Jungle River Tactics: Anna Visits the Rio Sambu and the Embera Tribe of La Chunga, Darien Province, Panama

The Embera tribe, of the Rio Sambu, Darien province, eastern Panama.

WE HAD DECIDED MONTHS AGO, during the stormy wet season, to visit eastern Panama's Darien province; a remote stretch of inadequately-charted, snaking river systems, heavy jungle, mountains, isolated indigenous tribes, and a plethora of tropical wildlife, ranging from venomous frogs in the jungle lowlands, to tigers on the prowl in the higher elevations. The Darien is unique in its biodiversity. Located approximately 100 nautical miles from the Panama Canal, it is invitingly close by. From the Perlas Archipelago (a perfect stopover along the way), the approach to the Gulf of San Miguel and the Darien's jungle-river tributaries are only 35 nautical miles to the east-southeast. But rarely, is the Darien visited by cruising boats. And there are a number of reasons for this, one of the more serious being the lack of reliable navigational aids. Uncharted, or at best, inadequately surveyed and sounded, murky mudflats and jungle rivers, with complicated and fast-moving currents, accompanied by large, drifting tree trunks - which refuse to follow the rules and stay to the outside of the river's curves. But these can be negotiated successfully with a little advance planning, and a willingness to clear log jams off the bow, from time to time. And it is worth the effort to visit the Darien, and its unique inhabitants, if you plan to be in, or pass through, this part of the world. 

Portrait of Didimo, our Embera wildlife guide,
on our trek through the jungle lowlands.

The wet season in Panama, has reluctantly given way to the dry season. It is now January and the pattern of heavy rain squalls, and violent lightning storms that we have experienced on a regular basis, since our arrival in western Panama last April, has dissipated to moderate northers and occasional rain showers with an isolated flash of high, cloud-to-cloud lightning. Rather benign conditions, by comparison to the wet season. In actuality, the rains haven't been as intense as in past years, but the lightning has been some of the worst in recent history. The relatively short, dry season appears to be upon us but it is not quite that cut and dry. The seasonal change here reminds us of the ambiguous Spanish word: mañana. Often interpreted as 'tomorrow', but for all intent and purposes, 'not today', would probably be more accurate...at least, in Latin America. And so it goes with the weather - the lightning was supposed to dissipate with the transition to the dry season. It is now the dry season, and the lightning hasn't released its grip. Perhaps mañana. 

We fabricated a new stainless bracket to mount our new Furuno radar
 on a stern pole shared by our wind generator. Our old,
mast-mounted Raytheon radar fell victim to a severe
 lightning strike, in September.

Life on Anna, for the last few months, has consisted of repairing electrical damage to much of our circuit-board driven equipment, which was zapped in an epic lightning storm during the electrical month of September. We still have a few more repairs to finish up before we are back to square one, but the work is coming along nicely. We are awaiting the arrival of a cargo ship with our new set of four, deep cycle, 6V AGM Trojan batteries, and two gallons of lethal, Sea Hawk antifouling paint, a modified epoxy coating with an unusually high percentage of cuprous oxide (copper content) to repel the warm water barnacles and algae that are happy to call Anna's bottom, home. 

And while we wait for that ship to transit the Canal and offload our goods, in late January, we decided it would be a perfect opportunity to depart our increasingly more choppy anchorage, off Panama City, at Las Brisas, and head for the Darien province - we were sidetracked from our original plan, to visit the Darien during the wet season, after a lightning strike took its toll. We hauled in our 150 feet of 5/16 HT galvanized chain, and 55-pound Spade anchor, with our venerable, manual SL555 windlass. And slowly we got underway. At least we thought we were underway until we found ourselves going absolutely nowhere, at full throttle. We knew our transmission was good. Our engine was humming nicely. And we doubted that we were snagged on a cable, or some such nuisance on the bottom. That left only one thing, in all likelihood: a propeller that was fouled with barnacles, from sitting too long in warm saltwater, in one place. When antifouling paint is no longer effective, serious growth will occur within days if the bottom hasn't been cleaned or if the boat hasn't been underway. We had swung on the hook for two months, in the anchorage at Las Brisas, and our propeller was covered in a hard, crusty growth, effectively stopping us dead in our tracks. All that occurred, when we tried to increase the RPMs, was the unmistakable vibration of propeller cavitation. The prop was not going to cooperate under such conditions. It demanded no less than our immediate attention, that is, if we ever expected to actually go anywhere, beyond our swinging circumference within the anchorage. The water in the anchorage was pea-soup green opaque and not appealing in the least, to plunge into. It was after all, a workboat anchorage; a little oil and diesel and gasoline and the galley sink and bilge contribute to the color and clarity of the water here. But in the Tropics, the waters are warm and require nothing more of us than lowering ourselves down the ladder to just under the waterline, where the prop lives. And with a metal scraper and wire brush in tow we can clear the debris off the prop, shine it up, and be underway within the hour. On our next attempt to depart, our hull speed had increased from 0.5 knots, to 5.5 knots, and it is amazing to think how much difference barnacles on a prop can have, on drag coefficient. 

