Vultures - by Nina

Introduction
Vultures are big creepy birdies with bad table manners. They are carrion-eating raptors and eat pretty much everything you shouldn't eat; rotten flesh, garbage and a few other things I don't want to list, but on the whole as you can tell, they’re lovely birds. And of course they're in the Caribbean.

Vultures seem to eat just about anything

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Black Vultures
There are vultures on every continent in the world except Australia and Antarctica, although most of them originate from Africa. It just so happened that our luck brought us to a place where the Black Vultures live – Central America.

The vultures would hang-out on the old forts in Portobelo – they are not pretty birds when on the ground.

They have an approximately 1.5 meter wing span and when there circling up high on up drafts they look like graceful eagles, or falcons.  When there on the ground they like to air there wings, and then they truly magnificent.  Black Vultures are found from the south-east US all the way to central Chile and Uruguay and are fairly small for vultures. We've seen them lots poking around rubbish heaps in Cartagena and Portobelo.

Sometimes they air their impressive wings.  They are great at soaring.

At low tide they pick around the shore-line.

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Hello Pacific Ocean - by Zeke

Hello to all you folks out there who are reading this blog. Our journey to the Pacific Ocean started in Portobello (a place Dad tells me he has done a most interesting blog piece on). We started by filling out forms and sending them into the Panama Canal Authority to be approved. On Monday the twentieth Mum and Dad bused into Colon which is where the canal starts and is administered from to pay our transit toll. Mum and Dad each had one thousand dollars hidden around them making a total of two thousand dollars. Having paid our money we were ready to go.

Adventure number one
At three o’clock in the afternoon on Monday the 13 of January we motored towards the Gatun Locks. We were following a big ship into the locks and dad was carefully keeping his distance from the big ship. He suddenly leapt from the helm and raced down stairs to the engine. A few minutes later he came upstairs and told us the gearbox was dead. Our transit advisor who coordinates with head office radioed for help and we were towed back to the anchorage. Later when we pulled the gear box off we found that the torsion dampener had broken. This meant that there was no power being supplied to the gear box. $60 later and the gear box was fixed. We were worried about how much money we mite have to pay the canal authority considering we were towed and the transit advisor was on board. Luckily we only paid a very small fee.

Our tow boat which takes us back to Colon

Adventure number two
Ready to go again we decided to top up on fuel. Mum went ashore with the jerry jugs. She came back and we poured the fuel into the tank. On the second trip Mum found out that we had just poured 30 liters of petrol into our diesel tank! After a lot of frustrated looks Dad goes below and starts searching the internet to see if the petrol would affect the engine. Searches revealed that the engine will either run perfectly, not at all or lose lots of power and be badly damaged. In the end we spent the after noon jugging near three hundred litres of fuel ashore to be disposed of. The next morning we refueled the boat and bled the engine and it ran fine.

Adventure number three
Some days later at six oclock in the evening our transit advisor boarded the boat and Mojombo turned her prow towards the Gatun locks. We were alone and would be going center chamber behind a big ship. Center chamber means that we have a line from all four corners of the boat to the side of the lock. As we entered the locks metal balls covered in string and with string trailing out behind also known as monkey fists were thrown down onto our boat. We attached the monkeys fists to our dock lines and the lines were pulled towards the lock walls and fastened. As the locks filled we had to constantly pull in the lines. Because there were three locks each time we moved between locks the lines had to be pulled in so the was only a thin line between us and the lock walls. I enjoyed every minute of it pulling on lines and looking in awe as we rose up. That night we tied up to a large ship mooring buoy on Gatum Lake.

The lock gates close behind us sealing our fate.

Brian and myself control the bow lines.

The next day our transit advisor arrived at 8:30 am and we got under way immediately. The first part of the trip was to cross the man made Gatun Lake. Crossing the lake was weird because either side of the channel the dead trunks of trees that used to grow in these now flooded mountain valleys stick up out of the water. Reaching the other side we entered Gillard Cut, the longest, deepest man made trench in the canal that cuts through the continental divide. All along the canal big suction dredges are enlarging the canal as part of the expansion program. On reaching the other end of the canal we entered the locks and rafted up to a yacht that was rafted to another yacht which was tied to the wall. On the way down we were in front of a large car carrier. When moving between locks we had to un-raft and let the other boats move up and raft up again.

