And we mean it this time. No becoming so enchanted with a place that we stay into an unpleasant weather season. The lightning was something neither of us ever want to experience again. We can already see the dry season here starting to shift over, so it is time to get the hell out of Dodge, as wonderful as Dodge was.
We spent about a week in the city this time, and for once we got everything done pretty much on schedule. The only problem arose when I hurt my foot after falling in the dinghy (the throttle stuck and I was standing up) and it got terribly swollen and turned really dark purple. So I went to the doctor, had xrays, and determined it was a bad strain of the ligaments in the top of my foot. That slowed down our leaving a few days, but the foot is fine and was one of those things that looked a lot worse than it was. It does not, and never did, hurt much.
We are really glad to be on our way. Panama City is great, but like all big cities, it is dirty and noisy. The water in the anchorage is filthy in part because there is no really good sewage treatment in the city. The big ships going through the canal foul the air and the water with pollution from their bunker fuel, which is a really disgusting type of fuel made from what is left over after you make gas and whatnot out of oil. Used motor oil is cleaner and nicer. Anyway, the discharge into the water and the smoke smells really strong at times. The city buses run close by on the causeway all day long and their exhaust ends up on our deck. And the city is not far from the agricultural fields, where they burn off the fields after the cane is harvested, so ash lands on the deck as well. The anchorages themselves are far from pleasant - both are subject to swells, and one has an impossible dinghy dock and a mucky bottom. The other one is right where lots of power boats come through 24 hours a day, kicking up such swells you practically roll out of bed.
But having said all that, it is wonderful here and even the city is full of interesting things and wonderful people. We have had no bad experiences here, and have felt really welcome by everyone we meet. Panamanians are used to people coming and going, and since they are literally the cross roads of the world, they are more cynical than the people in Mexico, but it isn't a negative in any way. They are not going to bow and scrape just because a tourist enters the room. If they express an interest in you and your background, it is because they really want to know. It was a new experience and I love it that the people are so different from country to country, and yet in so many ways we are all the same. Everyone likes it when you fuss over their kids. Stuff like that.
Before I go, there is one thing that happened and it happened last night. There was an earthquake off Chile, and that generated a tsunami warning that included Panama. Many boats, including us, got ready to head out to sea. So while we were pulling up our anchor (in the dark, of course, as there is a law that everything strange and problematic must happen at night, and preferably under a new moon) Mike felt the windlass stick, and the chain did not want to come up. It was obviously fouled on something, so with me at the helm, we edged the boat back and forth until the chain began to slowly come up. We were amazed to discover we had wrapped our chain around an absolutely ancient fluke anchor that looked like it came off the Bounty. It weighed about 250 lbs, and was covered in barnacles, a mess of fishing line, and some old rope. Mike looped a rope around it and using the chain, the new rope, and the boat hook, he got it off the chain and hanging from the boat so we could admire it for a few seconds. We really wished we could keep it, as it was really cool and probably a desirable nautical collectors item. But that was not going to happen, no place to store it, so we scuttled it. (We did record the lat and long. After all, it isn't going anywhere and we are likely coming back . . .)
So anyway, I have to get back up on deck and see what is happening. The amount of wind we are dealing with is truly underwhelming - we are lucky when we get much over 2 knots of speed. But who cares? We are not on a schedule. Having said that, Mike just called down that the winds are rising, and I can feel the increase in speed. Isla Contadora, here we come!
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