Fuerte San Lorenzo is the landmark at the very entrance of the Rio Chagres. We did not have the opportunity to visit it but the following web site has more pictures of the fort http://www.galenfrysinger.com/panama_fort_san_lorenzo.htm. 

We motored for at least one hour admiring the tropical forest and looing for the best anchoring spot from where we could do some explorations. We read in our cruising guide that there were paths in the forests and that it was also possible to sail up the Lake Gatun damm.

Our first incursion in the dense vegetation of the forest was somewhat magical: trees were very high forming a green dome overhead, with many butterflies fluttering around us when Heiner spotted the large blue morpho!

With three days to wait before transiting the Canal, we chose to leave the Colon anchorage near Club Nautico as it is a busy place with all kinds of vessels making too many waves !!!

Instead, we choose to sail to the Rio Chagres: its mouth is only 6 km from Colon and a nice sail with the wind at our back brings us there in no time! 

The Rio Chagres is a river that played an essential role at the time of explorations by Europeans: all the gold, the jewels and the goods were transported on the Rio Chagres, which is after all the only river in the world that empties into two oceans! The tales of the expeditions along the Chagres river are amazing! We were so lucky to have the time and means to explore the river!

 Fuerte San geronimo is the town's most stunning riun with its parade ground still intact..and eighteen gun emplacements of the former battery. We walked along the battery...and were able to see the the gunpowder rooms, the latrines, the rainwater ditches...

The town of Portobelo is strikingly beautiful with its moss green ruins of Fuerte Santiago, Fuerte San Fernando and with its imposing Customs House through which gold and treasures carried by ships between the Two Worlds in the 16th century have been passed through its walls. Amazing history! A visit of the Casa de la Aduana, built in 1638 to replace an earlier wooden structure is relating this history.  We liked wandering around its walls and noted that there were only one entrance and one exit: yes, this was intentional and meant to reduce thefts! From the second story, we had fabulous view of Portobelo's anchorage and Fuerte San Geronimo.

Our last visit in Panama and in Portobelo last November had been marked by rainy weather and so we had spent too little time wandering around the town. Although it is an economically rather deprived town, numerous paintings and drawings on the walls of sometimes dilapidated houses and building give it a certain appeal...

 Portobelo hosts two famous festivals every year. The Festival de Congos y Diablos takes place every two years in March with smaller celebrations leading up to Carnaval.  Yesterday's ritual dances in the street were probably linked to that Festival... which we  missed as its final ceremony was to take place at the end of March.  Nevertheless, there were young artists of Portobelo at work preparing huge masks for the event.
                                     

The inhabitants of Portobelo are referred to as Congo because a large proportion of its inhabitants were escaped slaves known as cimarrons.  In the festival Diablos Y Congos, they mock the Spanish Court wearing extravagant costumes, painting their faces, wearing outlandish clothes worn inside out and decorated with dolls, teddy bears, and other objects (Lutz observing one of the dancers thought that his dolls and bears were reminiscent of voodoo practices...).  In many of the rituals characterisez by chants and dances, "prisonners" are taken and released for ransom - this explains why some of us were drawn in the dance circle yesterday night!!! Usually, a few coins or a beer can buy their freedom back!

Lutz has been working hard to make arrangements for the canal transit...Carnival is slowing things down a little but it looks like we would be transiting on March 12 and 13! In the mean time, we are spending time with our friends, have good food, nice drinks, visit Portobelo and tonight, as I am writing, we are sitting in the Portobelo cruisers bar Captain Jack where there is entertainment..guess who???? Pam and Bill of course! Watch them live on a video clip (check right side of page under VIDEO CLIPS)

It is great fun...one of the best moments of cruisers  life!!!

After that entertainement, we strolled slowly towards the dinghy dock and heard drum music and whistles: the Portobelo Congos were also entertaining! After all, it was Carneval! See the video Clip!

After a longish trip from Panama by bus, we stopped at the first Fonda of Portobelo to taste our first Balboa and short after that, we saw our dear Pam coming towards us, and then she got Bill, and then Gabi and Lutz showed up and this was a great wiedersehen!!!

Ola amigos. Although it is 30c more than at home, we are already used to the temperature and we feel at home here at Hotel Costa Inn. This morning at breakfast, we met a friendly Ecuadorian family and tonight, while looking at the Pacific ocean from our terrasse, a couple of Alaskan travelers (not sure what they needed to escape most:their weather or Sarah Palin).