Small islands can be seen across Gatun Lake

We relax in the shade of the cockpit while our Transit Advisor reads the morning paper

Gillard Cut: the rock cliffs of the continental divide.

As we exited the final lock and entered the Pacific Ocean we were so relieved. On our third attempt we had made it to the Pacific Ocean. We are now on our home run and the only thing that separates us from home is the world’s biggest ocean. But that isn’t a problem!

Moments before being hit our wonderful line handlers pose for a photo. Brian and Dorothy helped us on all of our attempts and never got fed up with our failures.

The wow factor
The canal I have to say was amazing, The sheer scale of work carried out here was astonishing. And the original lock gates are still there and still work after a hundred years.. And when you see them open it’s simply wow! And when you see the sides of hills and the fact that the canal has just cleaved them in two – that’s another wow. I will always remember the canal and I plan on coming back to see the enlargements made.

Me and our friend the car carrier

 

Ships are everywhere!

Thank you all for reading this report and I hope you are not completely bored by now!

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Panama Canal History by Zeke

Here I have included some of the history of the Panama Canal. I have written this so you can understand and appreciate the true ingenuity and brilliance of this enormous undertaking.

As early as 1534 surveys have been carried out to see if it was possible to connect the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic. With the discovery of gold in California the Panama Railway was built in 1849 to speed people and goods on there way from America to Europe. The Panama Railway meant high value goods did not have to risk rounding the treacherous Cape Horn.

The railway still carries people and goods across the isthmus

 

The French start digging

On January 1 1881 the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps who had previously built the Suez Canal started work on the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal would be under half the length of the Suez and like the Suez at sea level.

When the Panama Canal was first proposed a man be name of Codan de Lepoly (I think that’s how you spell it) said that a sea level canal as proposed would be impossible. He also said that canal with locks would work. He talked of the disease and rain that is common in Central America. No one listened and work began to make a sea level canal.

Men pored in by the thousands to dig the canal. Ferdinand sold it to the men like a war, he talked of adventure and being a hero. The first think that had to be done was to clear the forest where the canal would pass. The mighty rain forest trees were huge and had to cut down and carted away. Men encountered hazards each day; there were snakes that could kill you and saw-grass that shredded your skin. 

 

French excavator at work

When digging started it was mostly by hand; steam shovels were at that stage too clumsy and big. Men lived in appalling conditions and due to constant rain men often got foot diseases. The rain meant that the sides of the canal were constantly falling in on its self and had to be re dug.

Disease was what killed fastest it was carried be mosquitoes which grew best in still artificial puddles. When the French went bankrupt in 1889 an estimated twenty two thousand people had died and the budget had far exceeded the original estimations. Also the French only completed on fifth of the digging need for a canal with locks let alone a sea-level canal..

A company consisting of a few thousand people was made to keep the canal in salable condition, the asking price was US$109 000 000.

The Americans 

In 1902 the American senate decided to buy the French Panama Canal if negotiations went well with Colombia who at that point controlled Panama. Negotiations did not go well but word reached the senate that if America was willing to lend money and men Panama would separate from Colombia. All went well and no blood was spilt but it was a bit of a dirty deal. A new agreement was made with Panama, US took control of the Panama Canal site on May the fourth 1904 and work commenced.

President Theodore Roosevelt sitting on a steam shovel at the Panama Canal, 1906

 

John Findlay Wallace was the first engineer to be placed in charge of the canal but after a year he resigned and John Frank Stevens took over. Stevens who had previously built the Great Northern Railroad made new accommodation built new waste management in the towns and made clean drinking water available to all. Yet disease continued to be a problem, Colonel William C. Gorgas was appointed chief sanitation officer – he understood the connection between mosquitoes and yellow fever and malaria. With in two years nearly all disease had been stopped.

Steven was the project leader of the canal, under him came three men. The first was Major William L. Sibert, who was in charge of the Atlantic side of the canal. He was responsible for construction of the massive breakwater at the entrance to the canal, the Gatun locks and their 5.6 km approach channel and the Gatun dam. The second man was Sydney B. Williamson he was responsible for the Pacific 4.8 km breakwater in Panama Bay, the approach channel to the locks, and the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks and their associated dams and reservoirs. our third and final man was Major David du Bose Gaillard of the United States Army Corps of Engineers,he was assigned to one of the most difficult parts, excavating the Gaillard Cut through the continental divide.

