Joy of Shamrock Quay

We had a great sail from Puerto Lindo with only one brief shower, approaching Colon and the entrance into the breakwater there were around  30 commercial vessels anchored, presumably waiting to transit the canal.  Night fell as we tacked in between tankers and cargo ships and entered the breakwater making our way to ‘The Flats’ small craft anchorage close to the first set of locks.  This is where yachts anchor before their transit, it is early in the season and only one catamaran was there,  we were staying just one night before heading in to the marina. It is a gloomy place to be especially in the rain, the wash created by the pilot boats rushing to and fro was a small annoyance but when we came to lift our anchor we discovered the biggest annoyance – thick red mud caked on to the anchor chain, all 75 metres of it (it’s a deep anchorage). So in the pouring rain it took about an hour to clean every link as it went back into the chain locker, three quarters of the way through the deck wash pump blew a hissy fit and we had to resort to the painfully slow scrubbing brush and bucket of water method. Oh I do love boating.  We entered the marina soaked to the skin and plastered in mud.

Our planned one week in Shelter Bay Marina is moving into yet another week but only due to weather.  We have fitted our new anchor chain and batteries, and the engine now sits on sparkly new engine mounts which hopefully will resolve the vibration issue.  We also have a wiring problem which we think have traced to a diode on our split charger from the alternator so this is our next head scratching problem to resolve and trace parts.

Old and new engine mount

The weather has rather hindered us with torrential rain on and off all week, but with most jobs done we managed to catch the free bus from Shelter Bay yesterday to a large shopping centre near Colon so that we could get some provisions and a few essentials from the chandlery.  The marina is quite a way off the beaten track (and no longer has a chandlery), the bus has to cross the Panama Canal just by the first set of locks to get to Colon, it was a long wait at the locks in the rather full bus, before driving over the gates on both sides which was a strange experience. On the way back the roll-on roll-off ferry was back working and sped the journey up somewhat, there is a huge new bridge under construction close by which will improve transport links further.  The deteriorating weather has accumulated into the development of Tropical Storm Otto just above us – at 10.4N it is well below the hurricane belt of 12N and horribly close to us at 9.2N – and overnight battered us with 35 knots of wind side on.  Being ketch rigged and high sided our windage is rather great and we pushed our fenders to the max, heeled over and pinned on to the floating dock.  Late evening we decided to add some extra lines on the other side of the dock as the mooring beside us is empty, two out of three lines brought back to winches so that we could pull our 37 ton steel floating home away from the pontoon just enough to give the fenders and paint work a break. We used to do this in Dover Marina and it worked really well.  This made a slightly more comfortable night although our battering continued, sleep disturbed by screaming wind, flapping canvas and slapping halyards from boats around us. Then a loud bang, a shine around with the torch in the dark and driving rain didn’t reveal the dock cleat pulled completely out and into the water with our line attached, discovered instead at first light. We added more hefty ropes, tied this time to the concrete bollard that the pontoon is attached to, reluctant to trust the remaining cleats entirely.

Power lines and trees are down, infact around 40 trees on the road between Colon and Shelter Bay and this will take a while to clear so we are in effect cut off.  The marina has been running its generator to power electricity in the communal lounge, fuelled by several kind people in the boating community here who have offered up their own diesel supplies. We have obtained weather info via email using our Iridium Pilot satellite with a combination of grib files and the National Hurricane Centre updates from my Mum.  Panama has this afternoon issued a tropical storm warning from Colon to the coast of Costa Rica. The marina has warned us to expect south west winds of 40mph gusting to 63mph in the early hours of Wednesday as Otto makes its transformation into a hurricane and starts heading west towards the coast of Costa Rica.  As waves crash over the huge Colon breakwater,   there is now definitely no escape from Shelter Bay.

So we have prepared as best we can, canvas covers are down and the bimini frame tied back.  We can do no more but sit it out and hope for little damage to Joy and of course all the other boats in Shelter Bay….as I write this I have just been informed Otto is now a Category 1 Hurricane, 81 miles north of Shelter Bay.  Good luck and god bless to all in its path.

The one time it wasn’t raining I caught this bird checking himself out on a neighbouring boat using the stainless bow roller as a mirror!  The marina is right by the San Lorenzo Park, a protected area home to howler monkeys (who we can hear from the boat), sloths and numerous beautiful birds, hopefully when the storm has passed we will get a chance to explore before we leave.

