Canada

Our best laid plans for getting to Bowmanville, Ontario to spend 2 weeks with Daniel, Tanya and Baby Knight, went somewhat awry with Baby Knight’s arrival. However, as I said to Ivan, if I can spend 10 days on a yacht with hardly any sleep, I can sleep one night in an airport! And so we did, before catching the early morning bus to Toronto.

The reason we are here!

Baby Knight now named Zaden Troy Gnarly Knight with his gorgeous parents

Back to Bocas

We caught buses back to Almirante and then a water taxi to Bocas and another water taxi over to Marina Carenero to be reunited with Brio. We were surprised, after all of the rain we had been experiencing, to find the marina in drought. They had not had rain for two weeks and the beautiful basil and other herbs in the kiyuka gardens was dying off and the laundry had been closed for a week to conserve the precious rainwater.

The kiyuka herb garden before it dried up

We had a week to pack up the boat before leaving her for 6 months. It will be an experiment to see just what state she is in when we return. There is all sorts of advice available about how to leave a yacht in a hot, humid environment – foil on the windows, kitty litter in trays, shade cloth over the top. In the end we didn’t do all of these things, although I did try to store things so that air could circulate and cleaned the inside surfaces to try to reduce mould growth. Ivan was busy oiling tools to prevent rust and covering the propeller to prevent barnacle growth amongst other things. We will see when we return!

The day before we left, the rain came in the form of a wild storm. The timing was outrageous – we had just received word from Daniel, Ivan’s son, that Tanya, Daniel’s wife was in the final stages of labour with their first child. The storm caused a power outage and the internet was also out. It was another 6 or 7 hours before we could log back onto the internet to find out how Tanya and the baby were and in doing so we received the great news that she had had a boy and all was well. Of less importance, but also something we were keen to finalise, was our washing that was half done, but now with the power back on could be dried before the morning.

Panama - Boquete

We spent 2 days at Boquete, a town known for its cool climate, coffee, cloud forests and walking trails. We spent our first day enjoying a leisurely breakfast in a converted garage and then walked along a road out of town into the hills. After about an hour the cloud rolled in and the rain pelted, fortunately just as we were passing a bus shelter. So we ate our picnic lunch in the bus shelter and then hailed a passing taxi to take us back to town. We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in chairs watching the river next to our hostel swell from the rain. The hostel (Suenos del Rio) is so close to the river that at night it is hard to tell if you are listening to rain fall or just the usual rushing of the river. It was a nice place to stay, especially as we had a small kitchen/lounge are to ourselves.



Cloud rolls across the forest

 The hostel owner put us in touch with Feliciano, a local guide who has been guiding in the area for most of his 56 years. He is a very fit and personable man. In order to avoid a washout, we were up at 6 the next morning to be ready by 7 for Feliciano to collect us and take us on a walk into the World Heritage listed national park, La Amisted. We had a really enjoyable walk with him – 3 hours up and 2 hours down – through lush, secondary forest. We saw some flowers and birds, but the season for the elusive quetzals was over. At the top of the walk we could see the Altlantic Ocean in one direction and the Pacific in the other. The path we were on continued all the way to Almirante on the Atlantic side. Feliciano sometimes takes people on a walk all the way. It takes 4 days when he takes tourists, but only 2 when he goes alone!



Sometimes the trail was very narrow



We were not long back in town when down came the rain in great torrents, so although the early start was a bit confronting for “she who loves her bed”, it was worth it to avoid a drenching on the walk and walking on a path turned into a river.

Ivan and Feliciano at the top of our walk

Panama - El Valle

After our two weeks in Colombia we spent 6 days on mainland Panama before going back to Brio. I was keen to see some wildlife in the cloud forests if possible.