Perlas Islands anchorage off east side of Isla Del Rey, at Punta Matadero.

We were good to go, and eight hours and forty-three nautical miles later, we were happily back in the Perlas Islands, where the waters were clear and calm, and the sounds of the workboats and their constant hammering and clanking and hum of generators and downwind diesel smoke and workers whistling and barking (literally barking - it's a Panamanian thing, a form of crude communication that apparently works well, over the water and the sound of engines, in lieu of VHF radios and cell phones), from one workboat to the next, was replaced by the gurgle of the current vibrating against the chain, which was attached to the Spade anchor, which held us ferociously to the white, sandy bottom, twenty feet below Anna's massive, black, whale-like keel. 

It was on the eve, of New Year's Eve, two days after departing Panama City, that we continued on from the Perlas Islands, where we had previously spent many months, drifting from one uninhabited anchorage to the next, during the wet season, the off season. When the dry season rolls around, beginning in mid-December, more cruising boats venture out to visit the islands - when the weather is less volatile - and the anchorages begin to fill in. And, inevitably, when that happens, it is our signal to move on. In the case of the Darien province, which lay on the far eastern outskirts of the Republic of Panama, sharing a wild, jungle border on the Pacific Ocean side with the most remote parts of Columbia, it is always the off season, and crowds aren't the problem. It is a thirty-four nautical-mile sail from Isla Del Rey's east side to the southern entrance of the Gulf of San Miguel, at Punta Garachine, gateway to the Gulf of San Miguel and the Darien province. We departed the Perlas Islands at 0800 and arrived at Punta Garachine at 1530. The conditions were smooth and we had a counter current that slowed us down a little (in addition to our algae-covered keel, which didn't help matters). But Anna still made four to five knots underway. Reasonable speed, as we weren't in a hurry and the distance wasn't too far. We would anchor close to the wooded shoreline for the evening and begin our fast drift upstream next morning, at 1100, when the tide was flooding (rising) and the tidal current, in our favor. It wouldn't matter whether our bottom was dirty, or not, with the narrow, winding rivers that cut through the jungle, the water flow would be fast - assuming we timed it correctly, we would get a nice lift upriver. 

Young Embera girl.

Part of the challenge of the Darien, aside from its innate wildness, is that the rivers are swift and the nautical charts are all but useless. Navigating inadequately charted waters with unreliable soundings, often comes down to guessing the precise location of the deep-water channel. The shoals and mudflats are extensive in the Darien, and they can shift position when the currents, rains, and mudslides are heavy. And the closest tidal current tables are fifty miles away, and do not necessarily agree with the river current speeds and times of slack water. The ebb current can average four to five knots in strength, and the time of slack tide doesn't correlate with the turn of the tide, from high to low. We have found that slack water is off by some three hours, from the turn of the tide to ebb. The flood tide slack, on the other hand, appears to occur close to the turn of the tide. In the Gulf of San Miguel, where all the jungle rivers in Darien pour into, the tides and currents seem to be in sync, that is, the turn of the tide occurs close to slack water, in both directions...but not necessarily everywhere. So it is a non trivial system of fluid dynamics. 

A local fisherman rides the current along the Rio Sambu,
in his dugout canoe, with traditional, diamond-shaped paddle.

