We've been busy. Before going through the canal. Before my mom's visit. We busted our butts. New batteries, a new solar panal, patched our sails, worked on our engine and the grand project of them all: REFRIGERATION!
Yes after 6 years of warm drinks we now have a fridge. After some research and talking to other cruisers we opted for the Engel fridge/freezer. It is a nice compact unit that can either be a refridgerator or a freezer. We ripped out the old ice box which was fiberglass and crappy foam insulation:
Then I painted the inside with white enamle paint, which turned out to be disco gold, not white.


We added some radiated heat insulation to the walls.

Then I got busy building walls and a floor and adding thick foam insulation. We also added a formica finish.

Then finally some paint, wiring and we popped the Engel into place. Getting it to fit properly was a HUGE headache, but in the end it turned out great. There is a HOT side and a COLD side. The hot side is vented and the cold side is insulated. This allows us to put other items like bread or things that just need to be kept cool all around the outside space of the Engel. That gives us more room for drinks and other things in the fridge.

Ok, so we didn't go on Sarana (because we don't want to go that direction), but we did go through the canal. Small boats like us sailboats need extra crew to handle lines going through the Panama Canal. Other sailors usually volunteer to help those boats in return for some food and getting some money for a cab ride back. We went through with MOONDANCER X and it was a pretty cool experience. It is amazing they built this canal 100 years ago and it is working like clock work. Here were are going up 25 feet in the first set of chambers at the Mira Flores Locks. The total rise with 3 sets of locks is almost 60 feet above sea level. Notice the bubbling current that can cause a lot of turbulence and problems for us small boats. Here in this chamber we are side-tied to a tug. Check out the tourists checking us out:


There is a lot of traffic in the canal in fact the WORLD just passed us by:

It was a great trip and Nancy and Tony on MOONDANCER were great. They feed us and kept us going with snacks. We were fortunate to have an advisor who was very good. He managed to squeeze us into the locks ahead of a couple of ships and thanks to his efforts we were able to complete the transit in one day...one very long day.

We have been working like dogs on the boat and shopping like good old Americans in our free time. We've been working on a HUGE upgrade to Sarana as a present to Sherrell but it is also a good surprise for my mom who is visiting in 7 days.

Panama continues to amaze me with everything there it has to offer!

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Here we are anchored in Tumaco, Colombia in a protected estuary.

We sailed north to Isla Gorgona a national park. This lizard was a rare find. It is endemic to Isla Gorgona and exists no where else in the world.



This is our guide who took us on a nature hike around the island. We saw a snake, lots of birds and even monkeys.


Further north in another park called Ensenada Utria we found paradise. One of the coolest places we've been to. This waterfall flows right into the anchorage.

Further north still, our final port Bahia Solano where we checked out of the country. We found a hike up to a raging waterfall, but it required scrambling up a rocky river in the middle of the jungle.

On our way to do some internet and find a cold beer with Nakia, John points out a boat and says, "Is that boat taking on water?" It was sure low in the water and moving a little funny. Thinking only about cold beer John kept going. I said, "Shouldn't we go over and take a look? Maybe we can get inside one of the hatches."

I jumped aboard and started trying hatches. I got one open and looked inside to see my own reflection sloshing around. The boat was probably 1/3 full of water and filling fast. John took off with everyone else to get more help. I found a switch for "bilge pump" which did nothing. Some others arrived and I asked them to bring some tools and buckets. Someone else arrived with manual bilge pump handle and a big grin. I told them there isn't a manual pump that I can find.

The boat was taking on water fast so I decided to try to climb inside and try to locate the hole. It wasn't easy getting in because there was a door in the way of the hatch, but I squirmed inside and opened the other hatches. The water inside was up to my waist, full of diesel, oil, plastic, paper and god knows what else. The water was so murky I realized there's no way I'm going to find the leak from inside. I can't even find the through-hull fittings without a scuba mask and a waterproof light.

I slowly waded around the murky water on the boat checking the usual spots, hoping to see a rush of current or something. Then I heard a gurgle sound. I followed it to the galley. It was louder and there seemed to be a little current in that area. I felt under the sink and found a detached pipe that was gushing water. Please let this be it, I thought. I could feel the water rising it was rushing in so fast. My guess was 30 to 40 minutes before the boat went down.

I knelt down in the mucky water and tried to find the seacock, but it was under about 3 feet of water in a dark recess. So I set to work trying to plug it. With some effort I reattached the fitting that went to the sink and the flow appeared to stop. If the water level had risen another foot, it would have continued to siphon into the boat, but for now the sink was high enough that it stopped the water flow.

