Panama 2: Fascinating Flora, Fauna, and Forts

Shelter Bay Marina is built in the middle of an old US military base and surrounded by a jungle filled with a collection of fascinating flora, fauna and fort ruins. When the work on the yacht seems to be going nowhere there are several walking tracks and roads that you can walk or cycle along to look at the birds and animals. It is much easier to see them than it is to get photos but here are a few examples of the forts, and flora and fauna in the surrounding area.

Forts

Shelter Bay Marina is built in the middle of what was Fort Sherman(Fuerte Sherman in spanish). It was the primary defensive base for the Caribbean sector of the Canal, and was also the US jungle warfare training center. The construction was begiun in 1912.

After the decommissioning of the US Army Coast Artillery Corps the forest area was used by the US Army Southern Jungle Operations Training Center (USARSO). In 1951 JOTC was founded and used to train Central American and US forces in jungle warfare, with an enrollment of approximately 9,000 a year. JOTC also taught a 10-day aircrew survival course, open to all branches of service, and a four-week jungle warfare engineer course. It was handed over to Panma in 1999. The fort included 23,100 acres  half of which was jungle. Further information on the Fort Sherman History:http://www.czimages.com/CZMemories/VAP/Sherman/fort_sherman_index.htm

In 2008 Fort Sherman was used in the filming of James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. 5

Many of the ruins can still be seen walking along the various paths from the marina but they are becoming heavily overgrown. There is still a small runway used by light planes and helicopters and the Panamanian border control forces still use some parts of the seaward end of the base

The jungle is taking over the concrete structures as can be seen in the photo below. This tree is growing directly on top of the concrete with the roots branching our across the structure.

To get an overall impression of the area here is a short video that James obtained using his drone. https://youtu.be/lIQTSWCReBU

Art

Inside various parts of the ruins are pieces or art work.

Flora

The trees in the jungle around Shelter Bay are huge as are the palms – about twice as tall as we have seen before. All have very straight trunks and a very high canopy. There is little undergrowth.

Fauna

Animals

There are hundreds of birds and animals in the jungle around Panama and if you would like to read further about them there is a good guide online https://www.inaturalist.org/guides/10921

Here are only a few that we managed to catch on camera. The monkeys fly through the tops and you can hear them crashing around when they are moving. They are fascinating to sit and watch and try and figure out what they are up gto.

On the track close to the rubbish bins in the marina, we found a whole family of Coati digging on the track to find insects.

Birds

There are so many birds but many were hard to get a photo of so here are only a few. I hve not yet managed to get a good photo of a Toucan though I have seen several. They are just too high up in the trees. More information is available at https://www.inaturalist.org/guides/10890

The hawks spend hours each day soaring over the marina and they are marvelloous to watch with their pinions spread so wide. It was the first one I had seen actually in the bush stopped on a branch.

The little swallows are also great to watch as long as they do not decide to nest in the boom or covers. They also love to fly over the pool and dip down and catch a sip of water, even when you are sitting in the pool watching. Unfortunately they are so fast I have not been able to get any photos/videos of this activity.

Insects

Sometimes one forgets the insects in the jungle so I thought I should include a few of these for you. There are many butterflies on all the flowers especially on the edge of the jungle.

There are four types of termites in Panama and we found thier activities in the jungle fascinating. They were very busy termites. We traced bacck the path they had formed on the track – it looked like an animal path but was formed by the termites. They were carrying pieces of freshly cut leaves and some dried leaves. Following them back we came upon a tree with the current nest in it, we can only assume the were off to build a new one.

Yacht Maintenance Progress

For those of you who are wondering about our progress of getting out of the marina to do some cruising – it has been slow. We were looking good at the end of the first week here with only two issues left to sort out. The freezer probe is not working correctly so we are having to turn it on and off manually but we are having problems trying to get a new probe.

The new set of starboard batteries were put in the day after on friday but unfortunately one of the wires was not put back as it was originally. This caused a fire on the switch board and since then we have and a week trying to sort it out.

The wiring diagram for the yacht is the original from the date it was launched in 2004 and many other items additional, and replacement, have been added since. The result is that the wiring is a birds nest with many unlabelled wires and wires in the wrong places. We have now had to replace not only wires on the starboard side but some on the port side and we still have a few to go. The chief engineer is not enjoying being stuck in the engine room with 35 degrees and 80% humidity.

The electrical gods have not been kind to Eleuthera with a combination of old age, microwave and washing machine, lightning, Raymarine switches, freezer thermostat probe, wind generator controller, battery charger and starboard house batteries and operator error replacing some cables after a fire!! Apart from the washing machine (we bought a new microwave from NZ) we are mostly repaired having managed to find various technical support here in the marina. All outside technical people come from Panama an hours drive away and are generally very expensive – the refrigeration guy was quoted at USD 180 per hour through the boatyard!

A bonus of our delay has been the arrival of some German/Austrian friends Beate and Bernard. We met them originally in Sicily and have stayed in contact for several years. We last saw them in the Canary Islands as we were about to set sail for the Caribbean. Great to catch up and share experiences and enjoy their company again.

Hopefully we will return to cruising in the coming week.