Our first stop was a town called El Valle. After the beauty of the towns in Colombia, the Panamanian towns look very plain and unkempt. El Valle was one such town, but the Don Pepe Hotel was clean and comfortable. We were hungry after travelling most of the day to get there so bought some kebabs from a street cart. They tasted of firelighters and were completely inedible so we went to a busy looking restaurant for something else. It wasn’t a great culinary experience here either – the service was incredibly slow and at one point the whole restaurant filled with smoke. My rice arrived and was quite ok, but Ivan’s soup didn’t. We asked for the bill and his soup arrived not long after, but it was inedible glug. My Spanish is good enough to indicate the soup was not good so they struck it off the bill. Other people on nearby tables were also having problems with their food arriving, so it seems the restaurant was having a really bad day. Oh well, we retired to our room to take in the luxury of cable TV and proceeded to watch what looked to be the fall of the Gadafi regime as rebels took control of Tripoli.

Finding a good restaurant is tiring business

We spent the next day in the company of an American couple, Bob and Tammy, and we visited the zoo and frog sanctuary, the Macho falls and the local mud pools. We also found a better place to eat!

at the Macho falls

Having fun at the mudpools

Colombia - Villa de Leyva



From Bogota we went north to Villa de Leyva, an old colonial town with cobblestone streets and whitewashed houses and as quaint as the guidebooks say. It has a huge central square for a relatively small 'cbd' and when we arrived, it was showing the remnants of its annual kite festival that had been held the previous weekend. I could see how the open space and brilliant blue skies could be such an attraction for kite flyers. Villa de Leyva is in quite an arid area, and the Iguaque National Park next to the town has unique plants and is a sacred place for the local indigenous people. We enjoyed the temperate climate of Villa de Leyva after the cool of Bogota (average year round temperature of 14 degrees). We also enjoyed doing some physical activity - cycling and hiking - as we are both feeling like our finely honed, taut and trim bodies :) are sliding into serious disrepair.



Villa de Leyva central square

We spent most of one day on rented bicycles touring around the area. Fortunately the traffic in Villa de Leyva is minimal and much slower than in Bogota and Cartegena. Our first stop was the Azul pools - promoted to tourists as unusually blue lakes. Yes they are blue. It was early in the day and they didn't look that inviting to swim in so we decided to push on. It was a steep hill back up to the main road and Ivan had just started up it when his chain broke. Luckily for us there was a group that had arrived at the pools on horseback at the same time as we had and the group's guide had a mobile phone that he used to call the person we rented the bikes from. They sent a car out to pick us and the bikes up and we went back to town to select another bike for Ivan. Then we headed off on the bikes again!......

Ivan and the fossil 

synchronised goats

A fuel station named after our boat!

the old monastery

the Terracotta House

The next day we walked for a few hours with Christian, a local guide, and another couple into the Iguaque National Park behind the town. As we walked we stopped frequently to admire the indigenous flora, including a number of types of orchids. The views were panoramic from the top.

Iquaque National Park

The next day as we walked to a nearby waterfall, again we were interested to see many different types of plants, including wild native tomatoes and potatoes, as Colombia is where these staples of our diet today originate from. The native tomatoes were tiny, but delicious.

native tomato

On our last morning in Villa de Leyva we wandered around the small weekly market. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a range of good quality produce at a market. The consistent year round climate of the area allows many fruit and vegetables to grow all of the time rather than being seasonal.

A farrow of piggy banks...just for Wilma

market produce

We caught the bus back to Bogota to spend our final night there before going back to Panama. Verne and Troy were having a housewarming party that night so we got to say a final goodbye to them and their friends we had met previously. On return to the hostel we were staying in my uneasiness about Bogota is confirmed when we are approached by an American man claiming to have been robbed and asking for money to help him out. While his situation sounded plausible, we didn’t really believe him, and he wasn’t going to stop his pleading. So it being midnight, standing in a cold, dark street and wanting to get rid of this guy, we gave him 5,000 pesos (about $2.50 – enough for a meal) just so he would go away. It worked.

Colombia - Bogota

Bogota, city of taxis - 52,000 of them if I remember correctly, but according to whom I'm not sure. We arrived in Bogota on Friday afternoon and took a taxi (and we thought the drivers in Cartegena and Panama were crazy!) to the hostel in Candelaria district that we were staying at. This would be our first time sleeping on land for some five months. I can asure you I had no trouble adjusting to sleeping on land in a larger (normal sized) bed.