The indigenous fishermen know the waters well, and they move effortlessly, using the ebb and flood tidal currents to their advantage. Another challenge is that the bottom of the rivers here are typically composed of slick, silty mud and an anchor can drag in a fast current if a big log or two or three gets caught up in the chain and applies an additional force on the ground tackle. And dragging anchor in a four- to five-knot current, on a narrow, winding river, is not at all acceptable in the pitch black of night. And as if that wasn't enough, at the jungle's edge, where it meets the river, mudslides deposit tree trunks and tree stumps and reeds and weeds into the fast current and frequently, this debris ends up in a tangle, at the waterline, with the chain and bridle. This can often be cleared by coaxing the logs off the bow and sending them downstream with a sharp-ended boat hook (the logs are slick and a sharp steel book hook can dig in to a log and gain some traction). Occasionally a log can be cleared by turning the wheel while at anchor, and shifting the bow to port or starboard until the log jam wiggles free. Another method is to jump in the dinghy with outboard engine at full throttle (just to keep up against the current) and tie a line around the log, trying to pull it off of the anchor chain, bobstay, and bridle. Another method we had to resort to, at 0430, when a thirty-foot log with an eighteen-inch diameter jolted the bobstay, and us, out of a sound sleep, was to turn on the engine and motor forward a few feet, while still anchored, and then quickly reverse gears and try to allow the log to slip out and away from the bow before the strong current pinned the log sideways to the anchor chain, bridle and bobstay, which if left unattended may collect more flotsam and jetsam. Steering to port or starboard, at anchor, while reversing gears in a four-knot current - in the pitch black of a jungle river, is part of what makes this area seldom visited by cruising vessels. Understandably so. Anna crossed the murky waters of the mudflats, a five-mile strip of slick mud that zeros out at dead-low tide. 

Route across the unsounded mudflats, near the
 entrance to the Rio Sambu, in the Darien province.

The flats separate the deeper waters of the Gulf of San Miguel, from the entrance channel at the mouth of the snaking Rio Sambu. The idea, when crossing the mudflats, of course, is to stay in water deep enough so as not to become grounded. To do this, it is necessary to leave on a rising half-tide of at least 9 feet (for Anna's 6-foot deep keel), which would provide some leeway for an uneven bottom contour. On a rising tide there is an opportunity to float away, within a few minutes, if Anna's keel were to accidentally touch bottom and stick to the mud. The closest we came to grounding, on the ride across the mudflats, was to glide within one inch of the bottom. Clearly we were lucky. It was a close shave. But had we been grounded, it would not have been for long, on the rapidly rising tide. Also, it would have been a soft grounding (mud). Grounding on an ebb tide would have been a different story. Anna would have been lying on her side, at a 45-degree angle until the flood tide filled in, six hours later. Once across the mudflats, near high tide, the mouth of the Rio Sambu grows deeper, and takes on the color of a café con leche. The current kicks into high gear just beyond the entrance mouth, where the water becomes increasingly deeper. Since the charts are inadequately surveyed for this area - the electronic charts showed our boat crossing land repeatedly as we snaked our way upstream for ten nautical miles, to the indigenous village of the Embera tribe, at La Chunga. 

The murky Rio Sambu snakes through the jungle. The actual GPS track,
shown above, does not always follow the river; a result of
 inadequately-surveyed nautical charts from another era.

One thing we did to compensate, somewhat, for the lack of accuracy and detail in the nautical charts of the area, was to download satellite imagery from Google Earth, of the Darien Province, and especially, the entrance channel to the Rio Sambu, the mudflats, and shoals. We then overlaid these satellite images of the region over our electronic nautical charts. By doing so, we can often see channels and shoals more accurately than by simply relying on outdated nautical charts. Of course the shoals can drift if not dredged (and they are definitely not dredged in the Rio Sambu). So it's still, to an extent, an educated guess as to where the deep-water channel resides. But certainly, it helps to plot a route using overlaid, Google Earth satellite imagery when the nautical charts are suspected of being inaccurate, as they often are in remote areas, or outside the shipping lanes. 

