Settling into Summer
Miette finds a home for the season at Isla Carenero
In our last update, Rough Ride to Ngäbe-Buglé, we were enjoying our time among the indigenous people in the southeast, sparsely-populated corner of the Bocas del Toro archipelago.
Low on perishables, we weighed anchor and motored slowly closer to “Bocas Town”, the central town in the area, careful not to put much strain on our propeller shaft due to a mechanical issue.
The short version: I may need to replace the coupling that connects the transmission to the propeller shaft, and it’s going to be a bear of a job that I may not want to try while Miette is in the water.
On our way out of the little bay that had been our home, we passed a local paddle-sailing his canoe.
We spent a night in the middle of nowhere off Isla Popa. It’s not marked as an anchorage on any charts, but a satellite image showed a large catamaran anchored near a shore. When we approached the area, the charted depths disagreed wildly with the sonar. Where we expected 15 feet, we saw 60, and so I slowed down even more. With the afternoon light fading behind storm clouds over the distant mountains, spotting a shoal through the silty water would be difficult.
After a few circles, the sonar showed us to be over an area with a flat seabed around 20 feet below, so we set the anchor. There wasn’t much around us, just a fisherman’s house and the jungle.
A pod of curious dolphins circled us upon arrival, even before I shut down the motor. They’d disappear and come back over the next hour, though I never managed to get a good photo.
Early the next morning, Shawn stood at the bow watching for shoals and debris as we snaked through a winding channel between two islands.
When that opened up into the Bay of Almirante, we could see our destination in the distance. The overcast sky gave the impression we were sailing through pitch black water.
By lunch, the day brightened as we arrived at colorful Bocas Town, on the east end of Isla Colón, roughly 30 miles from where we’d been the day before. Like a dog circling several times before settling down to sleep, we threaded our way carefully through the crowded anchorage until finding a place to drop the hook.
It didn’t take long to realize this would not be a quiet, comfortable anchorage. There were ferries and small boats zipping by all day long. The water taxis cut right through the anchorage at full speed, leaving all the sailboats rocking in their wake. It turned out we also anchored near a floating bar, which had been closed when we arrived.
A dinghy dock at the town charged us $2, on the honor system, to leave our dinghy tied up. We’d chained the outboard motor to our dinghy, and were in the process of using a cable lock to secure us to the dock. A young woman and her child pulled up in a dinghy, roped up to a hitch next to us, glanced at what I was doing and smiled. In English, she said, “you don’t need to lock your dinghy here. I even leave the cut-off in the motor.”
Bocas Town is a tourist hub for the islands and resorts nearby. Served by a small airport and a big ferry, there are many bars, restaurants, hostels, small hotels, a dozen mini-marts, a few hardware stores, a couple bakeries, and little open-air shops that sell fresh produce. Vendors rent bicycles, e-bikes, scooters, ATVs, and small motorcycles. There are cars, but not many.
In the morning, pale tourists find their way to boats that will take them out to nearby islands, resorts, and beaches, away from the town. Children in school uniforms walk to bus-stops or to school. Boteros, or boatmen, approach us, ask which beach we want to visit, stretching their English. I politely reply in Spanish, “thank you, but we have our own boat”. There are enough sailboats anchored nearby that they nod knowingly and quickly lose interest in us.
Clean, well-lit coffee shops geared for tourists (and with tourist prices) fill up with gringos transfixed by their phones. As the tourists go on about their day, the town gets to work. Bars, stores, and restaurants re-stock.
At mid-day, the town is quiet. Construction on the main road carries on at a snail’s pace, covering everything with dust and grime. Out of every 5 construction workers we see, only one might be doing any actual work. Although the national animal of Panama is a frog, expats say it is a turtle, because nothing ever happens quickly here. We’re told this current construction project has dragged on for years.
We poke through stores, all seemingly run by Chinese-Panamanians, comparing prices and enjoying weak air-conditioning where we find it. We find an excellent bakery and plenty of good groceries, including Kettle Chips all the way from Oregon.
