#2 Day 1 – welcome to the jungle!

Linton Bay – Panama

Every pore of my body is oozing moisture. Yes, I know, not the inspirational opening sentence I was planning but I am determined to record things just as they are and that includes when it is a complete sweat fest which it is.

I got in to Panama City last night after a pretty uneventful flight from Heathrow via Madrid with the only notable event being abandoning my SUP in Heathrow due to a “2m length limit”. Supposed to be one of the more advanced airports in the world and you can’t handle a bit of length? Not impressed. Anyway, I wasn’t going to let that spoil my day.

The sweating started as I queued up at immigration clutching vaccination certificates (only Australians don’t seem to have QR codes, will that act against me?) worrying about whether I should have had a PCR test just to be sure and then having a mild panic attack as I realised I didn’t have an outbound flight, which is a strict requirement! Arrggghhh, I’m going to be thrown into a Central American jail! As it was, I needn’t have worried and breezed through. Then I met the guy who sold me the boat (he upgraded to a bigger one) who coincidently was on the same flight and shared a 2 hour minibus ride to Linton Bay with him and his family. The roads were empty (we arrived at the boat at 11pm) but that didn’t stop us having to negotiate 5 check points! It seems to be a way to create jobs and on more than one occasion a document was handed over by our driver with some American greenbacks poking out the side. It made Gladys look like a saint…

Jose, the man who has been looking after the boat for me, very kindly met me at the marina entrance and showed me around the boat. He even had some bottled water chilling in the fridge and had made the bed up, what a legend! My first experience of the locals was definitely a positive one. The boat is immaculate, like its just come out of the show room and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Due to a combination of jet lag, heat and excitement I didn’t sleep a wink and kept on getting up in the night to poke around lockers and try to figure out how some of the systems work. I watched the sun rise over the jungle clad hills above the boats in the anchorage and I couldn’t stop grinning. Its been a day of chores which started with buying food. The mini supermarket was terrible but the fruit and veggie van was awesome including the largest avocado and papaya I have ever seen (I bought both) which means I am now set up for healthy breakfasts and lunches and there is a cafe in the marina which will provide me with dinner and perhaps a few beers in the evening.

Everyone in the marina is super friendly offering advice and helping me work out the lay of the land. There are plenty of characters though. The first was a nice English bloke from Tottenham who had a beer with his breakfast and told me how the skipper who he joint owns his boat with doesn’t bother with weather forecasts or hurricane seasons. They crossed the Atlantic in the hurricane season, had a few close calls and are about to head through the canal and then undertake a whopping full crossing of the Pacific Ocean to the the Philippines in one go during cyclone season. That’s around 65 days straight! If I was on that boat, I’d start drinking at 8:30am as well…

Next to me is retired American couple Tom and Julie who have been cruising these waters in their handsome 48 foot monohull for 12 years. It looks like a very mellow way to spend your retirement. They’re about to put the boat in storage and head back to their home in New Orleans to fix their roof that got wrecked by hurricane Ida.

I’ve picked up and unpacked three torn, dilapidated boxes, barely held together with tape that look almost unrecognisable from the ones I dropped off at the shipping company in Elsternwick a couple of months ago. I’m sure they are lighter and have less in them but haven’t figured out what’s missing.

But now I am done for the day and will wander down to the cafe / bar to see what interesting food I can meet and people I can eat, or maybe the other way around.

I might change my shirt first…