Pitufa.at

In order to sail to the Galapagos Islands we have to cross the ITCZ (intertropical convergence zone), an area with unstable weather conditions near the equator in between the faithful trade winds further north and south. We’re waiting for a period, when the northerly trades make it over the Panamanian Isthmus to help us getting south, where we then should find southerly winds. Whenever northerly winds set in a whole fleet of yachts sets out towards the Galapagos from Panama. We missed the last of these weather windows by a day (Pitufa’s wasn’t quite ready yet) and have now been waiting here for almost a week. On the weather forecast it looks as if a new window might open towards the end of next week. The last few days have been rainy and we stayed at home working and writing. Yesterday we hitched a ride on one of the shuttle boats that go back and forth between the fishing lodge in our bay and the village in the next (mostly used by indigenous workers of the lodge). It was nice to walk along the beach, chat with people and buy groceries without having to worry about getting the dinghy through the surf on the beach. On our last visit to the village we had noticed many people on the last end of the beach, far away from the village and wondered what they were all doing there. This time the riddle was solved, when we asked in the minimarket about mobile phone providers. There is a digicell connection, but it works best at the far end of the beach Today the sun came out again and we hiked on a path (well maintained by the lodge) through the jungle over the hill and to a beach on the other side. The rainforest is incredibly lush here and we glimpsed a cute little racoon-like bear in a tree.

Leeloo’s a very timid cat who doesn’t like visitors on board at all. In busy anchorages with dinghies going by all the time, she has always one ear moving with the outboard engines that are whizzing by. As soon as she hears the rpms dropping, she’s slightly alarmed, when the people in the dinghy start shouting ‘hello’ she scurries under deck, knowing they might come aboard and–worst case scenario–even stay for an evening of drinks. We were amazed to find out that her reaction to dark-skinned people in canoes (with or without outboard engines) is completely different: she stays on deck no matter how close the canoe comes and even when we start talking to the people, she’s not worried. Maybe she knows from experience that ‘brown’ people usually stay in their canoes, or when they come aboard, they don’t stay very long. Or maybe it’s because many canoes smell of fish and Leeloo loves fish. Whatever the reason for her behaviour, it shows that she distinguishes between differently coloured people and she clearly prefers brown visitors to white ones

We took the dinghy to the neighbouring bay to visit the village there. Beaching turned out to be quite a challenge with the southerly swell tumbling upon the beach producing high breaking waves that would no doubt delight surfers, but are quite terrifying seen from a dinghy. Timing’s everything: wait for a calm period, quickly motor towards the beach, tilt up the outboard, hop into the water, grab the dinghy and run, run, run! The village is indeed quite big, there’s an airstrip, a bar and a minimarket that was even open on a Sunday. We bought some bread (even though we still had some self-baked bread), but didn’t need any veggies–we bought so much provisioning in Panama City and we’re still trying to eat ahead of rot. “The sugar snap peas are past their prime and the last coriander has to go today. Hmm, green thai curry for dinner?” Some cruisers even have special menu-planning-programs on their computers, we just use our phantasy for always new creations on the gourmet boat Pitufa.

During the weeks in the bay of Panama in the grime of the city Pitufa got a long green beard along her waterline and dark stains all around. The last three days we used the calm water of the river to scrub the dirt off, polish the yellow stains off and finally put a layer of wax on to protect the paint. It was hard work, scrubbing hanging half out of the dinghy, fighting the current of two knots, but now we’re proud of our sparkling clean Pitufa!

From one of the canoes that go by frequently we got a description for the way to the village: ‘Go always straight ahead, when the river forks go up the right branch, then you’ll see a puerto–you can’t miss it. Walk up the way, it’s a big village. Es muy cerquito (very near).’ Well, it took us three attempts to find the right branch of the river (little rivers flow into the bigger river every few metres, it’s hard to tell which one’s the main branch and then you end up in a mangrove maze), the ‘puerto’ turned out to be a canoe landing with a pompous stair leading up the shore (a big blue sign announces that it was sponsored by the government to develop the region) that leads to a wide deforested space (also a developmental aid from the government) and a wide dirt road (built just two months ago). After this first impression we were already a bit sceptical, but when we reached the ‘big’ village, it turned out to be 13 tidy, flower-decorated huts on stilts with thatched roofs, smiling indios lying in hammocks on their balconies, waving regally down on the visitors. The people live high up on platforms, chicken, dogs and pigs underneath. Soon we were followed by most of the village dogs (I had brought catfood Leeloo refused to eat) and all of the village children (even though we didn’t have any kidfood with us ). We walked by all the houses, chatted with many people, exchanged some T-Shirts and cooking pots for veggies. One man showed us his two horses and explained that they’re used to carry produce from the gardens to the village. He proudly told us that Cana Blanca lacked nothing: lots of fruit and veggies grow in the gardens, the river’s full of fish–what else would you need? This morning I got up at 5.30 because the wind was suddenly gusting up and I wanted to check our position in the river. Wind and current turn us around all the time, there are some sand banks near us, so better be safe than sorry. It was still completely dark, but while I was checking the situation, dawn started lighting up the sky, the chorus of cicadas was interrupted by the first chirps and squeaks of birds greeting the morning. By 6 o’clock it was already light enough to wake the howler monkeys who are usually slugabeds, or rather sluganests. One group started with their characteristic barking shouts, and soon many others answered from all directions. A magic experience.

