Reflections from our friend Stephanie – thanks for a great visit, Steph!
When planning a trip to visit friends on a boat, flexibility is key.
There’s just one catch… I don’t speak Spanish. I mean I do, but definitely not enough to, like, actually function. So if my Spanish speaking skills were more than just por favor and gracias, that flexibility factor would’ve been a piece of cake. But since they most definitely are not, and I am a very white, blonde gringa, that sticks out like… well like a white girl in a sea of very tan people, Jeff and Harmony said they would do everything they could to meet me in Panama City. They figured a 3 week travel timeline with about a week buffer built in was plenty generous, but had any of us known the trip to eastern Panama would include mending a busted sail and trudging through many days and nights of very frustrating seas, I’m sure our plans would have been a quite a bit different… But somehow, probably out of spite and pure determination (and we really didn’t have a way of communicating any last minute change of plans) they made it, and Harmony managed to meet me at the airport, along with friend and fellow cruiser, Colin.*
*Who is a rockstar and helped newbie Harmony navigate Panama City after a late night of partying. Apparently Harmony was attempting to function on 3 hours of sleep, a donut and a cup of coffee.
Once we got our hugs, updates, and introductions out of the way, the three of us hopped on a bus and headed to Casco Viejo (Old Quarter) where we randomly met up with Colin’s friend, Andres (it was like 2pm and he was just headed home after an all night after party. Color me impressed…). Somehow he was still functioning and was more than willing to just hang out and carry my bags while Harmony did some provisioning. I wasn’t about to complain. We spent the rest of the day roaming the streets, taking in the sights, feeding the many street dogs, and enjoyed some tasty beverages at the old city wall* while admiring the fancy new causeway bridge that just opened earlier that week.
*History lesson – After the destruction of Panama City in 1671 by the pirate Henry Morgan, the historic district of Panama – Casco Viejo – was rebuilt as a walled city to protect from future pirate attacks. 🙂
The next morning we headed out to the beautiful Perlas Islands where Jeff and Serenity were patiently awaiting our arrival. I said goodbye to the last freshwater shower I’d have for a few days, and hello to boat life – complete with a crazy, fat cat.
The general plan was to island hop. We’d picked out a few islands that sounded cool (Jeff: “What’s there?” Us: “Another beach.”), but then chucked that plan overboard after hours of fighting with the ridiculously irritating currents. New plan: Go with the flow. Literally. The beaches we found were beautiful and so soft it was like walking on powdered sugar – you sank up to your knees with every step. Some of the shores even expelled bubbles when you walked, so we jumped around and created our own Jacuzzi! The sunsets were early and like clockwork – around 6:30 – and absolutely stunning. It definitely made it hard to keep track of the evenings, though. The three of us would be fighting off sleep by 8:00. Well, I was at least. We met some cruisers from Switzerland and South Africa and happily joined them for a bonfire dinner the first night. One family cooked up the most delicious pacific sierra mackerel I’ve ever tasted and when the kids pulled out marshmallows to roast, I was baffled that they’d never had a smores before!! Seriously, how do you describe a graham cracker to someone that’s never had one???