In the meantime a group outside had started working on getting the main companionway hatch open. I would feel safer if I had an easy exit from this boat. Everything was sloshing around. I made a mental note of the water level in case I hadn't found the main leak. As soon as the hatch was open we started a bucket brigade passing up gallons of nasty water. Someone dropped in to the main salon hatch and they started their own brigade. Soon we had people with generators and electric pumps to help remove water. It appeared the level was going down slowly.

Nearby, a ferry was anchored with a Panamanian crew who saw what was going on. They came over and offered use of their diesel powered pump. After some work (they are tough beasts to prime) we got that baby going and sucked the boat dry in about an hour.

The owner showed up in a complete daze. There were probably 15 people, 2 generators, 2 electric pumps, 1 big diesel pump and buckets of water flying all over his boat. I found out later he was a young Argentinian who was planning to use the boat to do charters. Everyone felt bad for him because his boat was a big mess. At least we saved it from going down as it was sinking fast.

The Panamanians it turned out were crew for the big ferry in the anchorage and one of them told us he surrvied a sinking ship once in 20 foot waves. He spent 4 hours in the water and when he saw the sailboat sinking he had to help. It was amazing how fast everyone pulled together and saved that boat.

This is the second boat I've helped bail out now. This boat ended up in a lot better shape than IVY ROSE from San Juan del Sur Nicaragua (if you remember that story). The fast work of everyone involved kept the boat from getting too damaged, but it's going to be a big mess to clean up and restore.

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We spent a couple of days at Contradora walking the island, swimming, catching up on our 300+ email messages and spending an hour on the phone with Paypal trying to get them to fix something. It was a little like work but a slow re-introduction to civilization.

Despite this, I don't think we were quite ready for Panama City. We could see the skyscrapers from 20 miles off and we knew right away this was going to be a different kind of place. It's busy with ships everywhere, people everywhere and FOOD everywhere. We had a fantastic Italian dinner with fresh mushrooms! Oh it was so good.

Our new batteries are waiting for us - shipped in from Florida. And we've already set our sights on Indian food! The anchorage is a bit disappointing. It's crowded and the constant stream of ships going by creates surprise waves just when you think it's calm. I suppose we'll get used to it as there are really no other options. Anchoring alone costs $5/day for landing your dinghy on shore. God forbid you land on the beach were they will have a fit and try to fine you $500.

All in all I think New Years in Panama City shows some promise and this is certainly a place where you can buy anything, if you have money that is.

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We spent last night at a slightly cleaner anchorage. The shore line still looked like a garbage dump but the water was free enough from trash that I could dive on the bottom to clean it and change a zinc. Our friends on Blew Moon said the other parts of the Perlas weren't trashed like the Eastern side of Isla del Rey. I hope so!

We are on our way to Isla Contradora where there is a store! Finally food and cold beer! We are tried of eating dried goods and are desperate for something fresh!

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After a while you get used to seeing plastic junk floating around here and there -- especially in the tidal steams. But when people have been carrying on about how fantastic the Perlas Islands are we didn't expect to sail into a stream of garbage. Linda thought the trees were full of colorful birds until the binoculars revealed a colorful array of plastic bags caught in the trees.

The water is really clear. You can easily see the garbage drifting by even 10-12 feet down.

I don't know what the deal is. There is another group of sailors north of us at a different island and they said they're covered with trash too. The natural beauty here is stunning, if you can look past the trash.

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We bailed out of Pinas at 3am in order to make headway to a remote area known as the Darien. This is a deep systems of rivers and mangroves where mostly indigenous people live and I'm talking dugout canoes palm frond hut kind of places.

However while underway our buddies on Nakia had their engine go a little wacko on them. So rather than travel deep into the jungle rivers (which involves a lot of motoring) we are going to work our way to Panama City. This works out ok despite the change of plans. Our boat's batteries are totally shot. In fact back in Ecuador we had to give up our nice large 6V batteries because they had totally failed. I found a guy there in town who sold me a large (well used) 12V battery for $20. This $20 battery has held up, but we have to run the engine quite a bit because it doesn't have much capacity. And waiting there in Panama City is a nice pair of even bigger 6V batteries waiting for us. We can't wait to have real power back on board the boat and we can quite our extreme conservation measures.

Also we are running out of food. We were unable to resupply in Solano. Rice and beans anyone?

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