The last couple weeks have reminded us that “sailing around the world” should more appropriately be called “fixing a boat around the world”. Our averages for the past 16 months since beginning this exercise in so called “sailing” are not impressive… if we categorized our days by activity, they’d look something like this:

• Fixing the boat in port: 50%
• Moving the boat (sailing / motoring): 25%
• Customs / immigration / logistics: 5%
• Exploring / relaxing / enjoying things: 20%

If you’re good at math, you’ll immediately recognize that just 1 in 5 days are actually spent doing things that are fun (the ones we normally write about). Our numbers, we think, are about par for the course because we don’t see a whole lot of people beating our figures so far, at least not anyone trying to circumnavigate in three years or less. The trick people use to improve the averages is to slow down or just stay in one area, like the Caribbean or the Med, often for years or even decades, which is why so many “circumnavigations” morph into extended regional cruises.

So now we find ourselves fighting a seemingly absurd collection of forces that are trying to keep us in Panama City and morph our circumnavigation dreams into a decade long Central American cruise. And while that‘s probably not going to happen, weeks like these do drive us a little nuts and make us question the advisability of an endeavor like ours. We won’t call our current situation an ATL (all time low), but we’re approaching the danger zone if our solar panel work drags on any longer. The good news is that our whining should come to an end by the middle of next week because our Panamanian departure is finally in sight and that means we should be Galapagos-bound shortly.

Equally exciting is the last minute addition of Javier to our crew list, who’s someone we had never even spoken to before last week. Because we’re about to head across the Pacific, this means he’ll likely become a major character on our storyboard, so get used to hearing his name (“Javi” is his nickname so far, but that might change). Javi is from Barcelona and is much smarter than we are. I say that because he’s sailing around the world like us, but has somehow figured out how to bypass the annoying task of owning a boat. Instead he hops from boat to boat like a professional hitchhiker and people like us are glad to welcome him aboard. He’s quadralngual (four languages and learning a fifth) and an accomplished sailor which will be a huge blessing in our shift scheduling across the Pacific and through the islands on the other side. We’ve had great experiences when we’ve done similar things in the past with Legend and Rupe, both of whom have become major characters in the earlier part of our story, and have turned into great friends in the process.

So it’s our last weekend in Panama City (we hope) and this is our last chance to experience some of the city’s somewhat famous nightlife scene (the city has little else to offer other than its nightlife). It’s got a touch of Miami and a touch of Vegas, but way fewer rules, and that’s a pretty good combination if you’re into things like gambling, partying, bar hopping, and crazy Saturday nights (some of which we’re not totally opposed to ourselves from time to time). But if you ever find yourself down here, be careful because the large tourist and gringo expat population from the north (or to be more accurate, their wallets) attracts flocks of ultra-friendly beautiful Colombian “working girls” from the south, many trying to one-up each other with bigger and rounder fake silicone butts (yes butts, not boobs, and for northerners who’ve never seen this before, it can be an impressive and expensive sight). The “working” situation isn’t totally obvious at first so when we went out last weekend we thought we were simply on fire with the ladies, even inventing a couple new dance moves before figuring out how things really work around here (i.e. $150/hour)…. but for that one legendary “hour of confusion”, wow, we suggest you try an hour or two yourself (of confusion, that is).

In a way what we’ve just done is a form of cheating. Until 100 years ago, a circumnavigation by sailboat would require a trip around Cape Horn at the bottom of South America, far below the 50th parallel where the temperatures are cold, the seas huge and unpredictable, and where the winds blow fiercely from the west. Back in those days, before the invention of GPS, autopilots, and fancy communication equipment, novice sailors like us had no business circumnavigating at all…. to attempt it would be almost suicidal. But things have changed since then, and the biggest difference between then and now is the existence of the Panama Canal, which we think of as one of the world’s two greatest shortcuts (the Suez Canal at the top of the Red Sea being the second place rival). The cost for building this shortcut was steep – 22,000 French workers and 5600 American workers died during the complicated 35 year construction period, mainly due to Malaria and Yellow Fever, not to mention the cash expense (billions in today’s dollars).

Our transit through this 48 mile century-old megastrcuture from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean took just 24 hours. It seems outrageously expensive with fees approaching $3,000 for our transit and over $300,000 for the big super-tankers and cargo ships, but still a relative bargain compared to the alternative of sailing around the continent. Contrary to what many people think, the canal is not a big long trench connecting the two oceans. The canal is really a long freshwater lake (Gatun Lake) about 100 feet above sea level, with an “elevator” on each end to get boats up and down into the lake. The “elevator” on each end is a series of gated locks – boats go in, lock doors close, water floods the lock as the boats rise up, lock doors open, boats move into the next lock, and the process repeats three times until the final lock opens onto the lake. The process reverses on the other end of the 45 mile long Gatun Lake.

