Darien

 



Golfo de San Maguel
where Balboa claimed all of the Pacific
and the lands bounding it for the King of Spain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  



                          

The arrival of four ocean going boats off La Chunga caused
a lot of excitement in the village.  We were asked when we would be
visiting the village.  When we arrived at the landing we were greeting by
village children who were to help us navigate the hazardous walkway through
the marsh.

This log had already passed through the anchored
boats once when the tide was rising and again when
the tide was ebbing.

We pushed it ashore and tied it to some trees.  It was not
the right type of wood for madding canoes, so the
villagers had no interest in it.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arriving at the outskirts of the village, we were greeted with music.

 

 

 

 



 

 

We were formally welcomed in the "town hall".  Attending was
Charles who provided translation.

 

 

Charles "The Horse"
A Peace Corps volunteer living in La Chunga is
helping introduce low elevation coffee
growing.  The man next to him was from tribal headquarters in
the next village up the river.  He wanted to charge us $15 per day
for use of the anchorage.  We refused and eventually we reached
an agreeable figure, $15 per week. 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the dance we had an opportunity to purchase
some of the crafts made in La Chunga.  Everything was
incredibly beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our son Kris who went for the henna "tats" in a big way.
They washed off within a week.

 

 

 

 

The Chief
La Chunga Village
Rio Sambu

 

Final Push #2: Exhaust Noozle

This is the exhaust elbow.  The last time you saw this it was bolted to the rear of the exhaust manifold.  It's now on a bench in Titto Torres' machine shop, where it is being used as a pattern to fabricate it's replacement plus an additional spare. 

Titto's shop is quite an establishment for a Panamanian business.  It takes up an entire building.  The majority of small service businesses are run out of a small, grungy, ground floor shop or a small shed.  His shop is in a neighborhood where a gringo like myself might run into trouble.  I could probably walk out to a major road without incident, but if I did get mugged the blame would fall on me for stupidly being in the wrong place at the wrong time.   The buildings are kind of shabby but they have good bones
.

Back to the elbow.  I am having two of these built because my existing elbow is at the end of it's life cycle, and I can get two very robust replacements that function every bit as good as the factory part for half the price.

 
Here's the fabricated part.  It's not as pretty as the original, but after a two hour test run, I can attest that it works just as well

We did have a bit of a glitch with this elbow.  We installed it, did a test run and found it necessary to remove it.  One of the welds had a pin hole leak requiring a return to Titto's.

The shop ground out the weld, and made many new welding passes rebuilding the ground out area.  When the job was completed we returned to Grace, installed the repaired elbow, test ran the motor, and everything was good.

This ends, I hope the engine saga.

I haven't, until now, posted much about what it takes to keep Grace running figuring it would bore my reader (hi Mom) but what I just went through is one of the realities of cruising.  Everybody out here has these kind of problems.  Engines, water makers, fragile electronics, etc. are breaking down all the time. 

We had a boat come through a couple weeks ago get hit by lightening just moments after completing a canal transit.  While on the Caribbean side they had installed a whole array of electronics for their trip to the South Pacific.  Everything they had just finished was fried.  He was on a schedule, so he hired virtually every boat worker in the area and was underway again within a couple weeks.  He had to pass through the ITCZ on the way out.  We have not heard from him.  Hope they're ok.

Kenny is bringing the second elbow over this morning, I will have him run me down to the bank to get what's left and pay him off. Then I will come back to the boat and figure out what to do with my Alder Barbour refrigerator that suddenly stopped cooling yesterday, after only 29 years of trouble free service.  It's running, I can hear gas entering the evaporator, but no cooling is going on.  I've probably got a refrigeration leak.  This thing is so old that it uses R12 type refrigerant.  R12 is nearly impossible to find even in Panama, so may have to replace the whole thing.  It's gonna cost a fortune.

Final Push #1: The Starter

Kenny removed the starter a couple days ago.  He said it was the hardest one he has ever removed.  It would have been impossible for me to do, which is why we replaced it even though it was working fine.  The question was, how long would it have worked fine, it's original 1985 equipment, and as I am coming to understand, sometimes things break just 'cause they are old.  I will take the old guy into the shop for new bearings and brushes, and will have a nice spare for a part that I physically cannot replace by myself.

