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Published: November 18th 2009
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When we left Shelter Bay Marina of Colon, Panama it was a warm, sunny day. We were full of emotions, sad and excited at leaving friends behind but with hope of seeing new sites ahead. The trip, all 2 ½ miles of it, was uneventful. The coastline is beautiful with its mixture of palm trees, very large hardwood trees and rocky, low coastline. The water was flat calm.
At the entrance of the river is Fort San Lorenzo. It is mostly gone now, crumbled away with time and covered by vines. The river runs out at the mouth causing some wave to be negotiated but nothing scary! The river twists and turns as we continue up towards the dam built in 1910 creating the Gatun lake which supplies the water for the locks of the Panama Canal.
Finally, we find a spot for Sandcastle where we anchor in 26 feet of water right on a turn in the river. We are about 50 yards from the shore on one side and three times that on the opposite side. After we are howler monkeys. There seem to be three groups on one side of the river and one on the
side closest to us. Tomorrow we plan to drop the dingy and go for an exploratory trip up the river. Friends have reported seeing three toed sloth’s, anteaters, howler monkeys, brown faced monkeys, toucans and a variety of other birds. WOW! Can’t wait. The rest of the day and night is peaceful and totally void of sound. Literally, we can’t hear any noises now that the monkeys have settled. We have a cool refreshing bath in clear, clean river water. The boat also enjoys being cleaned with fresh water! Any barnacles and growth is flushed off.
The next morning I wake early, 6:30, fix my coffee, grab the camera and rush out on a sunny, warm deck to capture visuals of all the animal life as it begins its day. An hour later I’m still waiting to see a bird, fish, monkey, anything. Can’t even hear the monkeys today. And then it begins, RAIN. Oh well, we don’t care. We take advantage of it and scrub the decks clean, wash out a few things, read a book and just relax. It clears in the evening and we go for a damp, short ride in the dingy. No animals but
we see a friend anchored closer to the dam. He is waiting for his wife to arrive on Sunday. Back to the boat, happy hour, a good dinner and movie. Not a bad day. Tomorrow we will see the animals.
NOT!! Rain and more rain. It pours all day. Now we are anxious about the quantity of rain filling the lake and the dam being opened to spill water down the Chagres, right where we are. That evening, the rain stops and again we go for a spin in the dingy. We find a little dock where we get off and walk along a muddy path towards the lake. Tomorrow we promise to wear shoes and come back for a long walk. Back in the dingy we go closer to the dam and find a little family of monkeys in a tree then several birds we’ve never seen before. They were quite beautiful. Back to Sandcastle, another good meal and a relaxing evening. Today was a start on the sightseeing and tomorrow will bring more! We aren’t in any hurry to leave.
We wake to rain and more rain. No way we are going to leave the boat
in this downpour! But tomorrow will be another day. Maybe so but not for us. Our friend we saw up the river comes by in his boat and yells across that the officials advised he leave because the rains have filled the lake and they are going to let some of the water out. Well, that was enough for us. We put the dingy engine on the boat, pulled up anchor and headed down river. Now there aren’t a lot of choices at this point 1) re-anchor and stay in the river , 2) go back to Shelter Bay or 3) head out to Bocas del Toro earlier that we had planned. We tried the first choice, pulled the dingy onto the deck and thought we’d wait it out but were being threatened with full size trees floating down the river with us in their path and what would we do if we dragged in the night. Oops, we were already dragging! Ok, pull anchor and get out now. Unlike the calm quiet river ride three days ago we are now bout as a peing propelled out at 7 to 9 knots. The mouth of the river is a boiling,
rolling sea of waves with wind beating into them from the opposite direction. The S curve coming in was a non-experience and now it is looming big with rock walls on one side and shallow reef on the opposite. No room for error here. Captain, my captain, how great you are! He made it look so easy. Of course, the river got one last slap in with a 5 foot wave on the port side as we made it to the better, calmer water. WHEW!!!!! That was fun, now what. Spend money at Shelter Bay or head to Bocas. Bocas won. It would be lumpy, wet and a motor all the way but we’ve had worse. So, off we go as we say goodbye to the mighty Chagres River.
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