|
Does anyone know John Davidson, the American singer and TV personality? Anne remembers him as a romantic, good looking singer and heart throb from her New York days in the late 60's. I didn't have a clue who he was. Apparently he has a regular TV show, but neither one of us have ever watched it. Anyway, he has a beautiful, old, wooden yacht, the "PRINCIPIA", built in Seattle in 1920. It is abt. 100 feet long and in fantastic condition. John has been cruising in the same area as ourselves since Costa Rica in the beginning of March, and we saw him the last time a couple of weeks ago in Belize. They travel a lot faster than us, but then they stay longer at each place. They do a lot of diving. Both John and his wife, Rhonda, also a TV personality apparently, his son, Little John and their little girl, Ashley, are all extremely nice and down to earth. We have met them several times at yachtie potluck parties and anchorages. They only have one crew, an ex fisherman from Mexico, who is their engineer and translator. Otherwise, they handle that big boat on their own, which is pretty good. John travels regularly to LA, Hawaii, Minnesota and other exotic places (!) to tape shows - a real jet setter! After leaving Ensenada Benao, we only had one potentially bad spot to negotiate before reaching Balboa at the entrance of the Panama Canal. That is Punta Mala (Bad point), which has a reputation for strong winds, adverse current and dangerous rip tides. We were lucky and sailed around the point and into the big Bay of Panama without any problems. The only effect the Humboldt current had on us was much cooler water for swimming - thank God!
The Navy stayed behind us until we came very close to a freighter which was approaching us on a collision course. When the freighter was within 4.5 miles, I called him on Channel 16 and asked for his course, speed and intentions, telling him that I had the U. S. Navy right behind me. At that exact time, the Navy veered off and left us! After a confusing conversation with the freighter captain, whose English was very poor, we came about, just to find out that he had changed course too, so we were still on collision course. By this time, we were getting very close to each other, and with the freighter moving at 15 miles an hour, it wouldn't take long for him to be on top of us. We had to do some pretty swift maneuvering in the strong wind to get back to our original course, which we confirmed to the captain over the radio three times, to make sure he understood. We were getting really nervous as his reply was very unclear and wishy washy and we were still not convinced that he had understood. Anne was glued to the radar and I was at the wheel watching with great anxiety. He eventually passed us astern, within 1/4 of a mile - too close for comfort and very scary. It was with a great sigh of relief we saw him disappear into the night. Thank God for the radar. However, even with the best of electronic equipment, misunderstandings can still happen as this experience clearly confirmed - despite of, or perhaps because of verbal communication. Once again we learned you cannot be careful enough. The most interesting stop in the Gulf of Panama was on Isla de San Jose, a small island in the Las Perlas archipelago. Here we met a 65-year-old German hippie type character, Dieter, and his 54 year old girlfriend, Gerda, both from East Berlin. They were sort of squatting on this island owned by a wealthy German/Panamanian, who bought it a few years ago for $20 million, mainly to produce honey. Our first encounter with Dieter was when we came ashore and started burning some non-biodegradable garbage on the beach. Out from the palm trees comes this "Robinson Crusoe" with long, flowing grey hair and beard, clad in dirty, torn shorts, shaking his fists at us and shouting: "No, no, no!!! Whaaat arrr yooo dooink???" He gave us supreme shit for creating smoke on his Bio Farm and ruining the atmosphere. When we asked where we could get rid of the garbage, he exclaimed: "Tse sea, offf course!" We had a fairly short, one sided conversation about the reasons why we would rather burn non-biodegradables than throw them into the sea, possibly killing fish, turtles etc. etc., but he wouldn't hear that argument at all. His way was the only way,"und tsaat waas tsaat". After this useless discussion, in which he got the final word, he calmed down a bit, and waved us along through the entrance to his "Il Paradiso Bio Farm". Here he had hung up two buckets for weighing fruit and eggs for sale, using stone weights, marked with numbers. He led us through a drained swamp with grazing hens, chickens and roosters, past an old dug-out canoe filled with old artifacts, whale bones, animal sculls, shells, broken Indian clay pottery and lots of other junk. We marched through a large orchard (mainly citrus fruit and mangoes) along a cleared path to a shack on top of the hill overlooking "Mona", a large rock resembling the head of a native Indian and which dominates the bay. "Look!", Dieter exclaimed stretching his arms wide. "This is all mine!" This was Dieter's and Gerda's paradise on earth. We could only see a pathetic, dilapidated clapboard tin