Tomorrow we are taking the bus to Portobelo to meet with our friends.-

Ok, we had it!  Enough proding of H's body ..., enough of winter (and yes, cars are still driving over the frozen lake!), enough of snow (it snows right now!), enough of cold (the temp is dropping fast!). 

We are leaving!

Hello Panama, Hello SuAnn (Gabi and Lutz).  Hello warm weather ... we will be on our way tomorrow!  And for 2 weeks.

Coming back, we expect to see the snow melted, the ice gone, ... ok, we give the flowers a chance to come up - eventually!

And we will try to update our blog while on the way - thanks to our Android tablets!  We love them!!!!

Talk to you soon from the warm and cosy, humid, exciting Panama!

It is still winter...nothing dramatic in terms of monster snow storms or icy rain, no just a couple of cm of snow on a daily basis. No spring in view!!! Those wonderful tulips remind us that it will be here, some day...

What a difference .... last year we walked in the tropical rainforest of Grenada, and now we are looking out into our backyard, waiting for the snowfall to end so that we can dig ourselves out again .

Where would you rather be? We know our answer ...

Have a great New Year 2011 !!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our friends!!!

It is close to midnight - our time!

We are having sushi, champange and listening to great reggae ... and enjoying the evening.

Have a great year 2011!!!

Dear friends - we are thinking about you - missing you!

H&M

It took us a little while to get in the mood of Christmas this year: we were just back from Panama and Christmas decorations had to be put up! We had already invited my sister to come and spend Christmas with us so I (Marleyne) decided to cook turkey! Liette likes it so much..and Heiner's recent experiences in the Caribean made ihm more "fowl friendly" ! After perusing in cookbooks and on the Internet for hours to find out which stuffing would be the best, we went shopping for the perfect bird: and we came home with an already stuffed turkey which was to be put in the oven forzen...no work at all, no previous experience required! Well, there was a bit of science required as none of my friends had ever cooked a bird like this! Anyhow, everything worked out perfectly: it was juicy and tasty! During Liette's visit we took some walks despite the cold weather! We played scrabbles (she won) and looked at movies!

Voila la visite de ma petite soeur deja une chose du passe: sa venue - qui etait deja planifiee - nous a motive a decorer la maison! car etant a peine revenus de Panama, le "mood" de Noel etait un peu long a venir! La dinde fut reussie...savoureuse malgre mon manque d'experience dans la chose...Nous nous sommes bien amuses malgre le temps froid: on a popote, pris des aperos, des digestifs, regarde un film et joue au scrabble (Liette a gagne)!

Noel has come and gone...Lindsay and Karen had come on December 23rd to celebrate their last day of work ! They brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers which is still cheering up the room! The evening was fun! We had pork loin and red cabbage..with lots of wine!

Nos celebrations des fetes ont commence par la visite de nos amis Karen et Lindsay ...ils celebraient aussi leur derniere journee de travail cette annee! On a bien arrose ca! Et merci pour les fleurs!

Pour un recit en francais...allez sur le site de Voyages Forum ou j'ai publie un petit carnet de voyages...http://voyageforum.com/v.f?post=3870074;page=unread#unread

One week away from Christmas, we wish all our readers a very merry Christmas ! In the spirit of Panama, Feliz Navidad!

The plan had been all along to join our friends aboard Songbird for a cruise of the San Blas islands. We met them in Colon and made our way along the Caribbean coast to Portobelo, Puerto Linton and then Chichime, in the Kuna Yala. By that time, rain and winds had set in and kept us from moving along in the San Blas archipel. As previously mentioned, this was a truly exceptional weather...so there are only few pictures! Lucky that the Kunas visited us shortly after our arrival: we were able to buy some of their molas. We stayed 5 days in the Chichime anchorage and this allowed us to get a glimpse of their daily lives!

