Basically, a Type II error is, in boating as in most walks of life, the more common mistake:  underinclusivity, the failure to include relevant data, or, if you will, the failure to recognize a particular extant problem — a false negative.

A Type I error is a mistake far less common in boating:  overinclusivity, the inclusion of irrelevant/erroneous data, or, if you will, identifying as extant a problem which does not in fact exist — a false positive.

Let’s make this simple –

Not knowing that the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor — Type II error.

Erroneously assuming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction — Type I error.

OK, even more simple.

When the pregnancy test says you aren’t pregnant and you actually are – Type II error.
When the pregnancy test says you are pregnant and you really aren’t – Type I error.

See the difference?

Not being the most experienced sailors, we commit Type II errors all the time.  The Tale of the Twin Fiascoes was basically one Type II error after another – not filling up the gas tank, thinking we had a handheld VHF but not actually having one, not turning off the electronics once we were out of fuel, etc., etc., etc.

Well, I’ve finally committed my first major Type I error.  And it was a doozy…

For about the last two weeks, I’ve been convinced that our batteries were, for whatever reason, failing adequately to retain charge.  Following test after test, the reading of endless manuals (probably could have done some more of that earlier) and even the hiring of a largely clueless electrician, I have now diagnosed the situation:  there is nothing now wrong, nor has there recently been anything wrong, with our batteries.  Instead, there is something wrong with my powers of diagnosis.

This episode would be at bit more humorous if it weren’t so badly timed.  Having improbably cleared every hurdle in our mad scramble to meet our deadline, we actually found ourselves all set – the boat was all ready to go to the Galapagos and we could have left on time in ideal conditions (the weather was absolutely perfect), saved ourselves a couple of thousand dollars in airfare and attendant travel hassles and had an extra two weeks in the South Pacific.  So, yeah, um …

A bit of explanatory background is needed here.  Having long ago (as was required given the preposterous lead times with which these trips sell out) booked a god-awfully expensive SCUBA adventure in the Galapagos, we have known for weeks that yesterday was the last possible day to depart Panama City for the Galapagos without resorting to Plan B (i.e. flying there and back from Panama).  We need to be there on the 29th.  It’s 900-950 miles away.  Our boat does about 150 miles a day (and will easily do that if we motor 24/7).  The math is not hard.

We had been told by people who know things that the typical wait for a Panama Canal crossing is about 5-9 days, and our research pretty much confirmed this.  We began the process on March 1st (while still in Colombia) and were admeasured in Colon on March 7th.  For whatever reason (and there certainly isn’t a good one), there are presently HUGE delays at the Canal.  So when we were told that we wouldn’t be crossing the canal until late March, I pretty much threw a fit (although others have had it worse — a boat that came in two days after us was given an April 14th transit date).  At this point it seemed pretty unlikely we’d be making the March 22 cutoff.

Employing my litigator training, I pretty much table-pounded and screamed my way into a March 19-20 (“maybe”) crossing appointment.  So at this point, everything had to go right — not only did the March 19 appointment date have to be “real,” but we had to have the boat otherwise completely ready for the Pacific crossing 48 hours later.  This involved about 7-8 non-trivial things going right.

Slowly the pieces began to fall into place.  Sure enough, we made it through the Canal on the 20th and pulled into the Flamenco Marina late that Thursday afternoon with three items left on our checklist.

Well, to make a long and not very interesting story short, these fairly simple jobs have been rendered extraordinarily difficult by virtue of the subsequent Friday being Good Friday.  The entire city is basically shut down from Friday through Tuesday, booze is not being served (the horror), and people are not working.

After a great deal of gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, we managed to get two of the three simple jobs done — they took 30 hours and should have taken three.  But, alas, we could not find a single marine electrical store anywhere in town that was open to sell us an inverter diode (not a particularly hard part to find), which was the part our electrician determined is causing problems with out batteries.  There’s literally one boat store in the whole city that was open either yesterday or today, and it specializes in fishing gear.  Without said diode, we can’t guarantee proper, consistent charging of our batteries and that wouldn’t be a particularly enjoyable thing to live with for 90+ days.

