Panama Part III - Las Perlas, The City & Love in the Time Of Corona

The night of our plunge into the Pacific was a mixture of festivity and relief.  Sure we were happy to be on the other side, finally, and thrilled that the transit was a success, allayed by the fact that we made it through with all our fingers intact and nothing was broken or damaged in the process, and not just a little exhausted from sensory overload.  Out came the champagne for a commemorative sunset toast and David made a sumptuous Lobster Risotto for an al fresco dinner on our aft deck.  The wine flowed as did the conversation, a Facebook pal of David’s on another Lagoon 440, stopped by to say hello.  You know its a bad sign when the pepper-infused rum comes out, but what a tremendous evening and celebration!

The next morning, we sadly said au revoir to Angela and Rick, deposited them at the Playita Marina and set sail to Las Perlas.  We wanted to give Andrea and Kalev a glimpse of how we play on the boat, as they are our first guests to bear witness to our sailing skills on india and share some fun with us.  Las Perlas is a group of islands about 30 nautical miles off the Panamanian Coast.  We made it to our recommended anchorage, Mogo Mogo, five hours later in time for another beautiful sunset, having caught two fish along the way, a small Mahi and a Spanish Mackerel! 

The next day we did a few small jobs on the boat, with a little help from our friends, and cooked up a proper breakfast before we explored our surroundings in the dingy.  Then we pumped up the SUPs and went for a swim.  Unfortunately, the water here doesn’t have that endless visibility we’ve become accustomed to in the Caribbean, its rather brown and murky.  But the shocking feature is how cold it is!  At least 10 degrees cooler than the other side of the canal possibly due to the very cold Humbolt current coming up from the south.  In any case, it's damn cold to us!   There is a considerable current with the tidal changes too.  At the end of an active day on the water, we dined on our freshly caught fish right off the grill.  One of magical things about being anchored in a remote area on a dark moonless night is the magnificent sky.  Star gazing is one of our favorite activities on those nights.  And so it was for our friends.  It was a short reconnaissance and then back to Panama City to say goodbye to our remaining guests.  We observed a rather interesting phenomenon on the motorsail back to the city.  It was flat glassy calm on the water and we saw numerous brown baby stingrays just below the surface skimming along with their wing tips just punctuating the boundary of sea and air.  They were everywhere and we have seen them again in large groups on our second trip to Perlas.  Very cool.

Nice to have crew!

Kalev is much better at STANDING on the paddle boards than we are!

Best viewing platform for rays!

David and I spent the good part of a week in Playita anchorage while we explored Panama City to set ourselves up for the massive provisioning and other preparations we would need to do for our Pacific transit to the Marquesas.  It would be our final stop for food, booze, parts, fuel and propane, and any other little things we would need.  Also the last chance to finish, close and wrap up projects, and import our new Code Zero and last parts before we set off.  But first, we took some time to ourselves for some rest and relaxation back in Las Perlas.  It was our third wedding anniversary and a perfect place to spend it.  And a quieter, calmer more scenic anchorage away from the ships, launches and ferries associated with the canal and most importantly their inconsiderate wakes rocking our boat.  

Happy Anniversary!

Super Chill!

Super Moon!

Returning to the mainland ten days later, we knew it would be a busy stressful time involving many Uber trips into the city.  The bonus is that we have taken many routes through the Skyscrapers and the city itself is very clean and modern.  There is almost every American chain of stores and eateries.  The malls are very modern and well appointed.  The Panamanians are extremely polite.  We had an interesting afternoon at DHL picking up our new sail.  David said, (he) “knew it wasn’t going well when a new person came out from behind the partition to shake his hand instead of hand him his package!” But it was delivered to the marina next day.  The real surprise was the immediate effect of the Corona Virus on travel.  Along with everyone else on the planet, we had been keeping tabs on COVID-19 by whatever news sources we had while continuing unhurriedly with our preparations, checking things off the list, trip by trip in the dinghy until Friday the 13th when we found threads on our forums about border closings.  Sure enough, Panama had temporarily suspended exit documents for outbound cruising boats.  They simply shut their doors until further notice leaving the transient boating community scrambling for information.  Now this could put a severe damper on our travel plans potentially missing weather windows and the whole season for the South Pacific!  Our whole raison d’etre!  But what can one do?  We can’t paralyze ourselves with worry about things we cannot change.  Cooler heads prevailed, (David’s), and we just kept trudging along with our list, even more dedicated to be ready, in the event of a small opening for departure.

Nice view of Le Tornillo "The Screw"

 Today, we are taking a break to visit Casco Viejo, the older part of the New Panama City.  I say new because the first Panama City, by which the country got its name, lies in ruins some distance to the east having been sacked and burned by pirates in the 1600s.  I was told by a friend, who lives here, that it is very charming with a French flair dating back to the Compagnie Universelle days of Ferdinand Lesseps, the first building company of the canal.  It also contains the Canal Museum!  I am right in the middle of David McCulloug’s book, The Path Between the Seas, thanks to the loan from Andrea.  It is fascinating and I look forward to the museum.  

Casco Viejo!

The Canal museum is closed due to COVID-19.  I was heart broken.

Panama Hats!

Beautiful graffiti is abundant here!

With any luck we will be cleared and ready for take off to the sea on Tuesday at the latest.  There’s still a good chance as we have heard some promising news of departures from other boats!  Fingers crossed, we’ll keep you posted!

Panama!