roofed shack with absolutely no worldly conveniences. No electricity, no hot and cold running water, no sanitation facilities, no communications to the outside world, no stores, no other people on the island. The setting was spectacular - but the life was basic, and very tough. They were living their dream. Dieter had fled from East Berlin in 1954, worked in Morocco for 10 years, sailed the "Seepferdchen" from Europe 12 years ago, and arrived in Panama 4 years later. He fell in love with the place, and sent for Gerda. They have no money. They make abt. $300 a year from growing and selling fruit and some times eggs to visiting boats, like us. Their own diet is very simple, i. e. fruit, some vegetables, chicken, fish, wild pigs, rats (which they trap themselves) and various herbs and spices which they grow themselves. Gerda bakes bread, of course. They have no milk or dairy products. They can grow very few things due to the extremely dry and sandy soil. They have very little water on the island which they must save for drinking. They love rum, which they asked us for (!), and we traded some for fruit and gave them a bunch of Time Magazines. We couldn't help but think what will happen to Dieter and Gerda when they become too old to scratch out a living from their bio farm. They were happy now, and that's all that mattered. We sure meet some interesting people on this trip.... Dangerous Creatures of the Sea Isla de San Jose is also where we saw our first shark - and a big one! One night, Jonathan put a fish head on a huge hook, thinking he might catch a shark. The next morning, he was sitting in the dinghy fishing, when I suddenly saw this huge curved fin gliding through the water about 5 feet behind him. Jonathan saw my wide-open eyes and turned around - it didn't take him long to leap aboard NOR SIGLAR! As far as we could see from the description, we think it was a Big White Shark! A little while later, Jonathan got a big moray eel on his shark hook. It had swallowed the whole fish head, hook and all. To top it off, we also sighted a sea snake, gray with yellow lines along the sides. This type of snake is supposed to be deadly, but is only able to get a proper bite between a person's fingers or toes. Apparently, that is very unlikely, and happens rarely. Needless to say, we didn't do any swimming in this bay. While in Las Perlas, we heard on the ham radio that an American sailboat, "ORION", had lost his engine and had been drifting back and forth with the current and no wind for several days. We were fairly close by, so we took the boat in tow for two days right to the Balboa Yacht Club at the entrance to the Panama Canal. The owners, Joel and Jo from North Carolina turned out to be a delightful couple. He is a retired urologist, she a nurse, and they treated us to a wonderful dinner in Panama City and gave us an interesting book on the building of the Canal, "The Path between the Seas". We have since become good friends, and keep running into each other along the way. It is amazing how we keep in touch with other boats through the ham radio nets, often ending up at the same places in these large waters. We spent three days in Balboa before transiting the canal, which is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The only time it has been closed since it opened in 1914, was on the day of the U. S. invasion of Panama on December 20, 1989. The Canal runs from north west to south east with the Atlantic entrance being 33.5 miles north and 27 miles west of the Pacific entrance. Central America swings quite far east, which surprisingly enough puts the Panama Canal due south of Florida! A neat bit of trivia! Also, the tide on the Pacific side is 15 feet plus, whereas on the Atlantic side it is only 1-2 feet. The Canal is approx. 50 miles long and has three sets of locks on each side of the 27 mile long Gatun Lake, which separates the Pacific and Atlantic sides of the Canal. Each lock chamber is approx. 110 feet wide and 1,000 feet long. Ships are raised or lowered 85 feet in a continuous flight of three steps on each side of the Lake. A lot of paperwork and formalities had to be completed before we could transit, including having an admeasurer come onboard to measure the boat. You are also required to have four line handlers in addition to the skipper, and an official pilot supplied by the Canal Commission. There are always people hanging around the yacht club wanting to be line handlers, so we hired two at $50 each, got one yachtie friend to do it for free and Anne was the fourth. The transit fee was $125. On Good Friday, April 17, the line handlers came onboard at 0600, the pilot arrived at 0730, we were off by 0800 and were through the Canal on the Atlantic side by 1700. The whole thing was very exciting and went without a hitch, although one incidence could have got out of hand. A large tugboat tried to squeeze ahead of us into one of the locks and caused a lot of turbulence with his huge propellers. The locks are narrow, and being rafted to another sailboat, maneuvering was very difficult for us, so we almost had a collision with him. We have been told that these Panamanian tug boats can be bloody minded and quite often