Greetings from Escudo de Veraguas, Panama

 

View from our island anchorage

      Greetings faithful readers!  My apologies for making y'all have to wait so long for this update, but Internet connectivity is a bit sparse in these parts.  Your favorite travel blogger, and his skipper, have successfully journeyed from Shelter Bay Marina, near the north entrance to the Panama Canal, to Isla Escudo de Veraguas.  More about the island later, but first let's back up a few days:

superyacht at our marina

       It started on Sept 1 with a flight out of Houston, a layover in Costa Rica, arrival in Panama City, then a Uber ride to the marina.  It was late at night when I finally hooked up with Robert, the skipper of Milagro.  On Thursday we went to downtown Colon for a huge provisioning run.  For two days, I've never had so much Spanish thrown at me.

interior of Milagro

      

      The Caribbean coast of Panama There has lots and lots of bays and lovely island clusters to cruise around in and explore.  After discussion, Robert and I decided to head west: to Bocas del Toro, an archipelago of over 200 islands, islets, and cays.  It's about 150 miles from the Canal entrance.

leaving Shelter Bay Marina

      But the winds in this part of the world are squirrelly, unstable, and unpredictable.  We pulled up PredictWind, a sailor's favorite web app for trip planning.  But the best the app could tell us was:  the wind could be any speed, and blow any direction.  The best we could do was head out and just do what we could.  On Friday morning, we finished the last boat preparation, and then it was:  untie the dock lines and go! 

Exiting the Canal on north side

      

      It was pretty cool, heading out of the entrance to the World's Most Famous Canal.  The rocky breakwaters on both sides makes an opening that's less than a quarter of a mile wide.  There were dozens of ships, both inside and outside the breakwater, waiting their turn to go through the canal. 

       Then it was out into the wide open Caribbean.  The water was the clearest crystal blue you can imagine.  The sky was overcast, which was nice because it kept the heat down.  But, the wind and current were dead in our face, so the engine had to do most of the heavy lifting.  The sails were not much help.  The seas, however, were actually mild.  (That is, if you compare it to the Gulf of Mexico, probably the world's nastiest ocean.)

       We sailed and motored all night long, taking turns sleeping and driving.  Occasionally, some dolphins would swim along with us.  It was way cool sailing in clear water where we could actually SEE the critters, as opposed to the muddy slop of Galveston Bay, or the Intracoastal Waterway.

First view of our island on horizon

      At about 3 pm the next day, we caught sight of our island, barely visible on the horizon.  Picture in your mind a small tropical island:  beaches, palm trees, big rocky cliffs, the works.  Well, that's Escudo!  It's about two miles wide from east to west, and about a mile wide from north to south.  It's the eastmost island in the Bocas archipelago, and is rather low by Caribbean standards.  We dropped anchor along the southern shore, about a hundred yards out. 

 

Milagro at anchor

     And so, I was finally able to check off another item on my sailing "bucket list":  crossing an ocean to small-island destination.  And to make the whole experience complete, the next day we hopped in the dinghy for some island exploration, and some snorkeling.

We drove the dinghy under this cave

      

      Now let's talk about the weather.  This is Central America's apply-named "rainy season", and the pattern held true.  Every day it rained, accompanied by much lightning and thunder.  Early Saturday morning, while in route, we were blessed with a bodacious thunderstorm.  I'm sure you've seen the sailing movies where the crew, in the middle of the night, is struggling against wind, waves, pouring rain, and lightning.  Well, that was us!  But we survived and pushed onward. 

Many of these small islets were all around

      When it's NOT raining, it can get really, really hot.  Fortunately, we can jump in the water to cool off.  But in between, we also had some very pleasant weather.  The other night, the clouds cleared away after sunset, and a zillion stars came out.  The Milky Way absolutely GLOWED like a luminous cloud.

fixing the toilet

      But life on a boat has its moments, and of course, something always breaks.  For us it was … the toilet.  It would not flush, and you gotta have a working toilet.  One of the output hoses was evidently clogged.  First, I got in the water and dived on the boat, attempting to unclog it from the outside.  (I tell you, it was wonderful diving in clear, warm water, as opposed to the freezing cold muddy soup I had to swim in LAST time I had to go under a boat.)  But that didn't work, so we had to disassemble all the friggin output hoses to find that stinking clog.  It took half a day, sweltering in the heat and sloshing in poop water, but we managed to clean it all out and put the infernal contraption back together.  Toilet works now!

Skipper Robert taking the dinghy ashore

       As always, more exciting adventures are just over the next horizon.  Stay tuned!

Wave crashing onto a rock wall

 

Ending the day with a proper "sundowner"