Ready for the Pacific: Last Days in Panama

We went straight from the canal to the marina. The line handlers waited for our agent to arrive and take them back to Colon. Since the agent wasn’t coming for another three hours, we sat down with the men to chat and have a few beers. We talked about general topics: life, family, their country, the future, and so on. They weren’t familiar with Serbia; they had heard of it, but didn’t know exactly where it was. We also touched on the topic of quality of life.

In Panama, the minimum wage is around $700 USD, but very few people actually earn that; most earn more. I mentioned that the minimum wage in our country was almost half that amount. For a moment, disbelief was visible on their faces, and then one of them made a joke: “That’s weekly, right?” We all laughed. I said, “No, that’s monthly.” Then another one joked, “Are you sure you’re in Europe?” We all laughed again. I said, “If you look at a map, yes, but we’re not in the European Union; we’re the ‘others.’” They still couldn’t believe it.

Then someone asked, “Wait, wasn’t Yugoslavia a strong country? We remember…” And that’s how the conversation shifted. We touched on darker topics: the crisis, hyperinflation, salaries of $2 USD per month. They couldn’t even imagine such a thing. One of them asked, “How often do you go to war? Why do you allow that to happen to yourselves? You have to fight; no one should have to live like that. If things aren’t good for us, we’ll turn Panama upside down and try again; things have to get better.” Even they knew that, and we, we had somehow lost that spirit.

We didn’t realize how late it had gotten until the agent appeared on the dock. He asked the men if they were ready to go home. We quickly invited him for a beer, but since he was driving, he only had one and then left, saying his family was waiting and that it would take him two hours to drive everyone home. We said goodbye and thanked them for their great company and help, and they left the marina.

We still had some things to buy. Since we were going to the Galapagos Islands, which are a protected area and national park, special preparations were needed. We weren’t allowed to use our own dinghy there and had to have biodegradable soaps, shampoos, dish soap, special trash bags, and a host of other specific items. We planned to buy these at a nearby shopping center the next day.

Another important task was to have the boat disinsected and deratized and to obtain a certificate. The agent gave us a contact, and the man was coming the next day. He would be using gas bombs, so the boat couldn’t be used for two or three hours while it aired out. We planned to do our shopping during that time.

Most importantly, we couldn’t leave Panama without the famous Panama hat, which is actually first made in Ecuador but got its name because it was worn by workers on the Panama Canal as sun protection. We looked for “Panama Hats made in Ecuador” and managed to find some. Milan, who was with us in Greece, had also wanted one, so we got one for him as well. Whether it would reach him in Belgrade was another question, as it was a long journey.

We were ready for our next journey of approximately 850 nautical miles to Santa Cruz Island. We were now in the Pacific Ocean, and because it’s the largest ocean, the distances between islands were no longer short. What we had covered in a morning in the Caribbean would now take at least a week; anything less than that we would consider close. We were also entering a zone where plane tickets were not only expensive but flights were also scarce, so the chances of anyone visiting us were very small, but everyone was welcome. The next day, we would continue our journey to the Galapagos Islands.

Posted in

,