We spent a good part of the weekend with Verne and Troy who are now living in Bogota while Verne undertakes a PhD in dolphin research. We met Verne through our mutual friends Merril and Chris when we were visiting Cambodia a few years ago. Verne and Troy showed us a great time. First up was a party on Friday night, next day lunch at Crepes and Waffles and on to a huge park to see the summer festival (although it pretty much seemed to be all over), then Saturday night they introduced us to their favourite pizza place that rapidly became Ivan's favourite Bogota eatery before joining some of their friends at a new restaurant in a dodgy part of town. Sunday morning we all took the cable car ride up to the top of Montserrate, a mountain overlooking Bogota. The view is pretty amazing up there and makes you realise what a densely populated city Bogota is. We said goodbye to Verne and Troy and Ivan and I went off to the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum). Definitely worth a visit.



Bogota viewed from Montserrate

 Ivan spent the next day recovering from a mild bout of gastro (we think picked up at lunch the day before) and I visited the Museo Bottero and the old mint and art gallery. Museo Bottero is a collection of works from the artist Ferdinand Bottero. His works are best described as fat and round and I think you either love or hate them, there's no in between. I really love them, because they are so fun.

Bottero's fat, round guerillas

dang that finger on the mobile phone camera lens

Err yum?

Although we had a great time with Verne and Troy, and there are some interesting museums and art gallerys to explore, I didn't really like Bogota. I found it a bit creepy - probably partly due to all the bad stories you hear about what happens to people, partly due to all the warnings people give you to be careful, partly due to the high presence of security guards and razor wire fences and partly because it is a city like any other with poor people, beggars and street kids.


with Verne and Troy



Colombia - Cartegena

We had at one stage thought we would sail to Cartegena before going through the Panama Canal and make use of what we had heard were good marina facilities to slip the boat and do some work on her before entering the Pacific. More recently though we had heard that the harbour was a pretty dirty place to keep the boat as well as it being terribly hot and humid so we decided to see Cartegena and some other parts of Colombia by plane and land travel.

We left Bocas del Toro on the 7th of August on an early morning flight to Panama city. It was fantastice to see the Bocas archipelago which we had just sailed around from the air. Mangroves and reefs everywhere! It was equally fascinating, but quite a different type of view, to see the hundreds of yachts and ships moored and anchored outside the entrance of the Panama Canal as we came in to land.

Bocas archipelago from the air

After a night in Panama city we flew to Cartegena and spent 4 days there with our friend John on his yacht Sapphire M, a Westsail 32, which he had at anchor at Club Nautico in Cartegena. Cartegena is a nice city to explore. It reminded me of Phnom Penh - the humidity, the deteriorating footpaths, the juxtaposition of the old eg. hawkers on the street and the new eg. Crocs shop. Once known as the major trouble spot in Colombia for drug related crime, things have apparently got better in recent years and with police on just about every street corner, it has become safer for tourists. John had organised for the 3 of us to go on a guided tour of the city, particularly the old section. Our guide, Duran Duran (!!) was a font of information and we had a very enjoyable time.

John, Louise and Ivan at the old fort

While in Cartegena we had a crazy bus ride - jump on, hang on and don't look ahead; visited the naval museum which as well as housing displays of things naval was memorable for the very loud accordian bands playing in the hall and for the torrential rainstorm that came while we were inside.

view from John's anchorage at Club Nautico

On the morning we left Cartegena we woke to a rising wind that was causing some of the boats around us to drag their anchor. It was somewhat nerve wracking at the point when a 50ft schooner drifted close enough to the boat next to John's to glance off it just as the owner started the engine to motor away. We would have been next in line for a sizeable knock, although John was ready to pull the anchor and motor away from danger if necessary. We were surprised that a number of people leave their boats at anchor in the harbour without remaining on board and of course inevitably some of them drag in high winds or sails flap loose, just becoming a danger to those around them. Fortunately for us the wind dropped after about an hour and John was able to take us to the dinghy dock so we could catch our flight to Bogota.