The big, dirty, corroded thing laying on the engine is the old starter.  If you look a little to the right of the starter you will see a silver cylinder and a oil dip stick with a red handle.  Behind this is a black box with a piece of blue tape, this is the air filter housing.  All of these things were removed and the starter came up through the opening, but only after three nuts were removed from the studs holding the starter in place.  These nuts  had never been touched since the day, long ago, the starter was installed, and they did not want to be removed.  Additionally, the stubborn nuts were about an arm length and a half deep, with access further reduced by the starter motor itself.  The slightly larger diameter motor made it impossible to get a socket on the nuts. 

I was there assisting Kenny, watching the whole thing, and I don't quite know how he got these nuts loose, but he did, and got the new starter installed and running.

 

As you can see, the degree of difficulty extracted a toll.  Thanks Kenny for not giving up!

Isla Taboga

Anchorage for ships waiting to transit

the Canal.  Taboga is in background.

 

We did our final test run out to Isla Tobago, a small island with deep anchorages about 12 miles from Panama City.  Tobago served as a jumping off point for Pizarro's expeditions of plunder in Peru.

Taboga boasts that it's church, built in 1524 by Padre Hernando de Luque, dean of the Panama Cathedral, is the second oldest in the Western Hemisphere.  Padre Luque wanted Pizarro's spiritual needs attended to before he descended on the Incas. 

Iglesia San Pedro surrounded by the village of San Pedro

Taboga is popular with Panamanians as a weekend get away.  It is also beginning to attract international tourists.

For us it was a convenient distance as a final test of our water leak fixes.
Thankfully everything checked out ok, and we can put it behind us.

Only two engine projects remain: changing the starter motor and replacing the exhaust elbow.

Bridge of the Americas.  Balboa Yacht Club is in the right
foreground.
 

USA! USA!

The US plays Ghana today at 6PM local time in the World Cup.  Ghana has eliminated the US in the last two World Cup games.  We're hoping for a better result today.

We have become moderately interested in futbol while here in futbol crazy Panama.  There is no choice really, as that is all there is on TV now.

We have not made our last proving run yet.  Last time we were out the engine's rpm's started surging up and down while we were returning to Balboa Yacht Club.  Coming and going from the Club requires us to run alongside the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal, and the absolute last thing we want to is to lose power anywhere near the Canal.  If we were to drift into the way of a transiting vessel the consequences could be dire.

Surging rpm's indicate the engine is not getting a steady supply of fuel, and the #1 suspect is fouled fuel filters.  I have changed our primary filters, and they were pretty dirty.  Today I will change the final filter that is mounted on the engine.  Then I will run the engine a couple hours while on the mooring to see if this has cured the problem and also to recharge our ship's batteries.

Update 05

It's a quiet listless night.  In Grace's cockpit I'm wondering about my engine once again.....no. no, no.....just kidding.  Actually it's overcast and raining.  In Grace's cockpit, however,  the sun is shining and the birds are singing 'cause I've got water in the heat exchanger.   13/8 inches of water are showing above the first baffle, exactly what was there before our last test run.  Thoughts of departure are running through my head. 

Kenny is as relieved as we are, but is perhaps a bit more realistic.  He has strongly advised us to do an extra long test run before we get to carried away.  We're taking his advise and will run over to Tobago Island and back tomorrow.  Its a four hour trip, long enough to be pretty sure we got a good fix.

Our plans have changed a bit because of the delay.  Instead of heading straight out to the Marquesas Islands we will spend about a month in Ecuador.  We should arrive in the Marquesas' in September and will spend the 90 days our French Polynesia visas allow us to be in country in the Islands, then head up to Hawaii.  This will allow us to do this passage after the hurricane season, and put us in Hawaii sometime in late November or early December.  We plan on wintering over, making the trip back to Seattle in July of next year.  Or we may just go somewhere else....whatever the Admiral wants.