Another facet of Panama are its mountains. Santa Fe is a lost village in the Cordillera Central...coffee growers, farmers, cowboys, mostly indios...many Ngobe Indians live here. We went swimming in the river, hiked to Alto Piedra and were amazed at the beauty of the landscapes. Imagine the aroma of freshly roasted coffee in the morning, the jasmine perfume at night, and butterflies of all sizes and colours ...this is Santa Fe!http://geology.com/world/panama-satellite-image.shtml

We enjoyed traveling by bus in Panama: the system works! All buses are ponctual, comfortable and reach the most outlandish destinations! Leavinf from Albrook terminal in Panama city, we first made our way to Chitre, in the Azuelo peninsula...(Pacific side). This region is not very touristic; in the Carnival season in February, the fiestas attract mostly Panameans. At other times, it is really quiet, with people working in fields, or milking their cows for Nestle!
http://www.epictrip.com/map/Chitre-Map-Panama-Area-Maps-of-Chitre-map-l57642.html

Panama was a real discovery for us: a crude juxtaposition of old and new, of americanized and authentic indigenous culture, of wilderness and urbanism!

Nowhere was the contrast more stunning than in Panama city!

At last out of Kuna Yala...Few words. Are necessary to describe our last week cruising:Rain, rain, and more rain! For 7 days non - stop Torrential rain to the point that people died in landslides, major roads were destructed and the Panama Canal closed down! Yesterday morning at 5:30 our friends Pam and Bill got up with us and brought us to land by dinghy in total darkness! El Provenir is a liliputian airport with a very very short landing strip... Around 8:00am we finally see the twin engine 15 seaters circling our small island and landing! (Yesterday it touched down but did not land due to the strip being under water). So in the mean time about 30 passengers had congregated around the plane and pushing their ways to get on!Kuna indians, backpackers, cruisers. ..the pilot of Air panama had a short list and started calling out names of the few lucky ones! And the rain started falling like nails! It was avery tense moment. ...who would get on? People who had not gone on yesterday or the ones who had reserved for Saturday? What a relief when both our names were called! We took place at the back and felt sad for the folks who stood under the rain!
So after a relatively smooth flight, we arrived in Pan.city where the sun was shining! Wow!
We are currently at the Costa Inn and have a great room onthe sixth floor overlooking the city with views of the Pacific !
All should go well until our return flight tomorrow.(Except that we forgot our shoes on our friends boat...will there be sandal type weather in Canada on Monday?)

We are on a sailboat again! We met Pam and Bill as planned at the Nautico Club in Colon after a very long day of bus travel...that first beer of the day was sooooo good!

After a large grocery trip at the supermercado, we left the next day for Portobelo *see picture of another travel blog and are sitting here under the rain...There are many low pressure systems on the Caribbean side and on the Pacific side and it rains non stop! Oh! well...we are with friends and on a boat and we like it. Portobelo is pretty amazing with its fortress and customs house. Lots of history here! http://www.portobelopanama.com/">

Weather permitting, we will sail to the San Blas islands on Monday...we are looking forward to see those islands and their famous inhabitants..the Kunas which we already met in a urban context of Panama City...but the San Blas is their country so it will be adding another dimension!

Hasta luego!

Our sojourn in Santa Fe is coming to an end.

Sadly!

What a little paradise it is here: the village of Santa Fe is lost in the mountains among plantations of oranges, bananas and coffee haciendas. Our hostel is a bamboo construction with a panoramic view of the mountains.

And the perfumes: around 8pm, the smell of jasmine starts to invade the air and during the daytime, it is the smell of roasting coffee beans that moves through the valley ...

Yesterday we went for a swimm in a river, Rio Santa Maria, and had a wonderful view of the mountains. Today, we hiked to Alto Pedra...until the rain got too much and we decided to tun around. Nevertheless, we saw some toucans, lots of different butteflies, as well as cattles and horsemen; this is a cowboy paradise here! After such hikes, we like to stop at our little restaurant (!) in the village to feast on a huge meal of puerco (pork) or pollo (chicken) with rice and beans, for $2.00! So, we will enjoy the rest of the day here before starting the trip back to Panama city and then Colon tomorrow morning. We should meet our friends Pam and Bill there in the afternoon. We will start early: but we don´t need alarm clocks here. There are hundreds of cockerels "singing" every morning..beetween 3 and 7am..to be sure that EVERYBODY heard them! Our friend Karen would love this!!!! So, hasta luego amigos. We will post pictures when we are back in Kingston.

Early greetings thanks to the amazingly curly ! mattress bed of the hotel santa rita in Chitre! We arrived here in this vibrant town after a nice trip from Panama city. We admire different landscapes changing from mountain ranges to sugar cane fields. We met two german men in the bus; they had been traveling I Central America for 5 weeks now. We spent quite a bit of time with them as they also booked a room in our hotel. We had rum on our little balcony and then enjoyed absolutely delicious fish and seafood at a local restaurant (restaurant Aire Libre) to end with Duran coffeeand cake at the pastry shop around the corner of our hotel.