Bocas Archipelago - Punta Laurel Bay and beyond



Brio at anchor near 'the farm'



From Bluefields we motored (again not enough wind) south of Cayo de Agua and into a small bay on the south side of Isla Popa called Laurel Bay, arriving at about 4 pm. We had intended to go further that day, but we had not left Bluefields until about 1pm and as it gets later in the day it is much harder to judge the depths of water and see the coral heads and reefs that are all around. Getting into Laurel Bay was a little tricky, but between Ivan's sooper dooper polarizing sunglasses and the chart notes we had, we got in without mishap although there were a couple of moments when the depth suddenly reduced and we had to pick our way around a shallow spot. The bay was delightful with five dwellings visible on the shore including one half-submerged house and one house on an islet that we called 'the farm' because judging from the noises we heard, the family there kept pigs, chooks and dogs. As with most of the places we stayed during our tour of the archipelago we were the only yacht to be seen. No sooner had we arrived than a gringo came over to us in his runabout, introduced himself as Ken, from Florida, but now living in a house he built on the point overlooking the bay, gave us an avocado from his garden, but as he was on his way out to dinner he couldn't stop long to talk.

When the stumps fail

The following day we explored a narrow creek that led into the bay that Ken had told us about. We were able to go a long way up it using the oars as paddles as it was too narrow to row normally. I ( Louise) caught a glimpse of a cayman at one stage and we saw a few birds that looked like and behaved like kingfishers.

A wider section of the creek we paddled up

After visiting Ken at his house the next morning we rowed back to our boat to head off, but rain forced us to wait until the afternoon. When we finally left we had to navigate our way through a lot of shallows to reach the Sumwood Channel. It was quite tense, particularly as we found that our Autohelm GPS did not give the same reading as our Garmin Chartplotter GPS. To navigate I was constantly looking at the coordinates on the Autohelm GPS and those on the chartlet in the cruising guide, so didn't get to enjoy the scenery. We only touched bottom once! The Sumwood Channel was a little easier and from there we steered past lots of mangrove islets and into Porras Lagoon. The lagoon is home to dolphins and we were lucky enough to see a few as we entered it. We stayed the night near a small village in the lagoon, hoping we could buy some fish from the shop. There was no shop there, but we were directed to a small fuel depot and the man there sold us a decent sized snapper from the freezer in his home. So we got our fish, but unfortunately as it was frozen, it would be the next night when we ate it!

House on Palos Lagoon Cut

We got off to an early start the next morning and motored through a small cut to the next lagoon, Palos Lagoon and from there out into Bahia Almirante, which although was nice deep, clear water, once again there was no wind so the motor stayed running. We headed over to Isla Colon and, checking out a few different anchorages along the way, anchored at Starfish Beach around lunchtime. There were a couple of other yachts anchored here, including a small one near us called 'Leaf' of Freemantle. Owners Adam and Hannah had bought her in the US, prepared her for sail in Canada and were now doing as we were and making the journey home. They had started with next to no experience of sailing, but they seemed to have picked it up very quickly, albeit with a few lessons learned on the way.

We had a pleasant time swimming over to the shore and looking at the big orange starfish and walking along the beach. Unfortunately the popularity of the beach has resulted in local tourist operators setting up beach chairs and playing loud Carribean music for the day trippers which was quite annoying by the end of the day.

The next morning we made the short hop back to Isla Carenero and tied up at the berth in the marina where we will leave the boat for the next 7 months.

Bocas Archipelago - over to Bluefields

After Red Frog we motored a little further down Hospital Bight (so named for the hospital that was there in the early 20th century) to Bahia Honda. Bahia Honda was a relatively tranquil spot for the night. Just the usual noise of children playing and dogs barking as there was a small village nearby.

The next morning we had a look at a tiny marina that we had been able to see from our Red Frog anchorage. As we were to discover there were hundreds of very sheltered spots amongst the mangroves of the archipelago and obviously some people had taken the opportunity to create mini-marinas for people looking to leave their boat in a safe, cheap place. This particular marina was full with about 8 yachts on the dock.

Entering The Gap

From Bahia Honda we motored through a very narrow channel known as The Gap. The channel wasn't very long and was shallow in parts so we had one eye on the depth sounder all the way.

The Gap opened out into a large expanse of mangrove islets that we cautiously motored through, again having to watch the depths closely, as we made our way in a generally south direction. While mostly there is mud on the bottom there are also coral heads, hence the need to move slowly and being alert to changes in the colour of the water indicating a change in depth and possibly coral. Nice to be in a steel boat though!

