9.3697° N, 79.9511° W
April 8, 2017  Shelter bay Marina, Caribbean sea, Panama
07.30 -“Karina come, now. We are late, we may not find a seats in the bus”, says Yorgos with an irritated tone, as he climbs down the aluminun ladder, tied on Filizi’s transom
-“OK, OK I’m coming!” I say out loud, as I lock the hatch. Filzi is been on the hard here at Shelter bay, four days already but we have been very busy to go to Colon. I put on my sandals and climb down carefully. Yesterday I tripped and almost fell. It was close. I follow Yorgos towards the bus with a fast pace. The sky is overcast but it’s warm and I’m already sweaty.
We walk fast on thick grass, under the towering palm trees. Suddenly, coming from the forest, at the northwest edge of the dockyard, lowd, terrifying roars are heard and they are getting stronger by the minute!   A young couple, walking a little further on the dock, halt and look around in horror. The woman leans close to the man, holding him tight. Yorgos smiles. We were petrofied too, when, walking alone on a trail in Montezuma, Costa Rica, years ago, we heard the lowd roars of …the howler monkeys for the first time!
A couple of black birds with long tails hop on the lawn ahead. One of them picks up a tiny piece of wood and flies away and the other stays back. They must be building their nest, I think to myself and feel deeply touched by this thought for some reason. Dosens of birds fly over our heads, a multitude of tropical bird songs add to the morning jungle concert.. Dry docks are usually dirty and uncomfortable but this, Shelter bay marina, is different. The best we’ve ever been.
We reach the bus and get in.
-“Good morning!” we say to all and a few answer back as the music playing on the radio is quite loud. The small bus, offered by courtesy of the marina, is full and the air inside is hot and stuffy. We find two sepatate seats at the back and I sit next to a man and his young, son.The driver, Mauricio, starts the 28 seater bus and we are on our way to Colon. The airconditioning is turned on and a breeze of cold air blows on my sweaty back. Three people sneeze simultaneusly.
We drive on a narrow road, through a beautiful forest with all kinds of tropical palm trees and plants. After a few minutes we pass by a place where about thirty abandoned buildings are situated. The two storie concrete houses look well built and they have nice tile roofs, but through the holes on the walls where the windows once were, one can see inside only emptiness or plants. I turn back to Yorgos
-‘I’m freezing!” I tell him in Greek
The man with the child, sitting next to me is playing a game of geography with his son.
-“Where is Shelter bay? In the east or in the west coast?” The boy looks outside, appearing destructed
-“Errr…”
-“Excuse me for interrupting. Do you know what this place is?” I ask the man with the child.
-“It is one of the four american bases of Panama, all abandoned when the Americans left the Canal”, the man answers.
-“East!” the boy says
-“That’s right!” his father tells him, kissing his hair. “Where do you come from?” he asks, turning to me.
-“We come from Greece.” I answer.
-“The lady here comes from a country that interests you” the man says to his son. The boy looks kind of bored. “He’s fascinated with Posidon, Hercules and Leonidas”, he says to me.
We talk for a while. This man, his wife and their two kids, a 10 year old boy and a 13 year old girl started a round-the –world- sailing trip six months ago from the Grate Lakes in North America. Beautiful!
-“Which was your favourite place so far?” I ask the little one.
-“New York!” the boy answers.
-“True!” the man agrees with his son, smiling. He tells me how extraordinary was their trip across the lakes, about their stay in Manhattan in New York. Yorgos, who is sitting at the back seat, asks the man about New York.
I turn and look at the back. There are two men sitting next to Yorgos, both of them in their late fifties to early sixties. The taller, a fair, bearder north European man looks very sad. His companion, a dark haired guy with bright eyes smiles at me.
-“Bonjour” he says
-“Bonjour” I answer. His friend, the tall man shows me his mobile phone. There is a picture on the screen. Startled for a second I look at him and see his eyes in tears. I turn my eyes back on the screen. I see a sailboat leaning on it’s port side, stranded on a reef. A ship wreck! I can vaguely see three men on board the boat.
-“What….?” I go, not knowing what to say
-“Dis is my boat” the man says in poor english. “C’est mon bateau!”, he says and his voice falters.