In this nautical chart you can see how inadequate the soundings are,
and how the navigational hazards (shoals), which appear in Google Earth
(but are absent from the nautical chart) could present a nasty surprise
if you weren't aware of them ahead of time. We refined our plotted route
after overlaying the Google Earth satellite image (see below).

We sometimes use Google Earth satellite imagery to overlay on our
electronic charts, for greater detail of shoal water and actual geo-referencing,
where nautical charts are inadequate. This route is the same route as
shown on previous image, only now we can confirm the hazards.

We use a nice hack called GE2KAP for converting Google Earth sat imagery to .KAP files, which can then be overlaid in our navigation browser, OpenCpn. The .KAP files are installed and read from the same directory as the charts. Routes can be laid down over the Google Earth image and then observed over the transparent nautical chart. It's a slick way to double check a plotted route or waypoint, on a dated, or poorly surveyed nautical chart - for accuracy. Some of today's existing chart datum are based on surveys completed decades ago, even 100 years ago, when satellite imagery and GPS data did not exist for enhancing hydrographic surveys. 

Anna moves with the current, up the coffee-colored Rio Sambu.

Anna did make it up the Rio Sambu to La Chunga without incident, on New Year's Eve, and settled into a black, starry sky overhead, with the silhouette of a profoundly-quiet jungle and mountainous terrain in the backdrop, barely illuminated by a low, sliver of moonlight, partially hidden behind the trees and vines. 

Embera woman.

Percussive entertainment at Embera village.

A fast, bubbling current and an endless stream of drifting logs (even on the inside of the curve, on the river's bend) kept us company throughout the night. And when daylight broke, into a sheet of misty gray, tinged with brown and green from the reflection off the muddy river and green jungle at the water's edge, the unmistakable sounds of the Rio Sambu had come alive. Parrots chattered and squawked and flew in pairs, high above the tree canopy, frenetically flapping. 

Oro Pendula (golden-tailed pendulum)
 in La Chunga, Rio Sambu.

This is the hanging nest of the Oro-Pendula.

The bird calls of the Oro-Pendula (golden pendulum tail)were one of our favorite; their call is similar to the sound of a heavy rock plunging into a glassy pond, without a trace of a splash: a deep...glunk...glunk. The young tucans sounded like washboard, percussive instruments. And the birds of prey rapid-fired their screeches. The owls hoo-hooed, regardless of the time of day. 

A white heron glides along the jungle river's edge.

There were snorts from what could have been a boar rustling through the giant banana leafs. The lowlands surrounding the village of La Chunga are home to crocodiles, boas, venomous frogs, lizards, and sloths. 

A two-toed sloth climbs high,
in the jungle canopy.

Venomous frogs inhabit the jungle streams.

The nocturnal creatures include giant ant eaters and bats. And in the mountains, a three-hour trek from the village, howler monkeys work themselves into a frenzy, and tigers are on the prowl. In fact, the only mode of transportation here, in La Chunga, on the Rio Sambu, is on foot through the mountains and lowlands, or by dugout canoe, up and down the rivers with a favorable tide. 

Common parrot sits in rafters of an Embera timber
structure. The simplistic, rough-hewn wood
joinery is both elegant and strong.

We've seen some domesticated animals, like horses for hauling timber, chickens for fresh eggs or with a meal of rice and beans. A couple of skinny dogs roam lazily through the village. And an occasional parrot will perch in the rafters of the open huts. 

Piggy-backing grasshoppers along jungle path.

The indigenous Indians of the Rio Sambu consist of a number of tribes in villages distributed along the length of the river and into the jungle and mountains. They fish, grow their own rice in paddy fields between the lowlands and the mountains, they grow corn, collect rainwater (of which there is certainly no shortage), weave baskets, string beads, carve intricate hard wood sculptures of birds and reptiles, decorate their bodies with geometric, black ink designs (they get their ink from the colorful berries and plants that grow in the jungle surrounding their thatched-roof stilt huts). 

Young Embera woman during the heat of the day.

Example of Embera village hut.

Sugar cane is pressed through these wooden rollers, the juice
is collected by the Embera in giant banana leaves,
which are positioned below the rollers.