Mangrove islets south of The Gap

Once out past the mangrove islets, we passed between Isla Bastimentos and Isla Popa and made a change in plan to head for Laguna de Bluefields, another hour and a half or so away, rather than stick to our original plan to stop at Cayos Zapatilla (2 small coral cays known for white sand and snorkelling). We were able to hoist the genoa, although still ran the engine as the wind was light.

We arrived at Bluefields mid-afternoon, having an impromptu race as we entered the Laguna with a kiyuku (local indian canoe) that was sailing along. Ivan did stop the engine to try to make it a more even competition. We set anchor at Punta Allegre once we had established where the coral reef was in order to make sure we weren't in danger of drifting on to it. There was another yacht in the tiny bay, flying a British flag. We didn't waste any time getting into the water to cool off and swam over to introduce ourselves to Frank. Frank has a 44ft Herreshof steel ketch  that he built himself in London 20 or so years ago. He kindly pointed the local man selling crayfish from his kiyuka in our direction that night!



Kiyuka under sail at Bluefields





Dinner!



The next day we began a walk across the tip of the island, through the forest from Punta Allegre village to another village called Cusapin, but gave up after about an hour as we could see the mud was just going to continue, making it very slow going. The locals had warned us it was a 3 hour trip and very muddy!

Punta Allegre village

We stayed 2 nights at Bluefields, enjoying some swimming and watching the locals paddle their kiyukas past us. Sometimes they would have a handful of fruit or vegetables to sell us. Othertimes they would just look at our boat or test out their English on us. Ivan got quite a funny fright once to look up from something he was doing in the cockpit to find two young children peering over the edge of the cockpit from their kiyuka! They are quite silent when they paddle up.

Track to Cusapin

Bocas Archipelago - Red Frog

We have just returned from 10 days touring in Brio around the Bocas del Toro archipelago. I'll keep this post fairly brief as it is late and we are up very early tomorrow morning to go to Colombia (by plane) for a couple of weeks.

We left Marina Carenero on the morning of Wednesday 27 July for a short (motoring) trip to Isla Bastimentos with the intention of stopping near the old town on the island. Before we realised it, we had passed the anchorage so, with an 'oh well' we continued a little further and anchored outside Red Frog Marina. The marina is named after the beach on the island that has lots of little red frogs on it. We went to the beach but didn't even think to look for the frogs while we were there. We had actually seen some when we visited the chocolate farm on Isla Colon so we weren't thinking about looking for more of them. The beach was very nice to walk along and Ivan went for a bit of a body surf in some pretty poor waves in the beach next door.

On Red Frog Beach not looking for frogs

We had only intended to spend one night in the area, however as we needed to communicate with our travel agent about some incorrect ticketing dates he had sent us, we ended up spending a good part of the next day making use of the free internet in the restaurant up the hill to try and sort out the problem. It was a rainy day anyway so  not much chop for sailing and so we spent a second night at anchor there. It was quite a busy little place with Pangas (water taxis) zipping around us and through the mangroves dropping people off at the island.

Bocas del Toro

We loved Providencia so much that we decided not to spoil our impression of Colombian islands by visiting San Andres as we had heard that that island was more populated and touristy than Providencia. So we passed by the lights of San Andreas during our 48 hour sail from Providencia to Bocas del Toro in Panama. We motor sailed most of the way as there was not a lot of wind. The closer we got to the coast, the more frequent the rain squalls seemed to be. The rain didn't bring much wind, but just made for a soggy trip.

Bocas del Toro is an archipelago near the Costa Rican border. We are staying at the Carenero Marina which is on the island of the same name and is a $1 boat taxi ride away from the town of Bocas on Isla Colon. Bocas is something of a backpacker town with a lot of competitively priced hostels, cheap bars and restaurants that sell american style food. It's nice that we are not residing in the middle of all of that, even though I loved that sort of travelling 25 years ago!