Digging the trench

 

 

The canal was completed in 1914 and under the original estimated cost. The canal cost the Americans $375 000 000 roughly equivalent to $8 600 000 00 now. Above, the first ship to transit the canal.

Expansion and competition

In August 2012 Panama decided to invest in a total of $ 5.25 billion in a new set of locks to move the growing number of super tankers across the Isthmus of Panama. The project includes deepening and widening access channels, raising the capacity of the lake and of coarse building the new locks. The Panamanian’s have been forced to do this because of a sea level canal being dug in Nicaragua. The canal in Nicaragua will pose a major threat to Panama because revenues gathered from the canal make up a key part of the economy.

New locks under construction

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Dragon Buses – by Vicki

Catching buses in Central America is a cultural experience best enjoyed when you have lots of time and no appointments. We mostly enjoyed bus travel in Panama – it is very cheap, has frequent services, and people try to help non-Spanish speakers find the correct bus to their destination.

Outside of Panama City the bus fleet are ubiquitously known as “dragon” buses. They are loud and colourful, and at night, are brightly lit. The dragon bus fleet are souped-up ex-USA school buses.

A Dragon Bus: blocked up front suspension, extractors, turbo-chargers, a lowered drivers seat and a paint job are all standard equipment.  Tyre tread is optional.

Extravagant chrome work is definitely the go.  Hood ornamentation is a must.

Why you may ask are they called dragon buses. The buses have amazingly colourful paintwork – paying homage to the bible, to sweethearts and to children. They race uphill, down-hill and around bends at break-neck speed, given the road conditions, flashes of colour in the landscape. The buses are loud, a combination of exhaust pipe noise, the whine of the turbo-charger and the thump of loud Spanish music through woofers and sub-woofers. Added to all this is the constant blast of horns.

Watching the road ahead is a low priority. Most of the windscreen is painted and tassled out – visibility is limited to a narrow 150mm strip at the bottom, but further reduced inside by fans, coin holders, destination cards and etc.

 Buses are personalised in a multitude of ways, inside and out. Paintwork, side mirrors, hood ornaments, one or two horns and combinations of LED lights. Some support double vertical stainless steel exhaust pipes and roof domes or fins. Inside the driver is surrounded by feathers, strings of LED lights, mirrors and more artwork – unfortunately for us safety conscious westerners at-least half of the front windscreen is covered.

Speakers blast out music non-stop – the bus shown above right even had a screen playing the appropriate video clip. Note the view out the windscreen.

There are no limits to the number of passengers a bus can carry - only that the doors must shut, which can see up to 70+ people crammed on a bus. However the doors are rarely shut except at a police checkpoint.

“See ya!”

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The Black Christ – by Gary

The little hamlet of Portobelo has an impressively large church – but then again, it houses an impressively large collection of stories.  So impressive that in October of every year pilgrims head for its doors, crawling down roads on bloody hands and knees, dressed in ornate purple robes. Other pilgrims come carrying heavy crosses, or whipping themselves, or perhaps dripping hot wax on their bodies.  They come to venerate, seek forgiveness, or if in particular need, to solicit a miracle.  The come to worship Nazareno de Portobelo, the Black Christ.

The Nazareno de Portobelo is credited with many miracles.

 Many stories involve this statue’s arrival in Portobelo.  One I particularly like suggests that a ship carrying the Black Christ in a crate as deck cargo was trapped by a storm in the town’s harbour.  The skipper tried several times to leave the bay, but each time his ship was driven back by the ferocity of the tempest.  On the fifth attempt, just as it seemed all was lost, the crew flung the heavy crate over the side to lighten the load.  The storm stopped!  Fishermen rescued the obviously miraculous statue and carried it to their church.  As they did so a deadly plague that had gripped the Caribbean coast lifted!

The date of the statue’s arrival is uncertain – some date it at 1658.  It was almost certainly carved in Spain and arrived in Portobelo on a ship.

It is said Panama’s poor and needy hold the statue in particular veneration.  Drug dealers, thieves, prostitutes and the like come seeking forgiveness.  But it is also said that woe visits those that seek divine intervention but fail to live-up to their promises before God.  One story has it that a poor man promised to paint the church if only the Black Christ would deliver him a winning lottery ticket. Immediately upon leaving the church he bought a ticket and WON!  But not only did he not paint the church, the following year he returned and prayed for another winner!  Rushing outside he bought a new ticket.  On the way home he was killed in traffic accident – in the dead man’s pocket was the WINNING TICKET!

