Bocas del Toro

We left the city of David at 0700. Our destination, Almirante, lay about 150 miles north, on the Caribbean coast of Panama. To get there we first traveled on a rough two lane road through the village of Gualaca, about 20 miles from David. Gualaca is at about 1000 feet elevation and is cooler than the sweltering coast. The road then took us up through the Cordillera Central, the high mountains that form the backbone of Central America. As we climbed higher toward the continental divide, cattle ranches gave way to highland rainforest. Traveling slowly over and around washouts and potholes, we wound our way up through fog and dripping rainforest to the pass, which I estimate to be at roughly 5000 feet elevation. Descending over a series of tight switchbacks on the northern slope of the mountains we passed La Fortuna reservoir at about 3000 feet elevation. This beautiful lake was formed when a dam was built in 1984, bringing hydroelectric power to the region. The Caribbean side of Panama gets more rainfall than the Pacific side and we rolled past banana and coconut plantations while the rain came down, sometimes in torrents, sometimes in drizzles on the way to Almirante.

Waterfront in Almirante

All along the road we saw people dressed for the holiday waiting for the bus to Almirante. When we got there, throngs of people, nearly all black or mestizo, were crowded around the water taxi terminal trying to get a ride to one island or another before dark. After an hour’s wait we managed to get aboard a water taxi to Bocas town. With the 25 foot boat loaded down with about 35 people and their bags, the overloaded launch motored out of the tiny harbor and gathered speed for the ten mile trip to Bocas Town where we were met by our friends, Craig and Liz. We celebrated our arrival there with a beer at a waterfront café and then hired a small boat to take us the last few miles to Isla Bastimento, where the Red Frog Marina is located. Craig and Liz have been living here aboard their 42 foot catamaran, Salida, for the last four months.

Red Frog marina, named for the tiny red frogs that are native to the area, is located in a small cove on the northwest side of the island. It’s part of a small resort that includes a hostel, cabins for rent and an outdoor bar on the beach. The beach is on the other side of the island, facing the open Caribbean Sea and is well known to surfers who come here from around the world to surf the many good breaks on Bastimento and other islands that make up this part of the Panamanian coast. The surf wasn’t great when we got there but we had a good time bodysurfing and then hanging out at the beachfront bar afterward.

The Pizza Oven at Rana Azul

The next day we sailed over to an area called Tierra Oscura (the Dark Lands in Spanish) and anchored in a cove known as Rana Azul (Blue Frog). There we met an Austrian named Josef who came to this place a few years ago with his wife, Maria, and built a tiny bar/restaurant on the edge of the jungle to serve the occasional sailors and eco-tourists that manage to find the place. They had sailed all over the world aboard their 40 foot sailboat, and decided to settle in this lonely but strikingly beautiful little spot. Their specialty is pizza baked in an outdoor charcoal fired earthen oven and Panamanian Mojitos. Since there are no roads to this place they had to bring everything in by boat, including a rickety old karaoke machine. Many a sailor has made a fool of him- or herself with that rusty mike-with-the-bad-connections in his hand, us included.

In the morning we upped the anchor and sailed for Starfish Cove on Isla Colon, where the snorkeling was fabulous. Later we took the dinghy around the point and halfway up the Bocas del Drago channel to a beachfront restaurant called Yarisnoris. Here we found tourists, lots of them. All around us at the restaurant we heard tourists speaking French, German and Italian along with English and Spanish. The locals of this area speak Guari Guari, which is a hybrid of Jamaican English, Spanish and Guaymi. Guaymi is name of the indigenous natives of this part of Panama.   Back when the Trans Isthmus railroad, and later the canal, was built, the French and American contractors imported laborers from Jamaica, Barbados, and even China, to work on those projects. Intermarriage among these groups as well as the native population has resulted in a rich cultural history and linguistic patois that is fascinating to hear.