So, alas, we have tripped over the final hurdle and will have to move to Plan B, but no big deal … we’ll fly in about 5-6 days, come back, and then cross the Pacific.

Repair permitting, we will depart Flamenco Marina about noon local time tomorrow and expect to arrive in the Galapagos in about one week’s time.

In bigger news, we have added a crew member for the Pacific crossing … he is a 57-year-old Brit turned Canadian from Toronto named Ian McLean, our line-handler during the Canal transit.  He has crossed the Atlantic twice (but never the Pacific), once going eastbound in the North Atlantic in a 29-footer.  Although his politics are going to drive me absolutely insane, he is a very funny guy (especially when ridiculing French/Dutch buffoons) and we should all get on well.  For those of you who have seen too many Nicole Kidman/Billy Zane movies, take some solace in knowing that his passport both appears authentic and bears the same name he told us …

This is not a tough job, but, for the forward linehandler on the French/Dutch boat on our left, it apparently was tantamount to splitting the atom.  This guy was a complete fool.  Every couple of minutes, the raft would begin rotating clockwise, I’d look to the bow of the left boat, and the guy on the bow would be standing there with a slack line running though his fingers.  I mean, really … a six-year-old girl could do this job.  I’d yell at him, he’d begin taking in the line, the raft would straighten, and, three minutes later, the process would repeat itself.

Needless to say, none of us aboard Spectacle were even slightly amused.  At one point (after a particularly heated exchange), one of the Frenchmen aboard the left-side boat said something lippy to Ian, who responded (without missing a beat), “Hey, didn’t you guys try to build this thing once?”  It was pure genius.

The right side boat (aka the humorless Germans) weren’t much better.  Mostly, they lounged about the cockpit eating various hot meals brought up from below while their captain decided to engage in his own raft-steering regime (against the instructions of the advisors and making my job more difficult).  But their best moment came when it was time to break up the raft for the first time.  As we released the lines tying the boats together, their captain brilliantly decided to simultaneously floor it and make a hard right turn, swinging the stern of his boat into us.  An incredulous but extraordinarily alert Melissa grabbed the boat hook and began trying to fend him off, putting the (plastic) hook onto his (metal, non-aesthetic) stern cleat and pushing with all her might.  Again, the non-scratching plastic was on their cleat, needed to be there, and the guy was driving like an idiot.

Well, the guy reacted like she was keying his car.  “Do NOT use zee boat hook!” he screamed.  OK, dude, do not drive zee stern of your boat into us…

By this point, we had completely had it with both the other boats.  So, for the rest of the transit, we basically treated them like six-year-olds and barked orders.  I’m sure they hate us.  Believe me, the feeling is mutual.

Aside from our chilly relationship with the other raft members, the transit was really fun.  We went through the Gatun locks in darkness on the evening of the 19th before Meza was picked up by a launch and the remaining five of us spent the night on a mooring buoy (hard to call it a “ball” since it was about four feet across and Erik had to stand on it to tie us up).  I cooked up some of my ersatz shrimp creole (which is now approaching semi-official “Dish of Spectacle” status), we had a few Balboas and headed to bed, awaiting Meza’s promised 7:00 a.m. arrival back at the boat.

Meza was right on time, and off we went through Gatun Lake.  It was a blessing to be able to spend most of the day free from our NATO allies as we motored through this beautiful and strange creation.  Eventually, we reached the brown water and high walls of the Gaillard Cut before rerafting with the Europeans to pass through the Pedro Miguel Locks and, finally, the Miraflores Locks.  We sailed under the Bridge of the Americas at around 3:15 p.m. Melissa raced up to the front of the boat so she could be first one into the Pacific Ocean.

Our total transit time was about 12 hours (four hours the first night and eight hours the second day).

We had visited the Canal before and, to be honest, were kind of disappointed.  From the observation deck at Miraflores, it sort of looks like a suburban street that happens to be filled with water – not very dramatic.  But going through it, one far better realizes the sheer magnitude of the engineering project and just what a wonder it is.  It was a very cool experience, not particularly stressful (except for our raftmates), and something we are very happy to have done.