Pilgrims wear ornate purple robes; some arrive carrying heavy crosses.

Apparently, on the evening of October 21 every year, thousands come to Portobelo to watch as the Black Christ parades around the town.  Carried on the shoulders of 80 strong men moving to a loud, strong musical rhythm, they take three quick steps forward, two back. The atmosphere is carnival like.  At exactly midnight the statue is carried back into the church. Another story suggests that any attempt to return the Black Christ to the church earlier than midnight is refused.  Approaches to the church doors result in the statue becoming heavier and heavier until forward progress is rendered impossible!

Above left: a pilgrim kisses a makeshift shrine along the way.  Above right:  another displays his abject piety through a symbolic display of self-harm

But woe be to those that make false promises to the Nazareno de Portobelo – you might end-up under a bus.

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More Pirates of the Caribbean – by Gary

“Ahoy me hearties, where be them blasted buccaneers?”

Once upon a time the answer may well have come back:

“Why the Spanish Main Cap’n, the Spanish Main. They’re all headed Portobelo way in search of treasure!”

In the heydays of the Spanish/American empire the ‘Spanish Main’ referred to the mainland land-mass enclosing the Caribbean Sea, and most particularly to the ports of Cartegena, Portabello and Vera Cruz.  These heavily defended port cities were prime feeders for the annual galleon fleets shipping vast quantities of gold, silver, gems and high value commodities back to Spain.  These riches, for a time, transformed Spain into the world’s wealthiest nation.  They also proved irresistible pirate bait.

Currently we are anchored in Portobelo.  The name, meaning ‘beautiful port’, was most probably bestowed by Christopher Columbus.  It was here a new Spanish city was founded in 1597, sited on account of its strategic location:

• it lay on the narrow Isthmus of Panama – only 50 miles overland from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea, 
• its protected anchorage was one of the best on the coast, and 
• the surrounding steep hills and nigh inpenetrable jungle surrounds naturally lent themselves to an effective defense. 

These attributes made it the ideal place for the Spanish to send gold looted from indigenous tribes up and down the Pacific coast, or mined by slaves, and later when it ran out, silver, mined in Peru, and later still, tobacco, coffee, sugar and spices.  All this prime booty was hauled across the isthmus by mule train and loaded on to waiting galleons.  In the periods prior to the galleons annual sailing Portobelo fairly bustled with the energy of itinerant traders, soldiers, officials and their clerks, laborers, liquor merchants and whores as these riches were exchanged for all manner of European merchandise (and of course, slaves) required by the wealthy, growing colonies.  Trade, where possible, was monopolized by the Spanish.

Naturally enough, others coveted a piece of the action.  Pirates and smugglers cruised the coast as well as, in times of war, the British, Dutch and French navies – all in search of opportunity.  Pirates became active even before the city’s official founding.  In January 1596 the pirate (cum member of parliament, cum vice-admiral of the English fleet!) Sir Francis Drake died of dysentery as his ship blockaded Portabelo, lying in wait for a couple of Spanish treasure ships that had ran for shelter within.  The first recorded attack on the new city was by the English pirate William Parker in 1602.  The infamous buccaneer Henry Morgan sacked the city in 1671.  Attacks continued until the city’s comprehensive destruction in 1739 by the English admiral Edward Vernon (see more on Vernon in Nina’s last blog).

Following Vernon’s attack and commencing in 1751 the Spanish Crown rebuilt the city and a new elaborate defense system, designed in accordance with the latest scientific principles.  But it was effort too late.  The flow of gold and silver had largely dried up, the Spanish economy was in tatters and the Spanish trade monopolies were broken.  Portobelo quietly faded into obscurity.

Today Portobelo is a sleepy hamlet, its beautiful natural setting is protected as a national park and the ruins of the 1751 defense system are a World Heritage Site. It does not take much to image yourself back on the Spanish Main of old – it is hot and steamy, the jungle incessantly encroaching on the fortifications.  Howler Monkeys and calling birds provide atmosphere.