From Starfish Cove we sailed for Bocas Town and anchored outside the harbor. Here we could see the local fishermen paddling dugout canoes out to fish the reefs and shoals that abound in this area. I first saw a dugout in Almirante and thought that perhaps the locals made them for tourists, of which there are very few in that town. But, no, they are working boats used every day by the local fishermen. I looked closely at a few of them and found them to be finely crafted vessels carved from a single log. It is not uncommon to see a man with wife and a kid or two

Native Dugout Canoe

paddling a dugout to or from Bocas town. The other boat that the natives use is the fiberglass panga powered by an outboard. Strong, fast and utilitarian, pangas are long and narrow open boats that are used for cargo, fishing, water taxis and just about everything else. There are dozens of small islands in the Bocas del Toro area and very few roads, so people travel everywhere by boat.

The food here is what I would call a uniquely eclectic blend of creole, Carib, Panamanian, European and American. I love the spice and tang of the local cuisine. The architecture along the waterfront and main streets is also a blend of Caribbean, Latin and European styles, all painted in bright colors. Located just nine degrees north of the equator, Bocas is out of the hurricane zone and the weather is what I call equatorial; Hot and sunny most of the time except when it’s hot and rainy. Humidity also stays near a hundred percent, so we swim or snorkel off the back of the boat every day.

Red Frog Beach, Isla Bastimento

The Seven Wonders of the Dutch rowing World

The Netherlands is a short flight from the southern UK and their weather is similar to ours, but their rowing clubs are practically on a different planet.

Last weekend, I went on an informal 29km rowing tour there with Dutch friends, followed by a conference on touring rowing (organised by Toer!) the next day in Amsterdam, and was bowled over by what I found.

Wonder Number 1. Soft cushions!
We were the guests of a member of Baarn watersports club on the river Eem, south-east of Amsterdam. As you often find on the continent, there was a special cushion for the coxing seat of our touring coxed quad. So far so nicely organised.

But this club had taken the concept to a new level with monogramed embroidery: you cant quite see it in this photo, but the orange line of characters on the right are the Club name, and the small group in the top left are the boat name (so you dont accidentally take the wrong cushion for your boat – perish the thought).

Its kinda, "If Charles Tyrwhitt did boat cushions..."

Wonder Number 2: Rowing into a gallery
Anyway, we set off, and had a pleasant row past many fields to  the small town of Amersfoort, which mixes well-kept old buildings, with the most modern of modern architecture, and a great deal of "art" scattered all over the place.

This must be "art".
Not a clue what else it could be...

There was even a chandelier under the railway bridge. The perfect lighting if you were having a floating dinner party, I guess. Though possibly only for people using sign language, given the rumble of trains overhead.

Wonder number 3: The longest boathouse

Paddling back out of town, we stopped off at Hemus rowing clubs brand new home, which is, without doubt, the most spacious boathouse Ive ever seen (with the possible exception of Northeastern in Boston). 

Boats, almost as far as the eye can see.
Note also (OK, with a magnifying glass) the standard arrangement of a touring boat on the floor at the bottom of every rack, with fine boats above.
That, people, is how many touring boats the average Dutch club has. Wow OH wow.

The full length boat bays had no fewer then FOUR racks of boats along them (OK, not all VIIIs, but there were some), with copious spacing above each boat. You know how clothes are displayed in the windows of smart boutiques: a choice piece, carefully arranged on its own against complimentary surrounding. And you know how your rowing kit is stuffed into a big bag. Well, there you have Hemus rowing club compared with your average boathouse: a sort of zen of boat racking. You can just feel the calm, cant you?

As you might expect, there was also a massive bike park and a complete lack of car park, and to my utter astonishment, a sedum roof. Not sure what else I can say about that, other than !. And !!

But then the next day, I found another sedum roof at RIC in Amsterdam (I did take a photo, but once youve seen one picture of a boathouse with a sedum roof, youve seen em all) so, based on a sample size of three, I concluded that around 67% of Dutch boathouses have sedum roofs. I wonder if there are any in the UK? 

Wonder Number 5: No soggy towels, thanks, were Dutch!
Amidst such shiny new-ness, I was reassured to see that the club had clearly brought one thing from their previous shed: the obligatory 1950s mangle that I have observed in almost all Dutch rowing clubs, for wringing out the boat-wiping towels (where do they GET them from?).