For four days we sailed, explored, relaxed, bathed in the ocean, ate VERY well (Harms does incredible things with her tiny galley and BBQ), collected shells, abandoned shells, played cribbage, watched RuPaul, attempted to fulfill our “book club” commitment, and just generally enjoyed each other’s company. We also saw first-hand what the crazy spring/full moon tides were all about – one island was almost completely flooded by the tides. We were in the dinghy on one side of the island and saw the waves on the shores through the trees on the other side! And some nights the water was like glass (hard to imagine the ocean so completely calm) where others were so roll-y, even Jeff and Harmony struggled to stay upright (which is saying something). One night was so bad, we had to find another anchorage. Of course, I was starting to get seasick. And I never get seasick. I felt really bad too because that meant we had to abandon the hammock that we’d left on shore to use the next day. 🙁
The last day on the boat was our loooong passage back to the city. We pulled up anchor around 7:30am and headed toward our destination 30 miles away. Granted 30 miles becomes more like 50 when your trajectory is a zigzag instead of a straight line. It also doesn’t help that the sea went into full bitch mode with only 7 miles to go… But, the sailing (while the wind and currents cooperated) was awesome! And the sunset was gorgeous! And there were dolphins! And whales! And Harmony, being the rock star that she is, managed to actually cook a crazy awesome pizza roll dinner in the midst of major chaos. Not that I ate any of it until breakfast the next morning…
As soon as the sun went down, so did I. Apparently I slept through some of the worst seas Jeff and Harmony have seen in a while. What was supposed to be a relatively easy 10 (ish) hour sail turned into a pretty rough 17 hour voyage. But we made it. And while Jeff crawled into the now slightly soggy v-berth, cuddling a traumatized feline for a very well deserved snoozefest, Harmony and I cracked open a bottle of wine and made the 18 hour day just a little bit longer.
Waking up to the Panama City skyline the next morning was slightly difficult (wine head + a crazy cat + a sunrise wakeup call), but beautiful. We did, however decide to abandon ship and head for the comforts of hostel living for the few days we were there (hooray for dry bedding and showers!!). So we packed up and headed for shore (providing slightly speedier transportation to a lifeboat full of “pirates” on the way). After 6 days, I was finally going to get my shower, and what a glorious shower it was!! Cleaned up, we headed out in search of food (more chicken and rice), drinks, and dancing.
Per our usual habits, we wandered the city (it was Jeff’s first time, so we had to give him the tour), stopped for a drink or two at the wall, then found our way to a small bar with good music. Funny enough, it was Easter weekend and Samana Santa, which is like the equivalent of spring break in the states, yet everyone in the city leaves! They go to the islands or party somewhere else. So the normally crazy party scene was actually kind of dead. But no matter. We made due. Harmony, as she does almost everywhere, found the one guy in the bar that danced just as uninhibited as she does. 🙂 And we met another local that wound up driving us all over the city in search of other, better party options. In the end we settled for a techno club and stayed there till the head thumping and lack of sleep finally caught up to us (around 3:30am, which by PC standards is WAY early…).
Easter Sunday was very low key. Once Jeff and Harmony finally woke up around noon (I of course was up at 7:30, but didn’t dare disturb them), we attempted a hike up Ancon Hill in search of sloths and birds and a view of the city, but I didn’t last long. We wound up at the mall (hello AC!), which apparently is a big deal down in Latin America. It’s like the States 20 years ago – THE thing to do. And did you know you have to pay a quarter to use the restrooms?? There’s an attendant and a turnstile and everything! Our pleasant day came to an end though, when we got back to the hostel and Colin informed us that Jeff and Harmony’s beloved dinghy was now underwater. Say that again?! As stressed out as that made my two dear friends, we instead watched some RuPaul and decided “operation dinghy dive” could wait till morning.
For my last full day in Panama, Harmony and I wanted AC and a hot shower, so we moved our party from the hostel to a hotel room. So while Jeff headed off on the dinghy rescue mission (in the rain, no less), we headed for the Business District for a girls-only day of movies (Captain America!), lounging in bed with a cup of coffee, reliable internet, bad Spanish TV, and a night of pool sharking at the nearest dive bar. Thankfully Jeff was able to save the dinghy (including everything that was IN the dinghy) and being the scrappy mechanical badass that he is, also revived the water logged motor. Which definitely made us feel slightly less guilty about abandoning him to handle it alone…
And with that, Harmony escorted me to the airport the next morning and I headed home. Back to the land of cell reception and significantly milder climates (my skin rejoiced!). Although we didn’t actively do a whole lot besides wandering around and eating (including the canal – we weren’t particularly heartbroken over missing that), I did get to spend some major quality time with two of my favorite people ever, and I had a blast!
And it took all of 24 hours for me to miss my best friend like crazy and wish we were more of the phone-talking types. 😉