Coiba

Coiba…an unspoiled magical monkey land!  I feel so lucky to have gotten to explore this beautiful place.  Located off the Pacific coast of Panama, Coiba has remained pristine and mostly uninhabited thanks to a Penal Colony established in 1919.  Now, it is a National Park and scientific research area, and thus shall remain its unique and beautiful self. 

We arrived here on the morning of May 6^th, after a 30 hour motor sail from Las Perlas, Panama.  We had a lovely trip, as the water was extremely calm and the weather was nice and sunny.  We caught a good sized mahi-mahi which we ate for dinner that evening.  We also saw a pod of bottle nosed dolphins.  There must be something special in the waters of the Pacific, because these dolphins were the largest I have ever seen. 

Coiba is the largest island in Central America, and it includes a handful of small surrounding islands.  The islands are incredibly lush with the most vivid green vegetation.  The coastlines are dotted with beautiful stretches of sand.  Long description short, it was very picturesque sailing to our anchorage. 

Upon arrival I accompanied Marques to shore to check in at the park office.  This was the only inhabited area I saw, and it included a small bunch of buildings that housed the park officer, and may have been open to the occasional tourist that comes through.  The park officer’s name was Lionso.  He was very friendly and didn’t speak much English.  Between my broken Spanish, and his broken English, we actually had a very good conversation.  He gave us advice on where to snorkel and dive, and told us about a great 2 hour hike.

National Park Office

We had a jammed packed couple of days on these islands filled with snorkeling, diving and hiking.  I was able to Scuba dive twice.  Although the diving wasn’t as spectacular as I had anticipated, we did see a lot of sharks- mostly small white-tipped reef sharks and nurse sharks.  The snorkel, however, was amazing.  This was our first snorkel in the Pacific, and there were tons of new fish to identify.  I also saw around 8 turtles.

My favorite part of our time in Coiba was the hike.  Our adventure began with a intimidating stroll through crocodile infested water.  As we entered the bay on the tender to look for the trailhead, what we thought was a floating log beside us was actually a needle nosed crocodile.  Unfortunately, our tender could not make it to the beach where we began our hike, so we nervously waded through the last 200 ft of water to the beach.   After making it safely to the trailhead, we began our hike.  It was early in the morning, and already the jungle was filled with various voices of birds and the unmistakable howl of the endemic Coiba Island Howler Monkeys.  It wasn’t long before we came upon a loud crash in the trees, and the face of a howler monkey peeked out of one of the branches.  They were timid at first, but soon we had a few of them in full site howling away!  Although that was our only sighting of the howler monkeys, the rest of the trail we were accompanied by many white-headed capuchin monkeys.  It was hilarious watching these little guys crashing around.  I had always pictured monkeys to be gracefully swinging between the trees of the jungle, but in reality they look a bit clumsy hurling themselves onto the branches.

Coiba Island Howler Monkey

White Headed Capuchin Monkey

Like our time in the San Blas Islands, our time in Coiba was too short.  After two nights in this beautiful place, we began our sail to Costa Rica.

The Panama Canal

“The Panama Canal is a big canal.” (this is Marques’ contribution to the blog). 

A Brief History of the Panama Canal

In 1879, Colombia, which controlled the state of Panama, granted a French company the rights to construct and control the canal for a period of 99 years, when afterwards, it was to be reverted back to the Republic of Colombia.  Due to harsh working conditions, tropical disease, and financial ruin, the French did not succeed, and lost a staggering 20,000 lives.  The French sold their equipment and the rights to the Canal to the United States.  Colombia, unhappy about the sale, demanded the United States pay more for the property, and a higher percentage of their earnings.  At the same time, the state of Panama wanted to secede from Colombia.  With the backing of the United States, the seccesion was an easy feat, and Panama gained their independence in 1903.  Soon after, Panama and the United States signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, giving the US total rights to the construction and control of the canal.  In 1914, with the help of 750,000 laborers, and $400 million, the Panama Canal finally opened.  Under the treaty, the US transferred ownership and control back to the Panamanian government on December 31^st, 1999.

The Panama Canal

On May 2^nd, two days earlier than expected, we began our trek across the Panama Canal.  It was to take two days, going through 6 different locks: 3 the first day, and 3 the second, while overnighting on Gatun Lake.

