The story of how the Yana and Tobias travel to Panama
In the early morning of the 2nd Nov., we left Colombia / Puerto Velero. The crossing from Colombia to Panama was at first relatively unspectacular with light wind and relatively little swell. Only in the 3rd night, it became quite uncomfortable. We got into a thunderstorm, the wind died and we had to motor against the current in the bay off Colon. It doesn’t feel right to be in a thunderstorm with a sailboat and to be sluggishly slow on the way. On 4.11. at noon we finally arrived at the Shelter Bay Marina in Colon. Close to the Shelter Bay Marina you can find amazing wildlife like capuchin and howling monkeys, crocodiles and many more.
At the Shelter Bay Marina, we first took care of the formalities for the Panama Canal Passage. At the end of the year, the fees for the transit of yachts are to be doubled. Therefore, we have a great interest to get a date for the canal passage before the end of this year. After the measurement is done and the fees for the transit are paid, we could reserve our desired date. We have decided on 18.12.
We left the Shelter Bay Marina and want to explore the Caribbean side of Panama. We’ve decided to the Linton Bay Marina first, where we also wanted to fix some things on the boat. (There is always something to do on a boat …). Yana uses the good flight connections from Panama City to fly to Europe to see the family.
Then we sailed to San Blas. This is an archipelago with many many many tiny islands. The area belongs to Panama, but it is administered by the Kuna Indians with relatively extensive autonomy. It is a fantastic area for sailing adventures. There are countless anchor bays and islands to discover. There are also small hostels or restaurants on some islands, but most of them are not yet developed for tourism and there are only a few sailors and Kuna Indians (if there is anyone on the island at all). In San Blas Daniel also came to us. He flew in specially from Germany to help us as Linehandler with the Canal Transit. We liked it very much, but unfortunately, we couldn’t stay as long as we wanted because the date for the Canal Transit was approaching very fast and we had to go back to Colon (the entrance to the Panama Canal).