Among the requirements of the transit is the presence of linehandlers.  Each boat needs the captain plus four other people. This left us two people short, so we enlisted the assistance of two of our fellow Shelter Bay detainees, Ian (a Toronto-based English ex-pat) and Margaret (from Southern California).

Each boat crossing the canal is required to employ an “adviser” who assists with the transit (but, presumably as some sort of liability limitation device, makes only “suggestions” instead of issuing commands).

We were told to be in the “flats” anchorage by the Canal entrance no later than 4:00 p.m. on the 19th to pick up our advisor (who would be brought to us via motor launch), so we departed Shelter Bay at three and got over there in plenty of time.  The arrival time of the advisors is notoriously variable (read as: they are supposed to get there at 5:00 but sometimes don’t make it until 9:00), so we figured we’d drop the anchor.

We just could not get the darn thing to hold.  We have some (uninteresting) ideas as to why this may be, but, suffice it to say, we tried to anchor four times with no success.  In fairness to us, the holding in the flats is notoriously bad and the winds were quite high, but it was pretty ridiculous.  Indeed, we made a bit of a spectacle of ourselves, continually driving around in circles and setting then retrieving anchors before returning to further circle-driving.  Not the most auspicious of beginnings.

Around 5:45, we were alerted by the Canal authorities that our advisor was on his way, and within 15 minutes we had him aboard.  His name was Meza, and it became clear right away that he was going to be great – totally friendly, informal, helpful without being bossy.  He informed us we would be the middle boat of a three-boat raft, which is a bit of a mixed blessing.  Although the captain of the middle boat has the added (significant) responsibility of driving the raft, the good news is that (a) if he drives the raft into a wall (or someone else makes a mistake), the damage is going to be to one of the other boats and (b) the middle boat’s linehandlers have very little work to do.  On balance, being in the middle is pretty good.

We motored toward the Canal entrance and began the process of rafting up with the other boats.  This was also the beginning of our concerns.  Suffice it to say, it is not often that we are the only people who know what they are doing (in fact, when it comes to boat-related things, usually quite the other thing), but the Canal crossing was one of those times.  The two other boats with which we were rafted were a bunch of humorless, unpleasant and borderline incompetent Germans to our right and preposterously Wile E. Coyote-esque incompetent-bordering-on-ridiculous French/Dutch to our left.

We stopped Spectacle to allow the left boat to raft up.  They blasted up to us at about four knots and nearly ripped all of our fenders/stanchions off through sheer velocity before deciding to try it again.  Fantastic start, guys.

Having visited Panama City in 2006, we already loved the place, and nothing has happened to change our opinion.  We had a blast, including delicious meals at our old favorite Ten Bistro and new favorite Manolo Caracol.  The Ten Bistro meal included a couple of bottles of Navarro Correas Ultra, the first South American wine I have ever had that is affirmatively delicious in a “Robert Parker 93 points” kind of way.  Personally, I think the alleged improved quality of South American wines has been grossly overstated (and we’ve had plenty of sampling opportunities), but this is the exception.

We spent a fair amount of time wandering the streets of Casco Viejo, made a return trip to the Palace of the Herons and their big strange birds, loved our hotel (the DeVille), and checked out the Panama Canal museum.  It was a pretty short trip, but we had a great time and it was a nice diversion from the annoyance of waiting for our transit appointment.

Completed in 1855, the first-ever transcontinental railroad was created to transit gold speculators from east to west since it was much easier and safer to travel by sea than through the rugged terrain of the middle United States.  Gold Rush traffic provided Colon with enormous prosperity as hundreds of thousands of transients paid outrageously inflated prices for essential goods and services.

The transient nature of those passing through Colon, and the isthmus in general, lent to a Wild West culture throughout Panama.  While some Forty-niners were pioneering and adventurous hard-workers by nature, others were highly unsavory characters:  Gold Rush-obsessed, desperate, excessively and even homicidally greedy, and swindling and thieving with nothing to lose.  As the railroad backed up and transit wait times increased, Colon bottlenecked and travelers combated boredom by drinking heavily, oftentimes while armed.  The associated violence and riots and crime are notorious stories to this day.

