Panama Part Uno!
It was finally a somewhat downwind sail to Shelter Bay, Panama, the launch point for the Panama Canal and our first stop in the country, although we wouldn’t be going through until fall. After five months in the Caribbean, we were excited to get to a country with a BIG CITY and all the services, groceries, flights and the only place in the Carib we can haul the boat out of the water for maintenance.
The backbone, support system, friends and total all-stars of our Panama stay were Russ’ college friend, Luis Carlos, and his wife, Gina. Luis Carlos is a senior Panama canal pilot and they live in Panama City. Prior to our arrival, Gina scheduled back-to-back medical appointments for the whole family. They loaned us their SUV for our entire stay in Panama, which ended up being 3 months. They took us to amazing restaurants, checked up on us regularly, hosted us at their beautiful penthouse in the city and helped us in countless other ways. We are forever thankful for their hospitality and friendship.
We arrived in Panama June 1. On June 4, we drove to Panama City in our borrowed car, and had three days of city life and appointments: dermatologist, dentist, orthodontist, gynecologist, mammogram, bloodwork, haircuts, manicures and even botox. It was a whirlwind trip to the city and important that we do all of these things (yes, all of them - haha!) in a place with trusted professionals - all eleven appointments set up by Gina with people she personally recommended. While it wasn’t a ton of fun (although we did find time for the pool and for Rosie to get her ears pierced) we were relieved to get the big stuff done and to schedule Jess’ much-needed hysterectomy for July.
WIth that stuff out of the way and a car full of fresh food, we spent a week or so in Shelter Bay before moving the boat to Linton Bay, where Gus would leave for his summer vacation and the boat would be hauled out. Shelter Bay is busy - full of big ships and small boats going into or exiting the canal. It has a very social cruising community (happy hour Wednesdays, church, mexican train and a bbq on Sundays) and we spent our days socializing at the marina restaurant and pool while dodging daily summer rainshowers. The Shelter Bay land area is a former US military base and there are derelict buildings with a bit of Panamanian military training, everywhere.
I had to return to Panama City for a couple of follow up appointments during which the kids and Russ got a behind-the-scenes canal experience with Luis Carlos. He took them to the training center for canal pilots, where they actually got to use a computer simulator and drive a miniature ship through a mini version of the canal! The mini canal simulates the currents and forces that affect boats going through the canal, so that the pilots, who accompany every ship/yacht that transits, know how to handle all the possible scenarios. Although the Parets all crashed their ships, their day was definitely more fun than mine.
Linton Bay, a few hours sail south, is even more remote—a painful two hour drive —to get…anywhere. The mainlands and islands are beautiful jungle and full of monkeys (listen in the video for the eerie sound of the howler monkeys) and the water is lined with mangroves. Gus left, and we spent two weeks cleaning out the boat and eating through all the food we had left before she would be on the hard in 100 degree temps and 100% humidity without A/C, running water or generators.
On June 30, Gus returned, we got the boat into the slip that night ready for haul out, and the Parets left in the wee hours of July 1 for our much-anticipated 3-week trip to the US, our first time back after 2 years.