It feels like we have almost taken root anchored off of Providencia. Locals wave to us as they pass, even some we have never spoken to acknowledge us in the town as they zoom past on their mopeds. We greet passers by with a shortened ‘buenos’ as the locals do, although the English speakers greet us with good evening as early as 3pm! Most people are friendly and helpful, one lady buying something in a shop that we popped in to ask where we could buy some charcoal offered us the use of her gas barbecue!   We did manage to find some in the quaint ‘Country Store’ when the owner of the store overheard us asking someone else in the supermarket!  We followed him to his store and as he was getting us the charcoal from out the back, the same lady came in and told us she had been looking for us all over town as she found out the Country Store had it.

The town has a great street vendor selling local food such as chicken patties and very unhealthy looking deep-fried potato balls with either chicken or beef and god knows what else. They are delicious and at about 60p each they make a great snack.

As we sit on the dock to eat them we do attract several local “friends”, thank goodness for dog biscuits (and of course cuddles).

We managed to easily extend our visitors permits at the local ‘Migracion Colombia’ office, on the road to Freshwater Bay, where a very friendly and helpful English speaking officer dealt with our paperwork, taking digital photos and fingerprints before stamping us in for a further 90 days.  The painless process cost 87,000 peso each which is about £22.  This takes the pressure off so we can leave either when our maintenance jobs, mainly painting and varnishing, are complete or sooner if a tropical storm heads our way.

Last Saturday we hired a moped (50,000 pesos for the day – a bargain at just £13 including fuel) along with Helge and Asha our German neighbours, and ventured south to the Peak which is the highest point on the island at 1,200 feet above sea level.  The Peak was declared a Regional Park in 2007, covering 26 acres, and is the starting point for six large streams and gullies: Bowden, Lazy Hill, Freshwater, Smooth Water Bay, Gammadith Gully and Bailey. These bodies of water make up the islands main freshwater source, although according to people we have spoken to this has greatly diminished over the last few years and the island is now in need of a desalination plant.   The track to the Peak crosses through beautiful woodland with wild orchids growing in many trees, alongside paddocks with the occasional herd of grazing cattle and across rocky streams where the croak of invisible frogs echoes across huge boulders. Tree roots wind their way up some of the steeper parts giving a natural climbing frame under foot.

A view of the Peak from the track – the small pointy bit sticking out from behind the big hill

There are many magnificent Ceiba trees of varying ages, identifiable by their nasty looking thorns. I love the beautiful green stripey markings on this trunk.

Nearly there

The Colombian Government are improving the track for visitors and we passed a few workers some way along the track cementing in posts at some of the trickier parts. Their materials brought up by horses steered by young boys rather too eager with the whip.

And of course this is lizard country.

Ants for lunch, yum!

There are a few informative signs in both Spanish and English along the track explaining the local flora and fauna, this one even gives cooking instructions at the end 🙂

After an hour and a half (mainly because I felt I didn’t quite have enough photos of lizards) and feeling rather hot and sweaty we reached the top, and boy what a view.

The small Island of Santa Catalina in the distance where Joy is anchored

Feeling on top of the world!

It was a great morning, and I would highly recommend it to anyone lucky enough to visit this beautiful island.  Unfortunately the day didn’t end on such a happy note when we stopped in at Manzanillo beach on our way back around the south of the island. As we came into the parking area I spotted 5 very small puppies huddled in a group behind an unused building at the back of the beach so we went over to investigate.  They could only have been a couple of weeks old and the local coconut vendor on the beach confirmed that they had been dumped.

 I crumbled up some bonios (always keep a dog biccy in my bag!), difficult to get the pieces small enough for them to eat, and gave them the last of my water in the bottle top.  They all had cuts and sores and were covered in flies, so sad.  The guy also told us that he had been giving them coconut water and he had also asked his cousin to bring some food, but they were certainly hungry so after he climbed a tree and knocked several coconuts down I bought two from him and he opened them up to form a dish They drank the water in a puppy frenzy, paws, heads and sand in the coconut water, some tugging at the flesh around the edges whilst others drank.  They all had fat tums afterwards, sadly not a lot more we could do for them.  As we left one of the stronger ones ran after us, we watched for a while as there were vehicles coming in and out rather close to him so I eventually went and put him back in the group for safety. Luckily a young girl had just come over to take a look and so they all stayed around her as we reluctantly made our escape. Fingers crossed a kind resident took pity on them.