Yesterday – Monday - a group of cruisers made the trip to the Emberá-Druá Village up the Chagres River. Bill and I have made this trip several times in the past and it is always an enjoyable time. Bill opted to stay on the boat with his computer while I made the trip. Several of our friends have cars and they drove 16 of us to the launch point where we boarded cayucas for the trip up river.
It is about an hour trip up the river to the village. About 2/3 of the way we made a stop to hike up to a pretty waterfall with nice swimming opportunities. In the past there was enough water in the river that the cayucas could get us almost to the waterfall, but the small tributary was so small this season that it was about a 30 minute hike to the falls.
After the visit to the waterfall, we encountered many shallow spots in the main river; our guides had their work poling us thru the shallows with some help from the outboard motor raised until it was just in the water.
At the village we were greeted by the natives all dressed up for the occasion. The men wore beaded skirts and the women had beaded tops over their traditional bright skirts.
It was the first day of school and school was “out” soon after our arrival in the village. The children cleaned the school and washed down the front porch.
After a lunch of fish and patacones, the women preformed several traditional dances for the tourists, while some of the men played music on traditional instruments.
The trip down river was much quicker. We returned to the Balboa Yacht Club – tired but happy after the interesting fun day, just in time for the Monday night Cruisers’ Book Exchange. Shirley was presented with the dancer’s flower head ornament from one of her friends in the village. She wore it home and to the YC book exchange. It was still pretty even though the flowers were beginning to wilt.
On Saturday afternoon a large group of cruisers, with plans to head west from here in the next few weeks, gathered at the Balboa Yacht Club for information and a get together. It was sponsored by Latitude 38 magazine and the Tahiti tourism bureau.
Bill with the latest issue of the magazine. Andy (managing editor at Latitude 38) brought a stack of the popular magazine south with him and they rapidly disappeared into cruisers’ hands. Bill took most of the photos of the event as I was helping at the registration table with Shirley.
Andy and Stephanie (from the Tahiti tourism office) gave a nice presentation. There was a drawing for door prizes and one of the items was Tahitian material for their traditional wrap-around clothing. Stephanie showed one of the cruising ladies how to wrap it for a female and for a male.
After the crowd thinned, we enjoyed an early dinner with Andy, Stephanie, Frank and Shirley.
Today Bill and I got a late start and it was almost 8AM by the time we got to shore, our shower bags deposited near the showers, and were up on the causeway for our morning walk. We had not gotten very far when Bill received a phone call from Frank on Windsong. Frank said that he had just heard that there was a tsunami warning for this area due to the magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile. The big wave was expected to arrive at about 9:50 this morning. Since that was near low tide here in Balboa and a tsunami wave first empties out a bay before sending in the big wall of water, we decided to get Lanikai out to deeper water.
Bill and I made fast tracks back to the dock and caught a launch out to Lanikai (sitting in only 8 feet of water at the time), got the engine started and were very soon underway out into the channel (a good comfortable 50 feet of water). Bill and I motored out to the “big ship” anchorage (about 60 to 80 feet deep), along with many of the other sail boats moored in Balboa and almost all of the sailboats anchored in the Playita anchorage near Flamenco Island – about 100 boats total. A very few of the big ships also hauled anchor and moved themselves into more open water as well. We all spent the next three hours drifting among the anchored ships.
No big waves arrived here; there was a report of an 8 foot surge at Isla Contadora about 35 miles away (never substantiated) and a late report of a 7-inch surge (!?!?) at Isla Taboga about 2 miles away. A non-event here in the inner portion of the Bay of Panama… But… It could have been serious under the right conditions, so “better safe than sorry”.
By noon we deemed it safe to return to the mooring field. We were tied up on our buoy by 1:30 in the afternoon.
Lanikai following sailboats in the channel to the safety of deeper water.
We were invited to Dave and Judy’s (of s/v Revenir) home for a US-style Fourth of July celebration, complete with barbecued hamburgers, hot dogs, fireworks and lots of food and friendship.
A large group of expat Americans and some locals enjoyed an afternoon of too much food along with beer, wine or pop.
Hamburgers were barbecued US-style by Dave and his helper’s wife.
There was a piñata for the children to break and the party ended with a small display of fireworks that frightened the nearby horses and David and Judy’s dog.
On Sundays, when the restaurant is closed, the cruisers are allowed to use the space for sewing projects. Our first Sunday in Ecuador I got started on making new clear plastic curtains for the cockpit to keep the cockpit dry in the frequent Panama rains. The old ones had served us well since leaving Mazatlán Mexico in 2001, but were ready for replacement. The next Sunday was Father’s Day so the restaurant here was open for a special meal for the dads – no cruiser projects! This last Sunday found 5 of us in the restaurant area repairing our sails. I was early – before others arrived – and got the luff of our working jib repaired before the tables and floor filled up with the other sails and projects.
Blue Bottle is getting its mizzen sail repaired after it got torn in a storm as they were leaving the Perlas Islands, Panama, while Gem is getting a new cockpit shade and another sail is being folded.
