Weather:

From the Caribbean, try to arrive in Panama before Jan 1, because after that the Christmas winds kick in along the north coast of Columbia and you can really get hammered with 30+ knot winds and very large following seas. We came late October and although we did not have the winds, we were in the middle of the rainy season so had downpours and some lightning but light winds & seas.

Having said that, before Jan 1 is the rainy season – and it does rain! So take your pick. I would rather have the rain than the big winds.

Customs/Immigration:

We spent November & December/2001 in the San Blas islands. Don’t bother to check in unless an official boat comes around. Wait until you get to Colon because officially, you can only get a permit to stay for 3 months then you must leave the country. There are ways around this – ask in Colon for a taxi driver to take care of it. We paid a taxi driver (Rudi) about $80.00 US to run around and do all the paperwork, which included his time and all costs for customs and visas etc. Canadians need a visa so he got that for us too.

Once through the Canal, you must get a Zarpe to leave the country. If cruising to the Las Perlas, don’t mention this, otherwise it causes them problems with what to do with you. Just go.

San Blas:

Get "The Panama Guide" by Nancy Schwalbe Zydler and Tom Zydler – a must. Need good light to see the reefs (lots of them) but are not as easy to see as in the Bahamas because the water is not as clear. Electronic charts are off quite a bit, so once anchored, we changed our GPS datum to a user-defined (X and Z co-ordinates) to correspond our anchored boat position to our electronic chart position and had no problem navigating. We also saved our actual routes and used them in poor visibility to retrace our steps through reefs.

Bring all your food – you can get very little there but we found: beer (11.00/case), chicken, some veggies (tomatoes, potatoes, onions, carrots), and basics like flour, eggs & rice are available in some villages. You can get diesel & gas in Rio Diablo but propane is hit and miss. Best to come prepared to be self sufficient but you will not starve if you are not fully provisioned. You can buy huge crabs and little lobsters, coconuts, bananas & limes from the Kuna indians who come out in their dugouts. Bring hard candies for the kids – every day is trick or treat it seems. There are no banks – bring US one dollar bills. The ladies all make beautiful ‘molas’ – embroidered panels of cloth and sell them to you by dugout at your boat or in the villages.

Ask around the other cruisers for what things are worth. We bought bananas from a Kuna and gave him $1.00 but really were only worth .10 so we way overpaid. 5.00 is a lot of money for a Kuna!

Canal Zone:

Colon – when approaching the breakwall, call "Cristobal Signal Station" on VHF 12 for permission to enter and anchor. They speak English and will direct you to anchor on "The Flats". Just consult your Zydler guide or chart for location. Or you can motor over to the Panama Canal Yacht Club and look for a vacant spot in the marina – they don’t take reservations. If you see a slip, take it then check with the office.

We anchored in the Flats. Very windy (January) , choppy and rolly with tugs going by all hours. The depth is 30 or so feet and put out lots of scope (we put out 160 ft of chain) because the Flats are notorious for boats dragging. Very soft, gross, dirty stinky bottom. You will need time to clean your chain when you leave!

Colon is a good convenient spot to do your provisioning. Take your dinghy to the PCYC dinghy dock, taxi to any of 4 or so great huge supermarkets for $1.00 and load up. You can walk around town (we did) but Ed is a menacing looking guy especially dressed in his dirty old cruiser clothes. Some cruisers got mugged, and it is not recommended you walk around. Take a taxi, they are cheap.

The "Free Zone" is a part of town where you can buy things cheap – cruisers were buying outboards, we bought a 600 ft spool of anchor line and split it with another boat, and there is an inexpensive place to get your wine, hard liquor and beer (but only 1 kind of beer).

PCYC has an inexpensive Laundromat (do it yourself .75 wash, .75 dry) a great bar with jugs of draft for $3.50

You can get diesel at PCYC but is expensive (1.60/gallon). If you can wait till the other side of the Canal, you can load up in Flamenco for 1.10/gallon. Check around the local nets if price is an issue for you.