We have been taking it very easy since we have been here. Some days we have taken a water taxi across to Bocas to do things in town and other days we have stayed around the marina doing things on the boat and trying to organise the next part of our trip. Yesterday we went on a chocolate tour. This involved catching a water taxi to Almerante and from there we were picked up and taken to a community that grows cacao trees and makes chocolate from the harvested beans. They have recently, under the guidance of a Peace Corps volunteer, started the chocolate tours. It was a fabulous tour with the local guide giving us lots of information about the ecology of the area and their permaculture practices as well as about the chocolate making process. The community run the cacao and tour business as a cooperative. We saw a sloth (very high up in a tree so very hard to make head or tail of), some lovely blue and black frogs and some tiny red frogs.

chocolate tour with Mauricio



House next to the marina



Like many of the places we have visited on this and other trips, one wonders whether the people (including the many ex-pats who build grand houses next to the water) think at all about sea level rise and what on earth our local council regulations would make of some of the structures.



restaurant ripening window



 

Stratocumulus and cirrus clouds...I think

getting a lift to town on the veggie boat

Providencia

Four days and four nights sailing saw us arrive in Providencia early one morning. Like exercise, it was good to stop doing it! We had checked the weather sites before leaving and it looked like we could expect solid wind of about 18kts and seas of 2.5 m for at least for some of the trip. What we actually got was never more than about 12 kts of wind and about 1m seas which made me very happy; although it was uncomfortable at times because it was beam on.  That´s wind and waves on the side of the boat for non-boaters. We both felt sea sick for a good part of the trip but enjoyed eggs and bacon for breakfast when we got in.

Providencia is a small island off the coast of Nicaragua, but is actually Colombian. It is low key, has one road that goes around it and has some nice snorkelling. They say the reef off Providencia is the 3rd largest in the world and as such a lot of people come here for snorkelling and diving. Unfortunately they have a problem with lionfish, an invasive pest that has arrived in recent years, and which is eating the native reef fish.

Brio at anchor in Catalina Harbour

The main town of Providencia is Isabel on Catalina Harbour. Everwhere we go we have an interesting checking in experience with customs, immigration and quarantine and this one proved no different. The agent, Mr Bush, advised us to come to the dinghy dock at 11am. We duly did this and after a while he and about 5 other people showed up, all with clipboards with forms to complete and all seeming to ask us the same questions. It was quite funny to be checking in sitting on some broken milk crates in the shade of a building on the dock, with a barrage of questions being asked.

Main street, Isabel, Providencia

 We spent our 8 days on Providencia snorkelling, looking at some amazing corals and fish, trying out the local restaurants, especially enjoying the very fresh seafood, trying to get internet access and visiting the beaches. We made friends with James and Victoria who were visiting from their home in Germany. With them we climbed to the top of the peak of the island. A local guide showed us the way. We were also accompanied by two dogs all the way to the top. Climbing the peak involved an early start for us as we had to row into Isabel from our mooring to be picked up by a motorcycle taxi at 6.30am. The taxi driver was also our guide and he was right in insisting the early start as it gets very hot by mid-morning. It took us about an hour and a quarter to get to the top and the views were good.

At the peak with Victoria, guide Imacio and James

Leaving Jamaica

After 15 days in Port Antonio, Jamaica we departed to start to make our way south to Providencia. It was a bit tricky to work out the best time to leave to get reasonable weather for the whole trip, but we managed to avoid bad weather as it turned out. First stop was Negril on the western end of Jamaica. We had decided to go there on the good advice of our friend Ed to make use of the shelter of the island from strong winds and from there we could keep an eye out for a good weather window to depart for Providencia. We sailed for 22 hours to get to Negril and then spent 2 nights anchored there in the north of Bloody Bay.

Ivan repairing sail, Negril



Typical Louise pose








Negril was much more touristy than what we were used to in Jamaica. We were anchored not far from a huge, purple resort. We swam into the beach one day and met an English couple who were there on a 2 week holiday and they explained that the resort was part of a chain that has exactly the same buildings and services at various locations around the world. This was the 3rd time they had been to one of these resorts and each time they didn´t leave the actual resort to explore the surrounding towns and culture. Such a different holiday experience to the ones we are usually seeking!

close encounter with a cruise ship on the way to Negril