Flipping Panama

The seas are always bluer on the other side .Or at least they appear to be.

But the surface of Panama city is deceiving. 

There's far too much craziness that lies beneath.

After a couple of days of acclimatizing to the Pacific, my brother arrived and a whole new adventure began.

After introducing him to the ways of the boating world, our first sibling bonding involved a day at the hospital after a minor diving accident

Fortunately he got the clear to disappear into nowhere land for a bit of sailing so we bid a temporary farewell to our new crew and prepared to sail.

Unfortunately the dinghy sunk on the way out forcing us to consume two bottles of wine to get the corks to plug the drainage holes before leaving.

It was a great start to the day and might have spiraled out of control at some point.

But after a beautiful sunrise, we found ourselves in paradise.

We met up with our Finish friends Miko and Johannah and raced them around the Las Perlas islands

They may have been faster, but they didn't get to drink pinacoladas en route.

In true Panamanian fashion (this country is crazy), Miko awoke us one morning in desperation. He had a crab in his ear. Karl managed, through much trial and many more errors, to blow smoke rings into his ear canal to bring the crab out. Celebrations were premature though because eventually he ended up with a whole family of them in there

Yes, life was pretty good.

Finally it came time to bid the brother farewell and at 5 am, the captain dinghyed him back to the main land.

Only hours later, Captian Karl had a very unfortunate run in with a piping hot cup of coffee and had to be rushed to hospital.

The next day captain Plastic (off the neighboring boat) came knocking and I had to check him in too 

And while I was at it I checked myself as well... Panama breaks people!  

Yes, I admitted four people to  hospital in less than a week. 

With the captain detained in Santo Thomas hospital, I became the stand in and boat work turned nasty.

Friends boats set off for the Pacific every day and it was really sad to see them leave 

Even Captain Plastic left despite having far too many stitches in both his feet.

Things went wrong left right and centre. The new dinghy broke.

The outboard engine fell into the depth of the anchorage and had to be retrieved the following day with some borrowed dive gear (hopefully some day it will be resuscitated)

The propeller started leaking.

The water tank ran empty.

Everything went wrong. Literally everything.

I'd had enough of being the captain for a bit.

So I was very excited when finally the day arrived for the real captain to be set free 

Because he'd been admitted to hospital for too long, his mouldy clothes had to be thrown away and he ended up leaving the hospital in true style.

It's been a rough week since with far too many things to fix, far too many things to buy and far too many new and awesome people to hang out with, but at last we are ready. 

With a crew of four on our 27 foot Albin Vega, we finally set sail. Tonight.
[As soon as this blog is done.]

Next stop Equador, let's hope it's full of only the good sort of excitement.

Cinthia, from Quebec

Michael, from the US of A

Karl, from Sweden

Me, from South Africa

And the bear too of course, only he was too busy hanging out underneath everyone else's stuff to make an appearance for the photographs.

Goodbye Panama. You're a crazy beautiful place, but I'm very excited to say goodbye!

Miracles Happen.

Once upon a time there was a little boat of epicness.

27 feet of pure awesomeness

Her name was Yoldia

Yoldia needed a lot of work. 

So for almost a month we did nothing but work on her.

Then one day we decided that she was ready for the Pacific.

We just had to get her through the Panama canal...

To cross the canal you need 7 things:

1) An engine that can make 5 knots

2) A crew of 5

3) A toilet

4) Shade

5) Bottled water for the pilot/ advisor

6) Hot meals and snacks for the advisor man

7) And something else...We forget

We had none of the above

We paid the exorbitant fees and booked our transit. We rescheduled 3 times and eventually had it all set for 16:00 on Saturday 19 April 2013

D-DAY

08:00 Being last minuters, we did a supply run on Saturday morning getting 5) bottled water and 6) food

12:27 Captain Karl resumed work on the engine and changed the oil for the first time ever

           I packed away supplies, secured for sea, checked us out, collected spare parts and 3) the toilet  tested the vhf and wrote a blog

14:28 Our first crew member (Cinthia, from Quebec) arrived.

15:00 We went to collect a dinghy that someoone donated us that morning and the bags of food someone else donated. 

           Karl resumed work on the engine because all of a sudden there was air seeping in to the fuel supply again

15:28 We tested to see if the dinghy fit, filled the tanks, and threw everything on board.

          Karl started closing up the engine

          I was about to run around and start recruiting more crew when all of a sudden Michael (American) and Jairo (Dutch) arrived from nowhere. 

15:37 We fired up the engine (The canal was going to be the test run) and finally left Shelter Bay Marina without having a chance to say goodbye.

We sped off at almost 5 knots to the flats where our advisor would board.

Half way there they started calling us on the VHF asking why we weren't there... but when our advisor (Moises) finally arrived, we fed him (and the crew) bananas and he was happy enough

I was stressed more than I have ever been before, but the captain held his composure and under the 6.5 horse power of the engine and the 4 horse power of our dinghys outboard, we made 5 knots. 

Miracles happen.

We tied up to a tug boat for the first 3 locks and made it through in record time!

(2 hours as opposed to the 6 hours our trial run on another boat had taken us)

We began to relax and enjoyed the journey, even seeing our first crocodile

We fed the crew niknaks and everyone was happy!

We arrived in the lake where yachts stay the night before resuming their transit and we bid Moises farewell before the captain cooked us up a delicious meal

I think it was probably too delicious because as soon as it was ready Moises returned and told us he wanted to help us out and after dinner we motored another 20 miles towards the downward locks.

It poured with rain.

The engine heating lights were on

But we made it through our biggest part of the journey without an engine failure. 

We were amazed.

After 3 hours of sleep, we all woke up feeling great

And then our new adviser, Frank, arrived

Frank didn't like my corn and banana pancakes

In fact I don't think he liked Yoldia or us. 3 miles before the last locks he told us that we had to turn around - we didn't match the canal standards and we could therefore not complete our transit.

He had the canal company on the line when I marched forward and gave him the most persuasive talk of my life. I told him how hard we had worked for this. I told him how competent a crew we were. I drove home the human elements and eventually had tears in my eyes...

We had come that far and there was no way in Halweta we were turning around!

Frank changed his mind.

He told his advisory that we had made a plan.

Frank started to take interest in us and even turned out to be a really nice guy.

\We like Frank.

We tied up to a mega-yacht for the next set of locks and all the crew were so jealous of our ride that they came on board to take pictures of themselves on Yoldia

Behind us we had a vessel of the most maximust canal size and we were just glad their breaks worked.

We passed the first lock.

We got the instruments out on the second lock

And when we cleared the last one we all began to breathe properly.

Hugs

High fives

Maybe a few tears

I hoisted the South African flag

WE WEREE IN THE PACIFIC!!

We bid frank farewell.

And the party began

As soon as we dropped anchor in La Playita, Panama people swarmed to the boat to welcome us. 

Old friends were everywhere.

New friends were abundant.

WE WERE THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE ALIVE.

Thank you everyone at shelter bay for your help and donations.

Thank you everyone who prayed and fasted us through.

Thank you Micheal (first mate's first mate), Cinthia and Jairo for being an awesome crew

Thank you captain for pulling us through.

And finally Yoldia - thank you for holding yourself together, you might be small and get laughed at, but you're the best boat in the world!