Buying boat stuff is not all that easy. You would think Panama would be a place full of chandleries, but its not. Best to prepare your boat in Trinidad, St Martin, or before you leave home. You can order stuff but you then need a shipping address and you might be delaying yourself waiting around. On the other hand, if you really need stuff, there are many cruisers here who have been here for many years, and will help you find anything you need.

The whole canal zone is a very dirty place – our sheets and other lines got all sooty and a layer of black soot settled on our dodger.

The Transit:

The only advice would be: don’t worry about it. Just go with the flow and let the Panama Canal staff tell you what to do. Once you arrive in Colon, that is all anyone talks about, so you will figure out what to do about lines, tires (fenders), line handlers etc In a nutshell – tires are available for a small fee, or free if you see another cruiser who has come through from the other side, lines can be rented, or use you own anchor lines, professional line handlers can be hired. The cruisers all help each other take their boats through. You should go through with at least one other boat before taking your own through, just to see what is involved. The biggest problem we saw was inadequate deck hardware (cleats and fairleads) on boats. There can be large loads and your cleats need to have backing plates and be able to handle anywhere from 5/8 (minimum allowed) to 1" lines. You may have to hold 2 other boats with your cleats while the ship ahead of you turns on their big props in that lock chamber! Closed fairleads are ideal, otherwise you need some hefty snatch blocks to keep your lines from coming up out of the fairlead. If you can take care of this before you leave it is easier than getting here and realizing your hardware is not up to the task.

Panama City is a clean, modern city complete with high rises, huge supermarkets including warehouse stores like Price Smart and Mega Depot where you can load up on your canned goods, beer, meats and non perishables. Also can get your fresh veggies at farmers markets before you head out. There are a couple of large general hardware stores like our Home Depot stores. Medical care is extremely inexpensive here – modern facilities and good doctors & dentists. Eg. 7.00 for a filling, 35.00 for a dermatologist to examine your whole body for suspicious spots.

In Balboa ( a suburb of Panama City) you can get charts (British Admiralty) at a place called Islamorada, if they have them. I would get all my charts before I left home so you don’t have to count on getting them along the way. They have a few cruising guides, mostly "Charlies Charts" and Landfalls of Paradise. Most of the books are geared to the professional mariner. They have all the Celestial almanacs and tide tables you will need for the Pacific, and they are reasonably priced.

Also there is a photocopy place in Balboa "Happy Copy" who will copy charts for about 1.00 each, and books for .05 per page so you can borrow from other cruisers and make copies of their charts pretty easy

In the Panana Canal itself is a great marina called Pedro Miguel Boat Club. You can arrange to go halfway through the Canal and stop there. It is reasonably priced (.35 per foot/day short term, or .25 per foot per day for over 1 month) and you can leave your boat there for inland travel, to do major or minor repairs (they can lift you out with a crane), or to fly home. Some cruisers have been there for years. It is like an adult summer camp – very pleasant. Email pmbc@pmbc.ws or website www.pmbc.ws

They have water and electricity at the docks, a clubhouse with kitchen facilities, washers & dryers. Very very nice.

Balboa: Once through the Canal, you can take a mooring at the Balboa yacht Club. We did, and would not do that again. The cost is a 25.00 "membership" fee, and then .50 per foot per night. Pretty expensive, considering you cannot take your dinghy ashore (they provide a free water taxi service), and the clubhouse has burned down so there are no shore facilities. Also the wakes from the ships and tugs is horrendous. We left after 3 nights and moved a couple miles down the causeway to Flamenco (check your Zydler guide) for a much better location. Free, good holding. BUT again there is no place to bring your dinghy ashore so the cruisers help each other with rides in and out. You can get diesel at the Flamenco marina and water, or you can get it at Balboa Yacht club but is more expensive.

The Canal Zone is a dirty place. We were amazed at the black soot that settled on our bimini, deck, lines, everything! We think it is a result of all the ships’ exhausts, and they burn the garbage ashore in huge fires. Also, the water is conducive to growth - we cleaned the bottom of the boat before transiting the Canal, but it was all bad again a couple of weeks later!

**(all costs are in U.S. dollars)