Well, we're back In Panama City again. And now everything is crazy.
We were having so much fun with Tori and Dave that we ended up staying in the Las Perlas for longer than we should have. Their visas expire in one week and they have to provision, check out and make their way to Ecuador. Somewhere in the middle of all that they're going to help us go through the canal somehow. We definitely left it too late, but it was totally worth it.
Tori being fabulous at the front of their dinghy
After we left Esmerelda in the Las Perlas, we headed for a cute little anchorage tucked away further down the coast of Isla Del Ray. It was small, but big enough for us to raft up sandwiched between a beautiful beach and stunning rocks that towered over the little bay. Unfortunately, Eva Marie headed in first and reported back that it was going to be too bumpy for us to be comfortable. On we went. We decided to sail across to Isla Pedro Gonzales, which was a much longer day than any of us had been expecting. We got in before dark though, dodging whales left right and centre. They were frolicking everywhere! We anchored in a nice little bay on the eastern side of the island, mostly because it was the closest place we could stop. We had to kill the engine as we entered the bay, because there were two more whales lazing around in front of us blocking the channel. They keep coming so close! It's been really amazing seeing so many of these magnificent creatures up close and personal.
We hung out there for a day or two, but there wasn't much to do. We went exploring towards the plantation that was supposed to be right next to the beach, but all we found were a heap of potted trees and some giant lizards. We didn't get a good look at them, but they sprinted through long grass near the road we were walking on and looked like they were about the same size as big dogs. I wanted to follow them, but at the same time I didn't want to get eaten...
There was another boat in that anchorage with us, the 2nd boat we've seen so far. But it was just a big launch. We thought the people onboard were just antisocial, and couldn't figure out what they were up to. They went swimming in different spots along the same beach, zipped back and forth in the dinghy for no apparent reason and tested out the jet skis constantlyàà. Then on our 2nd day there, they all changed into uniforms. Somebody took off in their mini-launch/giant tender, and the rest of the crew started fussing around on a quiet patch of sand on the beach. Then when the tender came back later on it clicked - the owners were arriving. The crew had set up two bright blue beach chairs on the sand, along with matching umbrellas and a little drinks table. It was almost comical thinking that these people wanted to arrive to a fake resort-style holiday, when they were on a boat and could just move to a different beach every day if they wanted. The fake stuff isn't anywhere near as nice as what we get to see.
When we got sick of people-watching, we decided to head to the next anchorage. The most protected spot on the whole island has been taken over by a marina that's still under construction. They didn't want to have anything to do with us. We couldnt anchor near the marina or even anywhere in the vicinity of the marina - the lone watchman said it was because they were worried about all the equipment and some guys came over in their boats to chase us away. But there was nowhere else to go. There's a village there called Ensenada, but the waves were too rocky to drop the hook nearby. So we began a not-so-fun game of 'find a spot to anchor.' We crossed over to a smaller island hoping to find some protection there, but it was even worse. After hours of messing around we eventually came back across and found a nice spot around the corner from the village.
Ensenada village up on the hill
It was a cute village, perched on top of a little hill with all the different coloured houses painting a pretty picture for passers by to look up at. Eva Marie's dinghy doesn't plane if you load too many people onto it, so the next day Garth stayed behind and I accompanied Dave and Tori on an expedition to explore the village. This time all we wanted was fresh vegetables and fruit. Anything. Everything. We needed more food. Even our desserts and cakes had gotten less desirable since we'd run out of butter.
Walking through the village
Luckily, this village was bigger than Esmerelda. They had an actual store! One not attached to somebody's house, or a part of somebody's house or actually inside somebody's living room. They had lots of stuff, including eggs, fake butter, wine and crackers. Desperate, I even bought some plastic cheese (which was sold in individual slices for 25c each). But we still hadn't found any veges. We explored the village and chatted to a few of the locals. One particularly nice guy sat down and chatted to us for a while, and before we left he presented me with a big shell and Tori with a shell necklace. What a sweetheart!
New friends!
Tori taking in the view
Ensenada is a stunningly beautiful place to live. With amazing views of the ocean and picture perfect beaches, I can see why these people stay put. The houses were more extravagant than in Esmerelda as well, with some of them decorated with a lot of love and care. They even had pretty gardens everywhere! We eventually tracked down the one guy on the island who could scrounge up some veges for us. He was busy, but promised to stop by our boats later on with some fresh stuff. Fingers crossed, we headed back.
The view from the village
It didn't take our guy long to collect some produce for us. Unfortunately he only brought by plantains, bananas and limes. But there were a lot of them. He started loading stuff into our cockpit and I had trouble actually getting the huge bunch of bananas onto the boat! He wanted $5 for everything, which we happily paid.