-“This happened five days ago” his friend explains “as we were approaching Puerto Escribanos, in Guna Yala. Just before the narrow entrance of the bay, with shallows and reefs all around us, the engine stopped. Dead! Before we had time to set our sails , the wind pushed the boat to the reef. A wave came and lifted the boat up on the coral. We were trapped, lying on the reef, pushed more and more by every wave. It all happened so fast. Shocked, as we lay above the water, we could now see the cause of this disaster: one of the lines was caught by the propeller. Two months ago, my friend Alain and I, we started from Saint Martin to make a three year trip around the world. It wasn’t meant to be. It is his boat.…” the man says with a bitter smile on his face. Alain, the boat owner, looks like a wreck himself. I feel a shiver down my spine and my stomach aches. This is a nightmare.
-“Je suis desolée” I say to them, touching Alain’s hand.
-“Ils ont tout volé!” they stole everything, Alain says, his eyes full of tears.
-“We were both injured on our feet from the reef, trying to push the boat. When we decided we could not do anything, we asked an indian to take us to the hospital. We asked them to keep an eye on our boat while we were away. Yesterday we went back and found three people onboard my boat. The boat was empty. One of the thiefs was looking at me, he just looked at me and smiled. It was terrible, terrible…”
The man hides his face in his hands. Yorgos and I, we look at eachother. Disaster can come every minute, there’s no room for mistakes at sea. We ask them if the boat is insured. Yesterday we were talking on the subject with another sailor, a greek-american, who keeps his boat at Shelter bay. He told us that under Panamanian law, once a boat goes aground, it becomes property of Panama and one has to buy the right to toe the boat free! Alain says that his boat is insured by Pantaenius. The proceedure is slow and very complicated. He has hired a lawyer to assist him. I feel for the man. I wish we could help, somehow.

The bus engine stops. We have reached the first lock of the Panama canal and a huge cargo ship is transiting. The bus doors open and almost everyone gets out. It seems we’ll have to wait for while. Yorgos and I go out to see the canal closely for the first time. The ship passes by slowly, just some meters away from us. It looks sureal. I walk around taking pictures. A man approaches.
-“A magnificent sight, isn’t it?” he says
-“Yes, indeed! We are looking forward to crossing the canal with our boat”, I say.
-“It a remarkable feat of engineering! The  lock’s doors are more than a hundred years old. And they still work impecably! When are you crossing?” the man asks
-“We don’t know yet. Our boat is still on the hard.”
-“Would you be interested in helping me as “line handlers? I’m single-handed The transit is scheduled on Friday April 14th”. I look at the man with the gray hair and the bright smile and for some reason I feel certain that we’ll have a good time together.
-“We’d love to. It would a usefull experience before our own passage. But I have to discuss it with my husband. We have so much work to do on our boat”, I say and look around for Yorgos. I see him further away, talking with some people.
-“Of course, I understand. My name is Patrick Callahan and my boat’s name is Traveller. It’s a 39 foot steel boat. Could you pass by one of these days and see me?”.
Yorgos comes and joins us. I make the introduction and I tell him about Partick’s offer. As we talk the steel doors of the lock shut down. The lock is filled with water and the huge ship rises highier, to the second lock and then the third, that will all lift the boat 26 meters above sea level, into the Gatun lake. Mauritius , the driver, presses the horn and we all get back in the car.  
Monday April 10.
17.15 We come back to Filizi after a short but delightful visit at the Shelter bay marina showers, where we washed away the filth of a hard working day. In the morning, we took the bus to Colon, on a difficult search for various spare parts: we need to find inox tubes to reinforce the radar column and a ball valve to replace a brocken one. Thankfully, we had the assistance of Yorgos Naoum, the greek-american sailor who knows the wherabouts in Colon. When my captain told him, that we have an appointment later on today, with Patrick Callahan to discuss crossing the canal with him on his boat Traveller, Yorgos Naoum said:
-“He is a really nice fella. Did he tell you that when he reaches San Francisco, after the transit, he will have completed a circumnavigation of the globe, single-handed?”
My captain and I looked at each other.
-“Wow!” I said
-“No, he didn’t mention it” captain Yorgos answered.   Since then I’m very excited and can only imagine the stories Patrick can share with us from his travels.
When we came back to Filizi, I started working on the deck, removing some of the old caulking that is destroyed. A hard and dirty job. Our appointment with Patrick Callahan is at 6pm, in 45 minutes. And I’m so hungry.