The transit itself was an unforgettable experience. The volume of large ship traffic forces you to wonder if the world might be a very different place if not for this canal, which not only is important for purposes of trade, but also for military planning, all of which has a huge impact on the world’s balance of economic and geopolitical power. It’s no surprise the place is swarming with a large US and Panamanian military presence.

For a boat like ours to transit the canal, we’re required to have four line-handlers aboard, whose job it is to secure ropes to the canal walls with the help of canal operators on the shore. For us this meant recruiting a few friends to hop aboard, which was a pretty easy task (thank you Sam, Frank, and Baz). We tied up alongside another sailing boat (Dragonfly) which was also transiting that day, which made things much more simple inside the locks (we take care of the starboard lines, they take care of the port side lines).

So here we are in the Pacific Ocean for the first time in our voyage and finally thinking seriously about all we have to do in this ocean over the next year. This is an exciting junction for us, but before we get started towards French Polynesia we first need a couple weeks to install solar panels and tie up some other loose ends on the boat…. as always, mechanical and electrical considerations are a big part of what this is all about. It also gives us a little time to explore Panama City, which we’ve heard great things about.

We’ve assembled a time lapse video of our exit from Gatun Lake, through the canal locks on the Pacific Side, and into the Pacific Ocean. You’ll notice no advanced sailing skills are required to sail from Atlantic to Pacific…. check it out:

The San Blas Islands is the perfect place to slow down, take it easy, read a book, ponder things, and refresh yourself. Given the fairly fast pace of our voyage so far, we’ve found ourselves doing less of this than we’d hoped, but that’s starting to change, and for that we’re grateful. The book we’re reading now is the famous philosophy book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and if you ever get the chance to read this book while cruising through a tropical island archipelago habited by indigenous people like the Kuna Indians here in San Blas, we highly recommend it.

After a week in the San Blas, we feel we’ve come to know the Kuna. We admire their simple living and respect their one-ness with their surroundings. … they don’t need to read books about Zen because it seems they’ve already found it on their own. The simple living of the Kuna Indians, and the obvious contrast to our western lifestyles we’re used to has really got our philosophical brain juices flowing. They’re another example of people stuck in a rut by western standards and have achieved very little from a modern perspective. But perhaps surprisingly, this does not make us question the Kuna, but it does again make us question the western way of life, our definition of “progress”, and possibly even the sanity of western civilization. An interesting passage from Motorcycle Maintenance forces some thought on the subject:

It’s sometimes argued that there’s no real progress; that a civilization that kills multitudes in mass warfare, that pollutes the land and oceans with ever larger quantities of debris, that destroys the dignity of individuals by subjecting them to a forced mechanized existence can hardly be called an advance over the simple hunting and gathering and agricultural existence of prehistoric times.

Surely the Kuna must recognize, and we should admit, that our “progress” is at least partially illusory. The embarrassing volumes of garbage left on the uninhabited islands by passing sailboats, or perhaps drifting across from the eastern Caribbean, must baffle the Kuna even more than it baffles us – why do we disrespect the land in this way and what are we leaving for the future? Our expensive obsession with technology and its rapid obsolescence must make them wonder what the purpose of our innovation really is – have we become enslaved by our own consumption? The existence of our “developed” world has become totally dependent on burning vast quantities of fossil fuels which are finite and rapidly depleting, and which now launch us onto an endless path of violent resource-based conflict – are we blind to the future when those resources expire, and is there no limit to our tolerance for violence in pursuing them? If the Kuna looked at our western way of life and concluded we’ve gone completely insane, would they be wrong?

Like most of the time we start thinking philosophically, we don’t find the answers…. we barely even have time to think up the questions. And although we wouldn’t mind another few months in the San Blas figuring all this out, we lack the luxury of time. We’ve reached the far west end of the San Blas which means it’s now time for us to say goodbye to our new Kuna friends, their simple lifestyle, the gorgeous tropical island views, and the stunning nightly electrical storms that this area is known for. We now need to become briefly re-acquainted with life in the developed world, and there’s no more fitting way to do this than by transiting through one of man’s largest and most expensive machines, and perhaps its greatest symbol of technological “progress” (whatever that means). I am talking, of course, about the Panama Canal just one day’s sail away. And so the Kuna, we fear, might have a point about our sanity, but we can’t deny that we’ve drunk the western Kool Aid and are too deep to turn back now. If a little insanity is the price of admission for life in the modern world and for enjoying shortcuts like we’re about to take, it’s a price we’re willing to pay (we think).