Usually we’re not much into sports, but last week we discovered a new exciting adrenaline sport and now we’re really hooked up. Play almost every day, fall into bed exhausted each evening, wake up with sore muscles, just to play another round of “extreme provisioning triathlon”.

The rules are quite simple:
The game starts early in the morning. The players warm up by taking several buses through the city, searching for the supermarket where the event starts. Sometimes the bus drivers add a challenge even before the game starts by telling the players to get off at the wrong bus station, hence giving them an extra chance to warm up their muscles. The players then quickly fill up two or three shopping carts and then the first discipline starts: the steeplechase.
The players wave frantically at taxis (which ignore them after a look at the shopping cart), but after 20 minutes standing in the dust and heat next to the road a taxidriver takes pity (usually one with a Micra Mouse or a similar spacey brand), the players load up the poor vehicle up to the roof and try not to catch a cold in the freezing cold interior. The taxi sets them off at the bars of the parking space and the players start running back and fourth carrying the shopping bags from the bar to the dinghy dock (the young soldiers guarding the parking space watch with mildly amused expressions behind their mirrored sunglasses–they’re the ones who refuse to open the bars). The shopping bags are then balanced down the slippery stairs to the dinghy.
By then it’s afternoon, the breeze has picked up to provide waves with white caps and the second part of the competition can start: dinghy splashing! The players load up the dinghy as high as possible (careful, stumbling on the steps and dropping a bag into the water or falling headfirst in results in minus points–one of the players has found out that already), ride out the overloaded dinghy half a mile to the boat, heave up the wet, salty bags onto the deck and go again to collect the rest of the bags.
When all bags have reached the deck the third part starts: tucking away.
All bags need to be washed, dried, contents organised, rice/flower/etc. is repacked into weevil/cockroach/mealworm-save containers and then everything is stuffed wherever space remains (bilge, hidden lockers under matraces, etc.)

Yesterday we decided to take a day off from extreme provisioning and try a different sport instead: extreme laundrying. Taking the laundry ashore to wash it and back to the boat resembles the steeple chase and dinghy splashing or extreme provisioning, but then the real challenge comes up: in gusts up to 25 knots the players thread the clothes on the line (just clipping them on to the line would result in lost items and loss of points). As the clothes are lashing violently about, protective gear (helmet, protective goggles) is recommended. Don’t try this at home, kids!

We’ve spent the past few days in a provisioning frenzy: a tour to a cheap supermarket, another one to a hardwarestore (who has ever spent 5 hours in a hardwarestore??), yet another one to a more sophisticated supermarket–each trip took us a full day, first searching for the right bus, then waiting endlessly for a taxi and in the end shipping all the bags half a mile through splashy seas by dinghy.

We’ve already managed to pack the content of 6(!) big shopping carts into Pitufa’s belly (which wasn’t empty before…) and still have to go booze shopping. Friends have packed 100 litres of wine on their boat and we’ll try to manage the same

All this provisioning must seem ridiculous to people who have the next supermarket 5 minutes by car away, but were we sail next there won’t be lots of (affordable) food available. After the Galapagos (minimarkets on Isabela) we’ll head out to the Gambier islands (small shops, hopefully lots of fruit and veggies in private gardens), next to the Tuamotus (tiny islands that get basic food from supply ships) and then in autumn to the Marquesas (small shops and lots of veggies). We won’t see another supermarket until we reach Tahiti in spring next year–and as Pitufa’s a gourmet boat we’ll fill her up completely.

Not only food is hard to get by and expensive, there won’t be big hardware stores either so we have to be prepared to fix everything that might break on the way ourselves with our own gear.

On the bright side: all the provisioning stress keeps us from being nervous about sailing out on the Pacific. A few weeks of constant sailing, nightwatches etc. seem like desireable holidays after Panama City. Initially we liked the city but by now we’re quite fed up: sales personnel is as unmotivated as it gets, moving in slow motion, trying to send customers to another shop just to get rid of their annoying questions. Another problem is the pollution: it hasn’t rained since mid-December, the air is filled with dust and smoke and we regularly have big ashflakes snowing gently down on Pitufa.

It’ll be nice to get to a cleaner, more quiet place. Hopefully sometime next week.

We’ve had quite an eventful week with my Dad, visited the old town centre, sailed over to Taboga and back, took a “Diablo Rojo” (a local bus, crammed full with people loud music hammering down) to the 16th century ruins of Panama viejo as an adventure trip, visited the Miraflores locks and took a walk in the Parque natural metropolitano. Today my Dad flies back to cold Europe, and we’re back to pre-Pacific-preparations