-“I’m cooking penne with sauce from gorgonzola cheese and brockoli!” I say to Yorgos who’s still working on the deck.
-“OK! I can’t wait” he says
17.30 The food is ready and we eat with delight.
-“The food is delicious!”my darling says, taking the last bite of penne from his plate.
-“Maybe we should bring some food to Patrick. I wonder what a single-handed man is eating…” I say.
-”Come. We must get going.” We put a portion of penne in a food container and hurry to meet Patrick.
18.00 We arrive on time, with short breath at slot E19 where Traveller is moored. She looks nice and kind of old fashion. Patrick greets us.
-“Welcome on board, please come in!”. We take our shoes off and get into the cockpit. There is no table in the cockpit, just a long wooden tiller and a standing magnetic compass.
-“Would you like something to drink? A beer maybe? Patrick asks
-“Just water, please. We are not drinking alcohol often, lately” I answer. Patrick’s face is illuminated.
-“I’m so happy to hear that! I don’t drink alcohol either. And I wouldn’t like people drinking on board, especially during the transit”. We all laugh. Patrick shows us the boat. Traveller has a  spartan simplicity and she’s strongly built. Yorgos asks what make Traveller is.
-“I built Traveller with my own hands” Patrick  answers.”You see I am 76 years old and on my time, when people wanted a boat they had to build it. She’s 39 feet long and built on a design by Charles Whitholz. I bought the design and started building her in my hometown Santarosa in northern California in September 1993. It was a dream we had, my wife and I. Unfortunately, some time later we were divorsed. During the  time of the divorce  I stopped working on the boat, I was not in the mood for that.  Two years later I went back and continued her building. She was ready in 1999, it took four years of labour. Our first open sea voyage was from California to Hawaii. On the return trip, I had to go single-handed from Hawaii to San Francisco (2.500 NM) and realised how much I enjoyed it.
Four years ago, I started from San Francisco to the Marquesas, in the French Polynesia. I didn’t have a plan to come this far, but here I am now, about to cross the canal”. Patrick  goes inside and comes back holding a small photo album . He shows us pictures of Travellers construction.
-“Many people ask me how a boat is built. So I keep these pictures handy,” he says. How true. I’ve never seen anything like it, a boat being built in a houses yard. Remarkable.
Patrick goes inside and comes back holding a small photo album. He shows us pictures of Travellers construction
-“Many people ask me how a boat is built. So I keep these pictures handy,” he says. How true. I’ve never seen anything like it, a boat being built in a houses yard. Remarkable.
-“So you are about to complete the circumnavigation of the globe single-handed?” Yorgos asks.
-“Well, we have 5.000NM more to go from Panama to San Francisco” he says
-“Do you really want to go back to Santarosa? You said, there’s no sea there” I ask.
-“Well, I have missed my house and my motorcycle” he answers to our astonishment. “I’ve been riding for many years, off-road and I missed it. Besides, maybe after a year or two, I’ll make a refit and start all over again”
-“Have you encountered heavy seas in your travels?” I ask him and must sound naïve.
-“I’ve seen winds up to 70 knots. It wasn’t easy. You see I don’t have SSB nor satelite phone and I can’t take weather forcast. To me this is normal, that’s how I grew up, how I sailed all my life. I’m not an exelent sailor, I just do my best” he says with a sweet, modest smile.
-“Have you decided if you’ll come with me?” he adds
-“Yes , we will” Yorgos says.
-“Great” I’ll ask the agent to send two proffesional line handlers. With the Transit advisor it will be the six of us. I’ll buy provisions so we can make tuna, ham or egg sandwiches. And I’ll cook something in advance for dinner on Friday night, in Gatun Lake. What do you think, Karina?” he says and I can see he’s stressed thinking of all that. I look at the sailor feeling deep respect
-“Don’t worry Patrick, we’ll help you, we’ll our best. You can concentrate into being the captain of your boat and crossing safely.” I tell him.
The canal crossing is a stressful proceedure, so much more for a single-handed sailor: having five strangers on board must make it worst. Patrick smiles, he looks a bit more relaxed.
-“ Thank you! It will be a great canal transit. We’ll be a “happy boat”. It’s settled, we go on Friday 14^th! ” We shake hands and say goodnight.
We’ll be a happy boat transiting the Panama Canal. I like that!