They live relatively free from the influences of modern society; trading or selling their crafts for things such as gasoline, for their Yamaha Endura outboard engines, which they sometimes use for net fishing in a fast current, or for river transport. Standup, dugout canoes powered by their classic, diamond-shaped paddles with long handles, made of local hard wood, seem to be their primary propulsion system. They can move right along at 5 to 7 knots, with the current, by simply using the paddle as a rudder. Their use of electric is limited to a couple of donated solar panels, which most notably run a couple of small (probably donated) LED lights which illuminate the extremely bare bones school room. 

Typical hut with open kitchen and wood fire for cooking.

Aside from open wood-stove cooking fires, the only other illumination that can be seen is the occasional flashlight, which can be seen for a second or two, from time to time, at night, but that's about it as far as electricity is concerned. 

Typical Embera village hut, on stilts.

There are no paved roads or streetlamps or smart phones or TVs or satellite dishes or sound systems, or iPods and iPads, or cars and trucks, or washing machines and dryers, or air conditioners and dehumidifiers, or malls and restaurants and sports stadiums and K-Marts, and the myriad things, which we assume everyone, everywhere, has in their lives today. Life is simple in La Chunga. 

Pensive Embera girls also like the color pink.

A man treks past the village on his way into the
 mountains, carrying supplies in  a woven-basket backpack.

You grow food, hunt, sleep in homes that are ten feet off the ground (where it is safer, and drier in the wet season), and do away with closed windows and doors and beds (the hardwood floor is preferred). 

The Embera make and wear intricate, spectacular beadwork.

Traditional ink design given to Cat, by an Embera woman.
The ink will last for a week before it fades.
The Embera decorate their bodies with black-ink.

Embera woman weaving a basket,
in her open-window hut.

The kids appear to be a happy bunch, and carefree. They run the jungles paths at full speed and jump off high cliffs into freshwater swimming holes, which double as the laundry and fish-scale cleaning stations. These kids can run up a steep, slippery mud bank, catching the occasional tree root or vine to help them zip back up to the top of the cliff once again, only to leap, sometimes with a somersault or back flip, into the cool, deep, freshwater swimming hole they just climbed out of. This climbing, diving, climbing, diving sequence is repeated endlessly, for hours, until it's time to trek back home and into the steamy, jungle air, once again. Our old Labrador retriever could relate to this. 

Young Embera boy with ink designs.

Children knocking around the village.

Embera boy running at full speed, naked as a jaybird, through the jungle.

The swimming hole, located at the bottom of a cliff,
 is a favorite hangout for Embera kids on a steamy day.

The Embera people we have met have been friendly and welcoming and genuine. They offered us the chance for some simple conversation (their language is Embera, which is not exactly the same as Spanish, but they understand and speak enough of Spanish to get the point across). We would say something in Spanish and they would understand what we said, and then teach us the Embera terminology. 

Villagers and local fishermen provided us with
fresh eggs, bananas, coconuts, sugar cane, and fish.

 At the end of the day, before darkness set in, we returned to Anna, typically loaded down with gifts of food, such as banana stalks, coconuts, and sugar cane (a sweet, juicy treat to crunch on, while on the trail back to the river), or fresh eggs from the coop. If we were on the boat, we might be visited by a river fisherman who would kindly bring by five or six fish for us to clean and cook. 

In the jungle, groves of bamboo spurt up.

We came across an Embera woodcarver, on a trek,
three hours into the jungle. He is carving, by axe,
a milling basin. When he is done, he will  roll it
for a couple of miles, down the jungle stream, and
back to the village, for communal use.

When we saw a young woman, sitting in her hut in the village, weaving an intricate basket, we knew it would be only a matter of time before she would need a pair of glasses to make it easier to see the details of her work. And so when we walked by her open window we asked her if she would like a pair of reading glasses (we had already outgrown them). She grew a big grin and nodded her head. 

A young Embera woman.

Her spouse responded, without delay, by cutting us a fresh stalk of bananas in return for the favor, asking us if we would enjoy them. And of course we responded: si señor, which drew yet another grin. 

Older Embera woman with traditional
ink designs (howler-monkey inspired).

Extended families live in huts,
on stilts, ten-feet off the ground.