We didn't hang around for too much longer, and decided to head back to Panama City via a brief stopover back near where we'd been earlier in the month on Isla Del Ray. There wasn't much to do, but while we were waiting for enough wind to get us home we fixed the kayak so we could do a bit of exploring in amongst the rocks near our boat. There was a full moon while we were there, which was stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately that meant spring tides, so even though we'd anchored in over 6 metres we managed to lightly touch the bottom when the moon was full. Whoops!
the rocks on shore
Eva Marie under the full moon
After a few days we were more than ready to head home. We were missing both cheese and fresh vegetables. So we spent a day getting eady to sail and then woke up well before the sun, to a dead calm morning. There wasn't even a whisp of wind. So we waited all day for the wind to pick up before finally giving up. We tried again the next morning, again waking up at 5am ready for the long slog back to Panama City. Tori and Dave popped their heads up to say goodbye - they would catch up later. Finally there was wind! About 5 minutes later, as we were rounding the corner next to a reef, the engine spluttered and died. Not good.
We were about to pass through a tricky section of water with rocks, reefs and shallow bits everywhere so we didn't have the sails up yet. We killed the motor as it struggled to stay alive and quickly launched the headsail, just before we got too close to the reef. The anchorage we'd just left was straight upwind. Surrounded by hazards and not much room to play with, we tried getting back into where Tori and Dave were fast asleep but we couldn't make it. We'd drifted too far and the wind was not cooperating. All ready for the trip back, we both had our dinghys on deck. A quick tow was out of the question. So close, we had to give up and head to the other side of the bay. It was a bumpier anchorage but it was safe.
We got the hook down and Garth spent all morning trying to figure out what was wrong. It had sounded like the engine was out of fuel. We were not out of fuel. He eventually had to take the top of our stainless fuel tank off to see what was going on. We found out that the pipe going from the fuel to the engine had gotten blocked by tiny bits of dirt, dust and hair that had made their way into the fuel tank. It had probably never been cleaned out, and today was the day it decided to stop working. Unfortunately, we could have found that out without taking the fuel tank apart. Lamenting poor choices, Garth then spent the rest of the day putting the fuel tank back together as the wind picked up and the boat bounced up and down in our unprotected anchorage.
Eventually it was all sorted again, just as the wind died. With our tail between our legs, we headed back across the bay to join Tori and Dave once more. We would try again tomorrow. After all, third time's the charm I guess.
Eva Marie sailing with us back to Panama City. A split second after I took this, a whale breached right behind them!
Xxx Monique
Click here for LOTS more pictures!
We were having so much fun with Tori and Dave that we ended up staying in the Las Perlas for longer than we should have. Their visas expire in one week and they have to provision, check out and make their way to Ecuador. Somewhere in the middle of all that they're going to help us go through the canal somehow. We definitely left it too late, but it was totally worth it.
After we left Esmerelda in the Las Perlas, we headed for a cute little anchorage tucked away further down the coast of Isla Del Ray. It was small, but big enough for us to raft up sandwiched between a beautiful beach and stunning rocks that towered over the little bay. Unfortunately, Eva Marie headed in first and reported back that it was going to be too bumpy for us to be comfortable. On we went. We decided to sail across to Isla Pedro Gonzales, which was a much longer day than any of us had been expecting. We got in before dark though, dodging whales left right and centre. They were frolicking everywhere! We anchored in a nice little bay on the eastern side of the island, mostly because it was the closest place we could stop. We had to kill the engine as we entered the bay, because there were two more whales lazing around in front of us blocking the channel. They keep coming so close! It's been really amazing seeing so many of these magnificent creatures up close and personal.
We hung out there for a day or two, but there wasn't much to do. We went exploring towards the plantation that was supposed to be right next to the beach, but all we found were a heap of potted trees and some giant lizards. We didn't get a good look at them, but they sprinted through long grass near the road we were walking on and looked like they were about the same size as big dogs. I wanted to follow them, but at the same time I didn't want to get eaten...
There was another boat in that anchorage with us, the 2nd boat we've seen so far. But it was just a big launch. We thought the people onboard were just antisocial, and couldn't figure out what they were up to. They went swimming in different spots along the same beach, zipped back and forth in the dinghy for no apparent reason and tested out the jet skis constantlyàà. Then on our 2nd day there, they all changed into uniforms. Somebody took off in their mini-launch/giant tender, and the rest of the crew started fussing around on a quiet patch of sand on the beach. Then when the tender came back later on it clicked - the owners were arriving. The crew had set up two bright blue beach chairs on the sand, along with matching umbrellas and a little drinks table. It was almost comical thinking that these people wanted to arrive to a fake resort-style holiday, when they were on a boat and could just move to a different beach every day if they wanted. The fake stuff isn't anywhere near as nice as what we get to see.