create these scary situations for yachties, whom they consider to be filthy rich Americans.... We were relieved to be through unscathed. One of the most exciting moments of our entire trip so far happened during the transit. When we entered into Gatun Lake, we saw a Gearbulk ship lying at anchor there! We sailed right up to "GULL ARROW", who must have been wondering what a sailboat was doing coming right up alongside, waving flags and shouting! So I (Anne) raised the ship on the VHF, and had a nice chat with the Captain, whom I had met many times during my years with Gearbulk. He was pretty surprised to see me down there as he was not aware that I had left the company. He promised to add a paragraph to his next fax to the Vancouver office with greetings from the"NOR SIGLAR" in the Panama Canal! On leaving, "GULL ARROW" saluted us with three long blasts of the horn, dipped their flag and waved until we disappeared in the distance. But the excitement didn't end here. Also at anchor was the cruise ship, "SAGAFJORD" waiting to enter the last locks into the Atlantic. As it turned out, we ended up in the locks right next to each other. Suddenly, our pilot got a strange look on his face while monitoring the official Channel 12 on his radio. He then informed us with great respect in his voice that the Captain of the "SAGAFJORD" wished to speak to us! The Captain turned out to be Norwegian, his name was Berntsen and he lived at Moseidmoen close to Vennesla where Martin comes from! He had observed all the commotion earlier with the Gearbulk ship, and when he saw our little, Norwegian pennant and the name of our boat, he got curious. After a nice, long chat with Berntsen, "SAGAFJORD" saluted our little sailboat while hundreds of passengers lining its decks waved to us. Our pilot was sure impressed! We spent 12 days at the Pananma Canal Yacht Club in Cristobal, across the way from Colon, getting ready for the Caribbean. Colon is a very dangerous city. It has lots of poor people, high unemployment, drug abuse and trafficking, all contributing to its bad reputation. The crime rate is high and robberies common day and night. Several yachties had been robbed at knifepoint just outside the yacht club gates. We were warned not to walk around anywhere, so the only times we ventured outside the gates was to do grocery shopping, enter and clear with the various authorities and catch the bus to Panama City. We always took taxis right from the yacht club gate. They were cheap and dependable. Riches from the Incas of Peru to the Elites of Europe While in Colon, we took a 1-1/2 hour bus trip into Panama City, part of it along the Canal. It was interesting to cross the isthmus, virtually along the same path as the mule trains had brought gold and silver from Peru in the 17th century to the Spanish galleons waiting on the Atlantic side to transport the treasures back to Spain. The terrain was truly hostile and the jungle dense, so it was easy to understand how people suffered and died by the thousands, crossing this unfriendly stretch of land. Armed Guards & Wrought Iron Bars While in Panama City, we got our visas for Honduras and Guatemala, did some provisioning for the boat, charts, spares, etc., and took a few short taxi rides around the city to inspect the main sites. Panama City is not safe either. Most stores have wrought iron bars on the windows and the entrance door locked, even during business hours. They let customers in individually, and larger stores have armed guards outside the entrance. Not a nice feeling to be in such an unsafe place, so we were glad to be out of there unhurt with our money and belongings still intact. Signs of the invasion were still evident in many areas. Large sections of the city had been reduced to rubble, now in the process of being built up. Lots of buildings had bullet holes and broken windows. There is still a large U. S. military presence there. From what we heard, Panamanians felt the U. S. invasion was necessary. They wanted to get rid of Noriega, and they had not been able to do it themselves. It was a terrible price to pay, especially in loss of life, but it had to be done. The majority of Panamanians still want the Americans there. They also have misgivings about being able to take over the Canal by year 2000. Many we spoke to believed that this treaty would have to be renegotiated, and the control of the Canal returned to the U. S. We would not have spent so much time in Colon had it not been for Anne putting her back out - the first time in a couple of years. All it took was lifting the outboard engine. Thank God, she got on her feet again after about a week - it could have been a lot worse. We finally made our real entry into the Atlantic and the Caribbean on April 30 when we left the breakwaters of the Canal and sailed a short distance of 20 miles to Porto Bello. That evening we celebrated the successful transit of the Panama Canal and the entrance into the Atlantic Ocean with a bottle of Champagne! Spirits were high as we were toasting: Copyright © Anne Brevig & Martin Vennesland. www.norsiglar.com |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Home
INDEX
Pacific - Atlantic
Home
NORWEGIAN 