Another interesting and fun day. After a hefty breakfast and several cups of the excellent local Duran coffee, we embarked on a ROjos Diablos ( bus) to visit the Miraflores locks of the Panama canal. We first had to go to the huge and well organized Albrook Terminal and then to the LOCKS: 60 cents per person for this trip! 6 ships and a small 36 footer sailboat from California locked while we were there! This is a very impressive human realisation! We went bwck to the fish resto and had fish soup and a filete macho ( Marleyne)! We rode the bus one more time to get to Bella vista district which we did not find special (poor american imitation)) with the usual trendy shops. We came back to the colorful district of caledonia and strolled back to our hotel! Tomorrow long bus trip to the Pacific town of Chitre.

Hola amigos! One day already in Pan.city. we liked casco viejo which reminded us more of Havana than of Santo Domingo, we liked the colourful people: kuna indians, blacks, spanish, mulatos, everybody kind and cheerful. We ate great fish soup, drank Balboa beer, and beef brochettes, and rum of COURSE! We walked at least 12 kn and half of those km were to get to the top of mont Ancon where the huge Panama flag asserts the national identity. We saw several agoutis and one guard help us spot a very strange animal called "three-toed sloth" or " perzoso" in spanish. And Heiner saw toucans which Iwas not successful at photographing...they were just like on the box of Frootloops! Tomorrow we will visit THE canal. .. Adios!

Hola amigos!
Our itinerary for the Panama trip is ready:

Three nights in Panama city, then we will travel to the Herrera region close to the Pacific ocean where we will spend 2 nights in Chitre.

After that, we will then go further west, direction Santiago and head into the mountains to a small village called Santa Fe...we will spend three nights there in what has been described to be a pittoresque swiss style hostel called La Qhia, run by a Belgian woman and her Argentinian partner.

Well, although I am learning Spanish as fast as I can, making reservations in Spanish over Skype is ... challenging at times: yesterday, I spoke to a man at Hotel Santa Rita and I understood that his wife was in charge of the reservations. Too bad because I could understand him very well and im was proud of my Spanish!

When I phoned this afternoon, upppss, the Skype communication became really bad and I could not understand the person at the desk...Lo siento...and I had to hang up! But he had noted my name... so, when I called back 2 hours later, la senora knew exactly who I was ... Canada? Si!

Oh madre mia! Anyway, I think that I made the reservations ok...

As for the Hostal La Qhia, the woman at the desk was ...Belgian..et nous avons tout regle ca en francais! I think that my stay of 2 weeks in Dominican Republic had helped my Spanish because there were still some traces lingering when I reopened my books...

After this week on our own, we will hopefully meet our friends Pam and Bill at the Nautico Yacht Club in Colon for a 2 weeks sail on the Caribbean Sea to the San Blas islands! Then we'll have to speak Kuna...

Notre itinéraire des premiers 7 jours a Panama est prêt: 3 premières nuits a Panama Cité, les 2 autres a Chitre dans la région de Herrera près du Pacifique et puis 3 autres nuits dans un petit village - Santa Fe - perdu dans la montagne près de Santiago. Ca m’a fait suer de faire la réservation a Chitre parce que les personnes ne parlaient que l’espagnol! C’est tout un challenge de faire ca par téléphone et encore plus par Skype...surtout quand la qualité de l’appel se détériore!! Bof, je pense que j’ai quand même réussi a les faire ces réservations! Quant a l’hôtel de Santa Fe, une jolie auberge nommée La Qhia, ce fut facile puisque la proprio est belge! Je l’ai reconnue a son accent (Hola..with a French touch) et le reste fut en français! Muy facile!

Apres ce périple, nous reviendrons vers Colon ou nous espérons retrouver nos amis Pam et Bill sur Songbird pour 2 semaines de voile en mer caraibe vers les iles San Blas de Kuna Yala.

Panama - here we come!!!!

Our friends on SongBird will be leaving from Columbia to Panama.

Well, there were some good deals on flights, and we would love to see our friends again (the last time we saw them in Annapolis mid summer, on their return flight to NYC) ... so we booked a 3 weeks stay, yesterday!

Pam and Bill suggested that they would like to take us over to the San Blas Islands - we very much look forward to this experience.

Guys, see you soon!!!!