When we got sick of people-watching, we decided to head to the next anchorage. The most protected spot on the whole island has been taken over by a marina that's still under construction. They didn't want to have anything to do with us. We couldnt anchor near the marina or even anywhere in the vicinity of the marina - the lone watchman said it was because they were worried about all the equipment and some guys came over in their boats to chase us away. But there was nowhere else to go. There's a village there called Ensenada, but the waves were too rocky to drop the hook nearby. So we began a not-so-fun game of 'find a spot to anchor.' We crossed over to a smaller island hoping to find some protection there, but it was even worse. After hours of messing around we eventually came back across and found a nice spot around the corner from the village.
It was a cute village, perched on top of a little hill with all the different coloured houses painting a pretty picture for passers by to look up at. Eva Marie's dinghy doesn't plane if you load too many people onto it, so the next day Garth stayed behind and I accompanied Dave and Tori on an expedition to explore the village. This time all we wanted was fresh vegetables and fruit. Anything. Everything. We needed more food. Even our desserts and cakes had gotten less desirable since we'd run out of butter.
Luckily, this village was bigger than Esmerelda. They had an actual store! One not attached to somebody's house, or a part of somebody's house or actually inside somebody's living room. They had lots of stuff, including eggs, fake butter, wine and crackers. Desperate, I even bought some plastic cheese (which was sold in individual slices for 25c each). But we still hadn't found any veges. We explored the village and chatted to a few of the locals. One particularly nice guy sat down and chatted to us for a while, and before we left he presented me with a big shell and Tori with a shell necklace. What a sweetheart!
Ensenada is a stunningly beautiful place to live. With amazing views of the ocean and picture perfect beaches, I can see why these people stay put. The houses were more extravagant than in Esmerelda as well, with some of them decorated with a lot of love and care. They even had pretty gardens everywhere! We eventually tracked down the one guy on the island who could scrounge up some veges for us. He was busy, but promised to stop by our boats later on with some fresh stuff. Fingers crossed, we headed back.
It didn't take our guy long to collect some produce for us. Unfortunately he only brought by plantains, bananas and limes. But there were a lot of them. He started loading stuff into our cockpit and I had trouble actually getting the huge bunch of bananas onto the boat! He wanted $5 for everything, which we happily paid.
We didn't hang around for too much longer, and decided to head back to Panama City via a brief stopover back near where we'd been earlier in the month on Isla Del Ray. There wasn't much to do, but while we were waiting for enough wind to get us home we fixed the kayak so we could do a bit of exploring in amongst the rocks near our boat. There was a full moon while we were there, which was stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately that meant spring tides, so even though we'd anchored in over 6 metres we managed to lightly touch the bottom when the moon was full. Whoops!
After a few days we were more than ready to head home. We were missing both cheese and fresh vegetables. So we spent a day getting eady to sail and then woke up well before the sun, to a dead calm morning. There wasn't even a whisp of wind. So we waited all day for the wind to pick up before finally giving up. We tried again the next morning, again waking up at 5am ready for the long slog back to Panama City. Tori and Dave popped their heads up to say goodbye - they would catch up later. Finally there was wind! About 5 minutes later, as we were rounding the corner next to a reef, the engine spluttered and died. Not good.
We were about to pass through a tricky section of water with rocks, reefs and shallow bits everywhere so we didn't have the sails up yet. We killed the motor as it struggled to stay alive and quickly launched the headsail, just before we got too close to the reef. The anchorage we'd just left was straight upwind. Surrounded by hazards and not much room to play with, we tried getting back into where Tori and Dave were fast asleep but we couldn't make it. We'd drifted too far and the wind was not cooperating. All ready for the trip back, we both had our dinghys on deck. A quick tow was out of the question. So close, we had to give up and head to the other side of the bay. It was a bumpier anchorage but it was safe.
We got the hook down and Garth spent all morning trying to figure out what was wrong. It had sounded like the engine was out of fuel. We were not out of fuel. He eventually had to take the top of our stainless fuel tank off to see what was going on. We found out that the pipe going from the fuel to the engine had gotten blocked by tiny bits of dirt, dust and hair that had made their way into the fuel tank. It had probably never been cleaned out, and today was the day it decided to stop working. Unfortunately, we could have found that out without taking the fuel tank apart. Lamenting poor choices, Garth then spent the rest of the day putting the fuel tank back together as the wind picked up and the boat bounced up and down in our unprotected anchorage.
Eventually it was all sorted again, just as the wind died. With our tail between our legs, we headed back across the bay to join Tori and Dave once more. We would try again tomorrow. After all, third time's the charm I guess.
Xxx Monique
Click here for LOTS more pictures!
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