Embera family on their way back to the village.

How unimaginably civilized this society, in fact, is - an indigenous tribe, who by first-world standards would be considered wild, feral. The traditional, older women, carry on their chores: cooking, farming, washing...wrapped only in a stunningly bright, almost day-glow green, red or electric blue, or some such vibrating variant of a sarong, tucked in around the waist. 

Embera boy with traditional
loincloth and full-body designs.

Embera woman.

An Embera woman with black-ink stained hands.

Men can still be found in long, red loin cloths. Some of the men have acquired shorts and old golf shirts, and baseball caps, which they wear on special occasions, like taking a machete (without doubt, the most ubiquitous tool in the Tropics) to the lawn, to keep the height of the grass trimmed down. 

A villager in non traditional attire, trims the overgrowth
with a machete, the most ubiquitous tool in Latin America.

It's peculiar to see this in the midst of the jungle - reminds us of the later Tarzan stories where western influence had finally reached the leading edge of the uncivilized world. The children will run through the jungle paths naked as a jaybird, decorated with black-ink (crushed from local, black, berries) designs over their full body. The Embera's lifestyle is well-suited to their environment, which is based on the elemental forces of pure nature.

The chief (Jefe, or Cacique), on the left, of this particular Embera tribe
(one of twelve Embera tribes in the region) leads
 the way to his village, along the planks.




A hand-hewn, two-mile stretch of boardwalk, through the jungle,
leads from the river's edge to the Embera village.

 *** 

Back on Anna, it was time for us to clear the accumulated river debris off our bow, yet once again, or at least every other tide change. The logs were piling up, and Anna let us know that a river through the jungle was no place for a ocean girl. We departed Rio Sambu on a high ebb tide and worked our way north, across the mudflats, enroute for Isla Iguana and Isla Iguanita, some twenty-one nautical miles to the NNE. We arrived at 1300, dropped the hook, watched the chain stretch and tug, sharply, and called it good, in 17 feet of opaque, camouflage green and brown, silty, briny, jungle-river water runoff. We were now in the northwestern sector of the Gulf of San Miguel, two miles off the Rio Congo.

Cat modifies the wrap-around skirt to fit.
The  black-ink design, on her right arm,
will fade in about a week. 

Fifteen minutes after our arrival, a black cloud descended over the islands and a squall blew through. It rained, and trickled fresh water into our rain-catching system. We've caught enough rainwater in the past six months to completely eliminate the need to buy filtered water or make water with our small, reverse-osmosis system. We love catching rainwater, and powering our electric demands, for the most part, with solar and wind power. There is no one here, at our current anchorage, in the Darien, except for a couple of small, crude, fishing vessels. And it comes as no surprise. Because there are but two seasons here: the off season, and the off off season. I guess you might say that we are in between seasons. 

Local fishermen with crude workboats can be seen in both
the Perlas Islands and the Darien. The name of the boat
on the far right is: Commandante-n-Jefe (Commander-in-Chief).
Note strobe lights on tree branches for visibility at night.
Jerry cans serve as fenders when rafting up.

After a couple pleasant days and nights, off Islas Iguana and Iguanita, the latter, a small island encircled by a sandy beach and backed by jungle, which we walked completely around, twice, in 35 minutes, we downloaded the weather, by SSB radio and Pactor modem, determined the conditions were good for returning to the Perlas Islands, where the waters were clear (not muddy green-brown) and the swimming comfortable (no crocodiles lurking in muddy waters to watch out for) and decided to pack it up and depart on the outgoing tide, next morning. It was calm at sunrise, and as we began to haul in the anchor it seemed a bit heavy to us. Of course we couldn't see anything below the murky surface, but then a large array of re-bar hooks in the pattern of a giant starfish, welded on to a long re-bar shaft, dangling from a shackle and a few feet of rusty chain had appeared. It was wrapped around our chain and took some engineering and about 30 minutes to disengage. The Darien, it seemed, didn't want to see us leave, but Anna wouldn't have it, and as soon as we cleared our anchor and chain, we released the auxiliary re-bar anchor that we had managed to snag (which no doubt belonged to a Darien fisherman) and said goodbye, as Anna chugged happily off, and out to sea. 