Voila...the boat is winter ready..and we now can enjoy talking walks in the woods, raking leaves, and working on boat and house projects...



The captain is curently looking into Companies that sandblast boats in order to get estimates...

And when the appeal of the sea gets too strong, we can always read about other sailors' adventures. One event that is going to keep us focused on the Internet will be the sailboat race LA ROUTE DU RHUM ...Solo from Saint-Malo, France to Guadeloupe..The only time we actually witnessed an ocean sailboat race was in Antigua...and it was exciting! Now, in the Route du Rhum, the distance is much greater and not at a great time of the year to cross the Atlantic...In the last race (2006), it was done in 7 days....wow! We relate to these challenges so much better now that we have had our "little" stunt in the North Atlantic!!!

One should not forget that all routes lead to Rum....

It is that time of the year again: mid-october and Thanksgiving. Yes, the sun is still warm, the air perfumed with the scent of leaves, and it is for us somewhat hard to believe that there will be a winter...but we know better.










On a beautiful warm day, we unfold the huge tarp in our driveways and sew sturdy attachments of nylon...luckily, there is much less wind where the boat is currently (Kingston Marina, on the Catarqui river) than at Portsmouth Harbour which lies pretty open to winds from all directions! Nevertheless, the tarp should remain on the boat and let as little snow as possible infiltrate underneath...

The final steps ....

On Friday, a beautiful fall day, we learned that we could haul out our boat at Kingston Marine. This is a small shipyard, which offered us the opportunity to sandblast our bottom in the coming Spring. La Buena Vida needs it! It has been more than 12 years she got her bottom done.

And yes, a new paint job above the waterline would look good on her too.

We still feel more "at home" on board, than in our house. But this is just a question of time - the temperatures are dropping steadily, the fire place is going most evenings. Yes, we are moving towards winter.

We had 2 great years on board of our boat; it feels like a dream.

But after we are settled, and LBV put away for the winter, we will start to make new travel plans. We already have an invitation to go to Italy next summer - Uwe's birthday! We will not miss this one! But will have to bridge our time until then with other adventures.

Time was running out for them, but they managed to do a canoe tour at Frontenac, thanks to our neighbours who provided them with one of their canoes.

Departure time was tough. We were starting to fight a cold (thanks Toronto!) and not at our best. And besides, it is always difficult to say good bye to friends…nevertheless, we drove them to the Syracuse Greyhound bus station! They were going to travel all day before getting back to their sailboat anchored in to Annapolis, Maryland.

Back at home, we had the house to ourselves – the first time since we are back. It’s was a bit lonely after these 2 full weeks in their company. On the positive side, we are certain to meet them again sometimes in the future while they are sailing around the world! Asia – here we come!

Our best wishes to our friends – und immer eine handbreit Wasser unter dem Kiel!

Another trip up to Ottawa, the weather was just great, and the first signs of fall colours were showing. No wonder that our friends found the national capital delightful!

The next 12 days went by fast! We travelled with them to Toronto where we spent one night (in a Chinatown hotel) which allowed them to do a quick visit to Niagara Falls while we re-explored exciting Toronto. And we got wiser at sorting out Chinese restaurants and their menus, something Gabi and Lutz had introduced us to back in New York City.

On September 2, our friends from SuAn arrived! Great! We met them in Puerto Rico and spent quite a bit of time with them together on our leg north up to New York city. We invited them to visit us in Canada.

We had warned them that our house might not be ready when they come, but that our boat would be anchored in the 1000 Islands …not a bad alternative!!??

While we worked daily in the house, sanding floors, painting walls, decorating and organizing the million of things we had put in storage, we had not yet lived in the house when they arrived! Thousand islands on board La Buena Vida was going to be the site of their first night on Canadian soil (or waters…)

The first night was just perfect! No mosquitoes, no wind, and the scenery reflected nicely what we had told them about our cruising ground here in Kingston. We had a great evening. The sunset was wonderful…as there was a cold front descending upon us on the next night!

Next day, we moved the boat to Kingston – what looks to be our last sail for this season. Upon arrival, Marleyne picked us up, and we moved our stuff over into the house. Our first night on land, and we are starting this one off with friends. What a great start. And they were good sports, not minding the bare walls … as long as the barbeque was working, ….

We travelled with them to prince Edward County, Lake on the Mountain, drove through the Mohawk reservation, and shoed them historic Kingston!