Panama City – an international hub for South America

We have in total spent about five weeks in Panama City, half of the time on anchorage and half of the time at the marina. We have utilized most of this time preparing for the big passage ahead – crossing the Pacific Ocean.

However, we have been able to enjoy this multicultural and international city as well. It is clear that Panama City is to South America what Singapore is to Southeast Asia – a financial hub for the region with lots of expats working for big corporations and banks.

There are about 2 million people living in the city and its main surrounding areas, which is half of the population of Panama. Panama City comprises of many high rises that stretch out for a big part of the city, and the skyline is quite spectacular.

The Panama City skyline
The most famous high rise, called La Torre tornillo (the screw tower)

There is also an old part of town, Casco Viejo, which has a lot of Spanish colonial houses. Many of them are under reconstruction, and some are being turned into hotels, as this is by far the most important tourist area of the city.

Iconic Panama hats+++
The old town has lots of beautiful squares that come to life at dusk
Some of the churches in the old town are operational, but seem to be struggling with maintenance
Some of the protected old buildings are waiting for new owners, while nature takes its ownership over them.
And some buildings have been gutted out, with only the facade remaining

La Playita Marina, where we spent parts of our stay here in the city, is located at the end of a popular area called Amador. Every morning, one of the lanes on the road closes for bikes from 4:00am – 9:00am.

During nighttime, the area turns into a strip where people with cool cars with extremely noisy engines try to get attention 😝 Lots of people, both locals and tourists enjoy the nightlife at this strip 7 days per week. We could definitely hear the party scene to our boat, so never a dull moment 😊

The forward deck with our new torches and the Amador strip restaurant section in the background
Biking on the boardwalk in Amador, just by the marina
Noxoma at the end of the dock in the background

While in the big city, we ensured we did some big city activities, like enjoy a couple of restaurant meals and visit a few of the local museums.

Benihana teppanyaki restaurant
Burgers at American Bazaar at La Compañía Hilton hotel
Beers at the local microbrewery La Rana Dorada
La Rana Dorada = The Golden Frog
The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Punta Culebra. The Pacific canal entrance can be seen in the background
Pink fish 💕
Land turtles
The Panama Canal museum
Panama canal museum, illustration of the kiss of two oceans
Mola museum, the artwork of the Gunas, the local indigenous people
We have made pillows out of a couple of our molas we bought in San Blas

As we were getting closer to the passage, we used plenty of time provisioning. The last major provisioning we did, was in November in Colombia, so we were definitely getting low on a lot of stuff.

Roaming for supplies in malls
Prepping for beach activities in the Pacific with new boogie boards
Another load of stuff being supplied to the boat
Provisioning for the Pacific passage – we made plenty of full dinghy rides 😅

We also spent quite some time fixing things onboard. Somehow things get wrecked sooo fast on a boat, even a new one. It’s a good thing that the captain is so handy 😄

The captain working on the dive compressor

We have met many fellow sailors at this anchorage and in the marina. The sailing community is great at arranging meetups and helping each other out. We are part of both Facebook groups and WhatsApp groups for each destination we go to, and this is where we also get a lot of intel on where to find stuff, etc.

We have met three other boats (from Denmark, UK and USA) who are leaving for Galapagos and further on to French Polynesia basically the same time slot as us. It is definitely a good thing to know you have other sailors around who can help out in the middle of the ocean, if something was to happen.

Lots of boats at the anchorage, prepping for their Pacific passage
Noxoma at the Playita anchorage
First hand view from the anchorage of ships entering and exiting the canal
Helping out a fellow sailor preparing for her solo sail over the Pacific in a 27 feet boat. Estimated travel time: 40 days 🤩
Tuesday is cruisers meet up night at a nearby restaurant
Cocktail party at the neighbor’s boat in the marina
One of Carine’s biggest cravings was fulfilled – cheese platter!
Every boat has its own set of challenges 😁

Our main reason for staying in the city this long, is that we are waiting for our long stay visas to French Polynesia. As Norway is not part of the EU, we can only stay 90 days without a visa. Our plan is to stay in French Polynesia during the next Pacific cyclone season, as they predominately appear in the western part of the Pacific, and not in FP.

It takes 4-6 weeks to process the application after the meeting at the French embassy, which we had after passing through the canal in early January. We finally received the notice that our application was approved 6 weeks and 1 day after our appointment 🥳 We believe we have been very patient…

The captain has stayed one week longer than the admiral here, as she has been back in Norway for one week to attend her father’s funeral. Loosing a loved one is tough, and experiencing this from the other side of the world, is not easy. Although we are living our dreams here on the ocean, it definitely has some drawbacks both for us as well as for those closest to us, whom we have left behind 🥲

We are now ready to leave Panama, after 3.5 months in this beautiful country. We have experienced the best of both coasts, with beautiful islands and coastlines, as well as big city life.

We made a final stop at beautiful Las Perlas islands just 35nm south of the city, to clean our hulls before we depart.

Hull cleaning champ 🤩
Beautiful sunset in Las Perlas

We now set sail for the 900 nm to Galapagos, where we plan to spend 4-8 weeks, before we continue on what will likely become our longest distance sailing without landfall, crossing the Pacific.

Hasta la vista, and thank you for having us, Panama! 🇵🇦