We land a 40-inch Crevalle Jack,
 using a handline, on our sail back to
the Perlas, from the Darien province.

We returned to the Perlas Islands, dragging a 100-foot long fishing line, a hand line with a 4-inch cedar plug attached to the trailing end. When Anna found deeper water we looked back and saw that we were towing a pretty large, glistening fish. We hauled it in, hand over hand, and got it up to the rail. Too heavy and big to lift over the side with bare hands, we grabbed our large gaff hook and snagged the beauty, hauled it up and over the lifelines and onto the foredeck, where we admired it for a while before getting down to the business of knifing off its football-sized head and slitting open the undersides. It was a 40-inch yellow fin tuna. One of the largest we've ever taken in with our hand lines. And its impressive bulk and rich, deep-yellow tail fin were only matched by its exquisite taste. 

The northers have been plowing through the Perlas Islands for the past week now, and will continue for a few more days. The north winds funnel, from east to west, through the gap - the Isthmus - near Panama City. The Isthmus separates the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, from the Gulf of Panama. But we found a nice stretch of white-sand beach and clear water, with the benefit of a freshwater stream just of the left side of an adjacent cove, with a black-sand beach. Ten yards into the jungle we can bring our jerry-cans and fill up with freshwater for washing. Our anchorage is in the lee of the northers, with no significant fetch, and a reef to the northeast to break wind-waves rolling in from that direction, but at this time of year the wind blows primarily from the north-northwest and the nook where we are positioned is ideal for these conditions.

Moonrise, off Anna's starboard beam, Perlas Islands.

We found out about the freshwater stream at the edge of the jungle, a couple hundred yards away from us, when we saw some fishermen landing a lancha near the beach; a short while later, they were swimming back to their boat trailing topped-off water jugs. They also showed us another spot further down the white-sand beach, to the right, where they disappeared through the brush, to hunt for iguana, outfitted with a machete, a rifle and two small, excited dogs. Iguana meat is a prized delicacy in Central America; apparently, even more so if you are a 24/7/365 fisherman. One fisherman/iguana hunter with short, orange-red tinted hair, motored to over to Anna and proudly displayed his catch: five large iguanas, lying like an Escher drawing on the floorboards behind the prow. 

When the north winds calmed down,  a few days later, we headed back to Panama City, for one last time, to haul out on the rails at the Balboa Yacht Club and paint the bottom, and also replace our raw-water pump for the Perkins diesel engine. Our shipment of new AGM batteries is now ready for pick up and installation. We would have liked to try out the new generation of lithium batteries, but in the end, passed, as the price, even at the dealer's discount, which we could get, were well above our pay-grade. Additionally, the hardware that regulates these batteries still needs some programming tweaks. The advantage of lithium batteries is that they can absorb a full-charge rate until they are topped off (so they can get to a 100% charged state in significantly less time than other types of battery technology). They can also be depleted until they are within about 5% of empty (compared with AGM, gel, or lead-acid type batteries, which, ideally, should not be discharged more than 50% before recharging. This means that they can effectively replace a battery bank twice their size (both in amp hours and in physical size and weight, and achieve the same result, much more efficiently). Even so, their return on investment can be less than stellar, because of their current, astronomical cost. In a few years, however, when lithium batteries have come down in cost (remember that GPS technology, a little more than decade ago, had an average per unit price tag of about $3,000 USD, compared to today's infinitely better GPS technology, which can be purchased at one-tenth the cost). Of course when lithium batteries do finally saturate the marketplace, and replace older, less-efficient battery technology, fuel cells will take their place. 

Anna will reprovision after finishing up the work in Panama City, obtain her international zarpe (exit papers, from Customs and Immigration), and head back to the Perlas and wait for a decent weather window to continue the journey to South America, sometime between mid-February and mid-March. Leaving the lightning storms (occurring between April and December) behind, is our current priority.

Cat and Rich,  Darien, New Year's 2014.

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Photo Note: The camera is a Pentax K-5 II and the original, high-resolution RAW photos have been reduced to lower-resolution JPEGs for the screen, by necessity, due to low-bandwidth restrictions.