Before we entered we were joined with our Pilot for the day, Dean, who was an old American man, and has lived in Panama for the last 40 years.  He is the second longest working pilot on the Panama Canal.  He was quite the character, and incredibly knowledgeable and helpful to Marques.  Not a second was wasted once Mr. Dean got onboard, and promptly at 5:00PM we headed towards our first lock.  

Marques, Dean and Ben 

Our Pilot Dean

As we approached the first lock, a dilapidated mono-haul filled with a handful of equally dilapidated shirtless Frenchmen, tied to our port side.  Small boats are often rafted together through the locks.  We felt lucky that we did not have a boat on both sides of us.  We entered behind the M/Y Afric Star, a huge “reefer ship” (refrigerated ship) which was empty, but planning to take a ship full of bananas to Russia.

The Frenchman

The Afric Star

The massive locks are 110ft wide, 1000 ft long, and are made of concrete.   As we entered the lock, we were greeted by two linemen on either side of the lock.  Each linemen threw us a rope, which we tied to our own ropes, one on either side of the bow, and one on either side of the stern.  They walked alongside us as we crept up to our position, then pulled our lines up with their rope, and looped it onto a cleat.  

The lineman pulling our line up to the cleat

The Linemen walking along the boat

An alarm was sound, and the gigantic steel doors closed the waters of the Caribbean behind us. 

The first three locks, called the Gatun Locks, were raising us up three levels and a total of 84 ft. So as the water filled below us, it was my job to pull any slack in as the boat was being raised.  There was an immense amount of tension on those lines.  I kept imagining what we would do if one of those lines snapped…we would have crushed the Frenchman for sure.  As we were being raised we enjoyed the view of the massive ships that were going to enter the lock behind us.  Then, another alarm was sound, and the doors opened in front of us to the next lock.

The linemen untied the loop, and walked alongside us to the next lock.  We repeated this process two more times, and once the third door opened, we set the Frenchmen free, and made our way into the crocodile infested waters of Gatun Lake, where we were to anchor overnight.

Captain Marques at the helm

Gatun Lake, our anchorage for the night.

The next morning we were joined by a new pilot, a small Panamanian man named Manuel.  Manuel was not helpful in the slightest, leaving Marques to do everything himself.  He was thankful to have had Dean the first day.  Even without help, Marques handled everything flawlessly.  Off we went across Gatun Lake.  Gatun Lake is a man-made lake, covers an area of 116 nautical miles, and was created after building the Gatun Dam across the Chagres River.  At the time of its construction, Gatun Damn was the largest damn, Gatun Lake was the largest man-made lake, and the Gatun locks were the largest concrete structures in the entire world.

Our pilot Manuel

Gatun Lake

An island of Gatun Lake

Once we crossed the lake we entered the Gaillard Cut, a 7.4 nautical mile cut that lead to the next set of locks.  The Gaillard Cut is where most of the Panama Canal excavation took place, and it continues to be problematic.  Over the years there have been many landslides, and therefore, Panama has had to widen the cut quite often.  Surprisingly and impressively, the canal has been shut down only once, in 1915, due to a massive landslide.  Because of the cuts relative narrowness, Panama is working on widening the cut even more, and creating even larger locks to accommodate Panamax vessels, thus increasing the canals capacity and making even more money.  Our first pilot, Dean, told us the canal rakes in over $100 million a day!  The Panamax project is estimated to cost $6 billion.

Where the Chagres River flows into Galliard Cut

The bridge to signify the Continental Divide

Before we reached the Pedro Miguel Lock, our first lock of the day, we were joined, once again, by our favorite Frenchmen, who had requested they transit the last set of locks with us.  The procedure for these last three locks were the same as before, with the main difference being we were dropping levels, and therefor, had to let the lines out, rather than pull them in.  It was a small crossing over Miraflores Lake, and then we entered the remaining two locks, the Miraflores locks. 

Entering San Miguel Lock

Miraflores Lake in the distance

A Tourist Watchtower

Rather than linemen, these railcars are what's used to pull and control the cargo ships through the Canal.

It was a pretty spectacular feeling once the gates opened to the Pacific.  Marques immediately handed me the helm, so that I was the first person to captain the boat in the Pacific Ocean!

The view of Panama City as we entered into the Pacific Ocean