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Adventure Sail to Panama

Miramar, Panama

October 15, 2007

Stray Cat and crew made landfall in Panama on Monday morning at approximately10 am. We pulled into a place called Miramar because one of our guide books told us that they had a fuel dock, and that was important to us. We spent six days making the passage from Jamaica to Panama, most of it waiting for the trade winds to fill in. We were forced to motor for a large percentage of the time, and we were quickly realizing that by the time we were close to Panama, we would be on fumes. We knew that there would be no diesel available in the San Blas Islands because they are so remote, so we were forced to change course to make landfall about 25 miles from our original destination. Our new destination was a small harbor town called Miramar, where we hoped to refuel before heading to San Blas.

We shot the approach into Miramar – a reef on the left and rocks on the right. We made it around the reef and began to make our way down the channel towards the few docks and buildings that we thought were our destination. It seems that we were a little left of the channel, however, because just after a local whistled at us and motioned us further to the right, we lost water and the boat came to a stop rather quickly – we were aground. So much for a graceful entrance, but Capt. Mark stayed calm and skillfully used Stray Cat’s twin props to wiggle off the ground and back into deep water. Ok – let’s try this again. We moved the boat very close to shore and made a few inquiries about where we could get diesel and gasoline – our first foray into our “Spanish to Survive” course, and shortly thereafter we found what we had come for.

What we found in Miramar was a very small warehouse near the water, with a dock that can only be described as “rickety”, and a small store, or “tienda” run by a very cordial Chinese family. When we arrived all of the locals were on the dock loading down with supplies to take to the small villages of San Blas. We waited for a space at the “dock” for over an hour as they loaded all kinds of sodas, beers, flour, sugar, rice, bananas and fuel onto their small panga style local boats. It was finally our turn to move in, and thanks to some great maneuvering and crew work, we pulled off the tight squeeze and tied the bow up into the mangroves. After a few “preguntas” from the young Asian man working the dock, down the pier rolled the diesel – on a hand truck inside a 55 gallon drum. We positioned the boat on the dock to get close to the drum and used a hand cranked pump to fill the port tank, but had to move the boat off the dock and flip her around to get to the starboard tank. We bought every bit of diesel they had which amounted to about 75 gallons, which we figured would be enough to last us during our trip through the San Blas.

They also had groceries and supplies at the small tienda, so we spent some time and money provisioning for San Blas before we left. They had a limited supply, but a few key items were necessary since we were picking up a new passenger the next day and we were very low on food. The prices were reasonable, the people were friendly, and our first contact with Panamanian culture was pretty enjoyable. It was a Godsend to have been able to obtain fuel, meat, milk, cereal, soda, eggs etc.. Most of all, though, it was very nice to have the long, windless passage behind us. Vamanos (We go) to the San Blas Islands!