine Dining:

There was a French-toast-eating frenzy that occurred this morning.

Fishing report:

Fullerton did some repair work on fishing gear as we sailed away from the island. There’s a no-fishing zone that extends for 12 miles from Cocos Island. This is one no-fishing zone that I think is a good idea.

Cocos Island

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 21)

Monday, June 29, 2009

by Mike

More rain this morning. We headed directly into a headwind. That’s the Minnow’s most common travel condition. Into a raining headwind.

We got to Cocos Island at 1:00 in the afternoon and it was sunny and nice! Perfect conditions for island exploration and diving. We did both.

Costa Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 20)

Sunday, June 28, 2009

by Mike

It’s been raining a lot on the way to Cocos Island. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 96% of the time. Of course, part of the time it’s only sprinking, but that still counts as rain.

Fishing Report:

We started out the day with a 15-pound dolphin. It was raining too hard to clean it, so we practiced our catch and release techniques. Next Fullerton brought in a 10-pound dolphin. This time we were in light rain so we killed it and cleaned it.

Late in the afternoon Bob slowed the engines and started reeling in a good one. So good, in fact, that it started jumping out of the water. It was some sort of bill fish and looked just like they used to on Wide World of Sports. Bob kept after it for a long time. Luckily we had the sails down at the time and could stop quickly, or it wouldn’t have been on long.

“Bob quit screwing around and catch that thing,” I said after about an hour. It was getting dark.

Thirty minutes later Fullerton had the spotlight pointed to the end of the pole and we all were wearing headlights, Bob was playing the fish (or playing with the fish), and I was trying to follow the fish around with the boat.

“Turn 40 degrees left and back up,” Bob would say, “now thirty right. This fish is fast. Now forward!” I couldn’t see the line in the dark, so I was just driving blindly. Kind of like driving a minivan?

Thirty minutes later the fish was up near the boat, tired out, but still much stronger than any of us. After lots of effort (lots of failures) I finally got a sailing rope tied around its tail. We winched it up on the steps. Then we rejoiced, puffed our chests out, took pictures, touched the fish, and measured it.

It measured 115” long (9 feet, 7 inches). A blue marlin. A beast!

Then we let it go. It twitched a couple of times and then swam off like nothing was wrong. Catch and release. That’s what fishermen do.

Fine Dining:

We ate the dolphin. The actual name of the dish was “Sautéed Mahi-mahi in spices ala New Orleans.” The potatoes went down good with the fried fish!

Fine Arts:

In the lull between catching fish I treated Bob and Fullerton to some fine art. I hooked my electric guitar into the ship-wide stereo and started wailing. It was great!

One problem was some electronic noise, kind of like feedback only high-pitched and constant and loud. Fullerton thought it sounded like a carbon monoxide detector going off. I thought it added to the experience. After 20 minutes my fingers got sore and I ended the performance.

They were still sitting there, outside, when the big fish bit.