In the afternoon heat, fewer people walk around until the sun starts to weaken. Boats with tourists return throughout the afternoon. We’ll see a small group of tourists walking slowly, carrying bag full of items for their day at a beach. Occasionally, a group of young women walk back to their hotels in bikinis. Any work the local men were doing comes to a halt immediately, even if the women wouldn’t turn any heads back home. There’s no cat-calling, but the eyes of the men are on full target-lock.
The restaurants and bars open up as the tourists trickle in. We don’t stay long after dark, not because the streets seem unsafe, but because the boatmen are maniacs and drive recklessly enough when there’s daylight.
We decide to get a slip at the Bocas Marina, rather than staying at anchor. I don’t want to tackle the transmission coupling at anchor, in case something goes wrong. Shawn calls them on Saturday, and they tell us to arrive Monday morning at 9am. We do, and they don’t know what to do with us, having forgotten we were coming. They have us tie up to the fuel dock just as a rainstorm comes. Assuming they’ll come and tell us when they have decided on a slip for us, but they never show up. We walk around the marina.
We find the marina is run-down and ratty, and next to a large swamp. There are many derelict boats that look like the homeless camps we see in the United States. Tarps, containers, buckets, and rusty items litter the decks of what look more like floating roach-motels than boats. The shore power receptables look like fire hazards, and we’ve read that there are problems with unstable voltages.
Shawn contacts another nearby marina on Isla Carenero, about a mile away. We have reservations that begin in June, but we’re a month early. Maybe they have a slip.
The Bocas Marina manager comes to let us know that an inbound boat needs the fuel dock, and that there is a slip available for us. Before signing anything, we let him know we need to examine the spot he has in mind. The dock fingers are terribly short, which means we’ll have to catch pilings on our way in, to tie the stern, and hope we’ll be close enough to a dock finger to get on and off the boat safely, and consider how to get out of the slip once we’re in. Boats with full keels like Miette track well at sea, but do not reverse in any predictable direction, so tight marinas make me nervous. I also want to be sure we’re not going to be parked next to a sketchy looking boat or someone with clear mental health or drug issues.
I ask Shawn if she’s received a reply from the Careening Cay Marina on Isla Carenero. She checks her phone. Nothing.
Returning to the office, the manager sets out the paperwork for us to fill out as we provide him copies of passports, our cruising permit, and insurance. Just as I’m completing the paperwork, Shawn shows me her phone. The Careening Cay Marina has sent us a message that a space just opened up, and we’re welcome to arrive later that day.
I give Shawn a look and a nod, then apologize to the manager and tell him that we’ve received unexpected news and suddenly have a change of plans. I pay $25 for the night we spent at the fuel dock and we head back to our boat.
Careening Cay Marina, also called Marina Carenero, seems to have even tighter docks. While we wait for our appointed time at anchor nearby, Shawn takes her paddleboard over to recon the space, and comes back to say it will be a tight fit. It takes several men, one on a boat, to get us into a slip and tied down. Not only are we very close to neighboring boats, our stern is about a boat-length from a local house’s porch.
On our first afternoon, one of the nearby houses was playing loud music. I feared that would be a bother. However, there are so many small children around here, that I imagine the mothers nearby have the final word, and music dies down not long after dusk. Most of the time, it’s not loud enough to be a nuisance. Kids need naps and lots of sleep, and I’m sure everyone within a mile has hears one particularly cranky kid daily. She’s about 2 years old. I call her La Gritona, the screamer.
I won’t be able to fly the drone here, as the approach path for the small airport in Bocas Town goes right over our heads. Fortunately, there are only a handful of daily flights, and they’re all small turboprops - no jets.
We’re welcomed by the friendly owner, Mary, in her apartment/office. She’s from Michigan, but has lived here for 30 years, and developed this marina with her ex-husband.
From the marina, we can hail a water taxi, pay $1 each, and be at a dock in Bocas town about 45 seconds later, to do our shopping. And after a hot afternoon walking around shopping, it’s certainly nice to be home so quickly.
Even though nearly the entire island shoreline can be walked in less than two hours, I’ll write separate posts about the different and distinct areas. The marina sits on the southeast side of the island. We’ve been walking a lovely trail that runs north from here along the water, through a patch of mangroves, to a secluded beach.
The very short video here features this trail.