A model of the 1751 fortifications on the opposite side of the port from the town.  It consisted of three elements, a lower battery, an upper battery, and a small fort on the hill’s summit.  Additional batteries strategically placed on the town side ensured that an enemy ship attempting to enter was caught in a deadly crossfire.  

Here are the lower and upper batteries as they exist today.  The lower battery is protected by a battered earthen embankment.  Foot-soldiers managing to scale the embankment were confronted with a deep dry moat separating them from the stone ramparts.  Connecting the two batteries are steps protected within deep, stone lined trenches.

The lower battery.  You can see the stone wall is seriously thick. The fortifications are built from coral blocks, originally white they have now weathered to grey and meld into the environment.

View to seaward from the upper battery.  Shore batteries, with their larger guns and elevational advantage could bring a ship in range much earlier than visa-versa.  With brick, stone and soil defense they were pretty impregnable compared with wooden ships.

The small fort on the summit of the hill (standing behind a dry moat) – it served as a look out point, powder store and signal station warning of a land attack through the jungle.

One battery was placed directly in front of the town.  The magnificently imposing Duane or Customs House, built in 1630, stands behind.  It was the epi-centre of action during the annual trade-fairs prior to the sailing of the galleons back home to Spain (for protection they sailed in close convoy). 

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A Hectic Christmas 2013 – by Gary

Christmas gets hectic for lots of folks - ours was certainly no exception!  We had originally planned to spend it quietly in a group of islands called the San Blas, a place where the traditional owners, the Kuna, live pretty much as they did pre-contact.  But as luck would have it we never got there.

A pre-Christmas Christmas dinner with friends immediately before leaving Cartagena

Soon after leaving Cartagena it was apparent Mojombo had a problem.  We had had some warning after leaving Trinidad that this was on the cards, and had ordered and received a replacement part while in Curacao. You see our stern gland – the part that seals out the seawater where our propeller shaft passes from inside the boat to the outside – was leaking.  It had started as a drip, drip, but had suddenly progressed to a steady small trickle.  We debated various actions such as turn back, carry on regardless, or leapfrog the San Blas and make for Colon.  In the end we settled on this latter option and headed for a marina called Shelter Bay adjacent Colon (a city in Panama standing at the Caribbean entrance to the canal).  We hauled out on Christmas Eve.  That day and the next were spent in furious activity to enable an early morning splash-back on the day after Christmas.  The not inconsiderable rates at this marina precluded our taking a more leisurely approach to the repair, but as well, Mojombo’s almost new bottom paint was not going to take kindly to an extended dry-out.

Mojombo at the jungle’s edge in Shelter Bay, Panama

In between our labours we fitted in Christmas as best we could.  Up with dawn on Christmas morning we found that Santa had managed to find us, notwithstanding the absence of chimney.  A new bike for Nina (she had outgrown her last and this new one is full size).  Vicki and I managed to keep it an absolute surprise and Nina was beside herself with joy.  Zeke scored an iPod nano and some books (maybe not joy but evident satisfaction), while Vicki scored the (alas small) emerald pendant set in silver (an emblematic memento of Colombia). We enjoyed a reasonably leisurely Christmas breakfast, put Nina’s new bike together (as well as Zeke’s) and sent the kids off to play while Vicki and I re-convened work on Mojombo.  Around midday we washed off the grease and the grot and sat down together for a bang-up meal of turkey, ham (bought pre-cooked and vacuum packed in Cartagena) and sumptuous salads – well done Vicki.  Then it was back to work.  By 3pm it was basically finished.

Nina and I spent much of the remainder of the day investigating the nearby jungle trails on our bikes – we even found a troop of Howler Monkeys, what an incredible eerie noise they make.  Early evening was spent in the marina swimming pool.  Later in the evening I sat down with Zeke and a computer and together we got his iPod working.  Finally we all collapsed in to bed.  That was our Christmas day!

The next morning, back in the water, we immediately back-tracked along the coast to the little town of Portobelo, that myth shrouded piratical heartland of the Spanish Main.  This is our current location and we will probably hang-out here a few weeks before transiting the canal.

Potobelo:  our current location

Our residual San Blas experience:  buying a 'mola'  a piece of traditional  Kuna reverse applique artwork (actually the design Vicki holds is very contemporary).  Some of the Kuna women come to Portobelo to sell handicrafts to the tourists.  As you can see, they are small of stature and often wear traditional clothing.  

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