Incidentally, when I say "almost all" clubs have these, the club back in Baarn where we started didnt have a mangle but had hurtled recklessly into the 21st century and had a dedicated boat-towel washing machine. Shocking stuff.

Wonder Number 6: What goes on Tour...

What goes on tour are Dutch rowers apparently. Big time. All the clubs I visited had a Tour Calendar on their club noticeboard, listing at least 12 events for the season, and I discovered that every club has a Touring Committee. A permanent group dedicated to organising tours (plural). Perhaps I should emigrate?

Wonder Number 7: Expressing rowing through the medium of...

When youve rowed for as long as I have, youve generally seen it all in terms of rowing lifestyle accessories: paintings, mugs, boxer shorts, ornaments, you know the kind of thing. But at RIC I found some novel ways of bringing rowing indoors. First, perfectly supporting Dutch stereotypes about painted tiles, the youth section had produced a set of decorated rowing tiles in the clubs orange and black colours:

The river was mapped on one of the bars coffee tables in inlaid marquetry (you cant see it in the photo blow, but bridges and locks were marked):

And finally, a highly creative member had expressed a tour route in the medium of tapestry:

Thats it for wonders, but like the sprinkles on your cupcake, heres a final fascinating fact pertaining to the social history of rowing. British rowers are well aware that  rowing use to have an obsession with "amateur" status, and the fact that (back in the day) it might only be done by "gentlemen". This led to the founding of clubs like Thames Tradesmen Rowing Club, whose members were barred from joining some of the amateur" clubs because their work involved a physical element. Rowing clubs in Amsterdam, however, followed different social divisions, with RIC having its origins as the Catholic rowing club (I gather that sectarian divisions ran as deep as British class divisions, till even more recently, not just with separate Catholic and Protestant schools but also hospitals, political parties and even TV channels). Apparently another club had originally been Jewish.

Photos: Martin Paasman and Helena Smalman-Smith.

Leopard 42

The days flew by in Bocas del Toro. We toured the archipelago, swam, partied, played Mexican Train, and generally relaxed aboard Salida, our hosts fabulous Leopard 42 catamaran. Salida is a very large boat for a 42 footer. It is a cruising cat that I believe was originally designed for the Caribbean charter trade. The builder, Robertson and Caine of South Africa also produced an "Owners Version" as well. The difference between the two is that the charter version has four sleeping cabins and the owners version has only three, with the starboard hull devoted entirely to quarters for the owner. Salida is the latter. Here is a layout of the accommodations.

?

Leopard 42 Layout

? In this view you can see that the starboard hull includes a large sleeping cabin, desk, lots of closet and storage space, and a large head with separate shower stall. The port hull is devoted to smaller cabins, each with its own head. I was impressed with the amount of living space inside the boat. On deck, the cockpit includes seating for 6 in a large and comfortable dinette as well as plenty of room to actually sail the boat. Fully covered by a fiberglass hardtop, the cockpit is an extension of the living space. In Bocas, where it is always plenty warm, we took all our meals around the outdoor dining table.  The main cabin includes a nav station, dinette and a very complete galley. Aboard Salida, there was always something delicious coming from the galley thanks to Lizs culinary skills. For a couple who lives aboard and occasionally entertains overnight guests, this boat is hard to beat. We were very comfortable aboard the Salida. It made me wish the Honcho was a bit bigger.

Salida is well set up for shorthanded cruising, with roller furling and a stackpack mainsail. Some features I especially like are the electric winches on the cabin top, the very simple and efficient dinghy davits and the stout ground tackle system. Salida is equipped with an 80 pound Rocna anchor and I was very interested to see how it performs compared with the Manson unit that we have aboard the Honcho. We anchored and weighed several times and I even snorkeled over the anchor to see exactly how it set in sand and coral. It appears to me that both anchors work well and the spade concept used by both is an improvement over plows and Deltas that are favored by many.
??
?

Salida at Starfish Cove

?