|
December 31, 2007
Marina Carenero
Bocas del Toro, Panama
Whoever thought the Pedersens and cats
would spend a New Year’s Eve in west of nowhere, Panama!
We arrived here on schedule on the morning
of December 20, after a good passage down from
Albuquerque Cay.
The toughest part of the trip was getting OUT of Albuquerque
Cay, given it’s a reef system about 7 miles long and about 3
miles wide, full of coral heads and water so clear you can tell
the sex of the crabs on the bottom. It was quite the diaper
changer getting out, due to a good breeze and wind chop that
distorted our ability to read the water – Jan on the foredeck,
Ole at the depthsounder in the pilothouse, with walkie-talkies –
it took us nearly an hour to zig-zag out with a few narrow
misses of coral pillars that arose out of nowhere.
The passage down was pleasant, especially
in the morning as we approached the entrance to Bocas del Toro.
There is quite a long fetch, and the wave height increased to
probably 6-9 feet – but with a light wind, all we experienced
was looooonnnnngggg sloooooowwww rollers that allowed us to just
surf pleasantly through the entrance between Isla Carenero and
Isla Bastimentos. Waiting for us at Marina Carenero were Kathy
and Neil, as well as Mack and the marina boys who helped us tie
up. The Port Captain and officials came over to clear us in,
collect their beer and fees – then we had to go over to town to
finish three more steps in the clearing-in cha-cha, visiting the
bank (modern! Air-conditioned!) to buy a stamp, deliver the
stamp and our passports to the immigration guy at the airport
who licked the stamp and explained our length of stay, then the
Port Captain, who typed up the document he had handwritten while
aboard. Final tally: $160 and 5 beers. Not bad. But then
there are additional fees and stamps for the cats, which the
agriculture guy will take care of.
Christmas Eve we hosted our annual glogg
party, complete with krumkake, pepparkake, and fatigmann, for
all the folks at the marina. We had 15 people aboard until
about 5:00 – at which time we kicked everybody off and Ole
started cooking our untraditional rib dinner with a slab of pork
short ribs we carried from Guatemala (no fat, not much meat) and
some packages of red and green sauerkraut we brought back from
Norway. The tragedy was that we had to settle for Grey Goose
vodka, having forgotten to pack the aquavit aboard this year.
But it was Christmas nonetheless.
Neil and Kathy scored a leg of lamb from
the gourmet grocery in town and were kind enough to invite us to
share dinner Christmas Day with their friends Craig and Nicky
from the UK – and, since Mack was alone for Christmas, he came
along too (contributing fresh rosemary from his herb garden and
a great selection of cheese). Craig and Nicky contributed a
no-kidding plum pudding and traditional crackers from England
and the evening was full of good wine, good company and lots of
laughs, just like Christmas ought to be.
The weather hasn’t been all that great,
with lots of equatorial rain falling nearly every day. Ole has
been working like a champ installing the new water heater we
ordered before we left Guatemala, which finally arrived two days
after Christmas (only 10 days late). It’s a good thing, too,
since at 20 years old, it’s probably the next thing that would
have failed. When he hauled it up out of the engine room the
entire bottom was rusted.
Joined up with Neil, Kathy, and Craig and
Nicky to form a trivia team – The Intrepid International Idiot
Savant Society – to participate in a trivia contest over at
Bocas Yacht Club to benefit a fund for school children. It
costs each child about $50 before they can even attend school –
a uniform (with shoes) is required, plus a backpack and
miscellaneous school supplies. The contest consisted of 30
questions put together by Geoffrey of Panache (an ex RAF-type),
and the fundraising was done by passing a wizard’s hat. --
Look about a third of the way down this link --About
10 teams participated, and we won, answering 22.5 out of 30
questions correctly (including naming all 7 dwarves, and no,
Sneaky and Sleazy are NOT two of them), in spite of torrential
rain and blowing wind that required us to share umbrellas to
cover the soggy answer sheets. Our grand prize was a half
gallon of rum (yo ho ho) and an article about Geoffrey in the
Bocas Breeze.
We’ve explored a few restaurants in town,
and found the food a bit more sophisticated than in Guatemala.
With so many ex-pats here in Bocas there are plenty to choose
from. There are two good Chinese hardware stores and three good
groceries that seem to have everything we need. When those
fail, there’s the Super Gourmet, run by an expat who knows about
fresh produce, good cheese and deli meat – as well as American
and English specialty food. Rumor has it that someone is
actually opening a pet store in the next few months, so we
almost have all the comforts of home.
The marina seems to have everything we’ll
need for a long stay – good laundry, showers, and nice community
of cruisers. One drawback though is the thickness of the cloud
of “chitras” (no-see-ums or sand-fleas) that show up every
morning at sunrise and every evening just before sunset. They
don’t really bite like mosquitos – they spit a little drop of
acid on the skin to break it up for them to eat. And the bites
feel like little pin-pricks of acid. Nothing for them except
lots of deet and a local soap that seems to keep them at bay.
Thank goodness they haven’t penetrated downstairs to the
bedroom!
We’re going to celebrate New Year’s Eve
next door at a little restaurant over the water called the
Cosmic Crab – for $20 we’ll get filet mignon, casear salad,
dessert, entertainment – and we can bring our own wine! Should
be fun.
Happy New Year to All from Emma Jo!
     
 |