Even with the Wild West stories and the ultimate bust of the Gold Rush, the importance of the Panama Railroad should not be underestimated.  The need, convenience, and benefit of a transit option that eliminated the need to sail around Cape Horn had been long known.  Many different projects and speculators tried and failed to accomplish this goal.  At $8 million (in 1850’s dollars) for 47.5 miles, it remains the most expensive-per-mile railway ever built, requiring five years and taking 12,000 lives.  At the height of the railroad’s prosperity, many world and political circumstances rather suddenly changed, including heavy taxation by Gran Colombia and the 1869 completion of the Union Pacific Railroad across the United States, both of which permanently undermined the railroad’s importance.

Ironically, the construction of the Panama Canal undermined the prosperity of the city of Colon.  The city and its residents, particularly in the last 50 years, have not benefitted from the billions of dollars continuously flowing through Panama.  The country as a whole reports a GDP of over $26 billion (in 2006), and a 7.2% unemployment rate (granted with an oversupply of unskilled labor, and an undersupply of skilled labor).  The most recent information that I can locate specifically about Colon is from November of 2002 shortly after several days of riots and looting in the city’s center.  That source claims a 40% unemployment rate in Colon, and more current estimates place unemployment as high as 75%.  Additionally, Colon has some 52 murders per year … a shockingly high rate for a city of only 200,000 people and a far cry from the urban, thriving, and sophisticated Panama City just 50 miles away.

Many different reasons and rationalizations exist for this tremendous disparity.  First, immigrant entrepreneurs dominate the skilled, and sometimes even the unskilled, labor force.  Massive foreign investment brings its own prejudices.  Rumor has it that the outsourcing of major Canal operations to the Chinese has absolutely clobbered the unskilled labor force in Colon.  The Chinese companies brought in their own workers for nearly every job function … even for prostitution I’m told.

From some sources, my own experience, and anecdotal evidence, racism plays a fairly serious factor.  Colon’s current population is largely descended from black people who came to Panama from the West Indies (some by choice, some by trickery, some by force) to work on the Canal.  As such, many would argue that Colon’s economic state of affairs is basically ignored by the Panamanian government which provides incentives for foreign investors without labor stipulations, and creates stimulus packages for other Panamanian communities.

Additionally, in reading several sources, my opinion is that many government officials shirk responsibility and solidly place blame on the city’s residents as lacking initiative and dignity.  I personally find this to be pretty unfair.  When people have no work, no money, no education, no hope, and no opportunity, they steal and take drugs.  No different in Colon than anywhere else.

We had heard the rumors about Colon and wondered how bad it could actually be.  Everybody’s got a story and it usually involves larceny on the lower end, and severe violence on the upper end.  Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s bad … very bad.  We had to head into town to pay the generator repairman for services rendered, and it was very bad.  From what I saw, not a single building stands sturdy and maintained … literally everything is dilapidated and deteriorating.  Seemingly every block has at least one huge brick of rotting garbage as tall as a two story building.  Groups of likely unemployed people mill about and congregate under the occasional shady stoop just passing idle time.  Children without shirts or shoes play amongst gutters and garbage.  Every single business has pad locks and chain link fences and barbed wire and bars on the windows and security.  It’s positively tragic.  I did not find the Free Zone to be much better.

Luckily, Shelter Bay Marina is a little oasis.  The internet connection is fairly reliable, the electricity is compatible (i.e. the boat plugs into shore power just fine), the Balboa beer is cold, and the food is pretty darn good.

Wait … did I say oasis?  I meant to say prison.  If they had decent food, cold beer and internet access in prison, prison would be a lot like Shelter Bay.  Located on the grounds of an abandoned U.S. military base (the former Fort Sherman), the marina is 30+ minutes from anything else and you really aren’t free to leave in any true sense of the word.  And the staff (prison guards?) know this, pretty much setting world records for indifferent service (Bruce at the boat yard being an exception so notable as to require mentioning).

Shelter Bay Marina is not in Colon proper, but I think that some of those transient, Wild West tendencies are still at work here.  Right now, the Canal is horribly backed up, wait times are preposterous, and the transients are drinking a lot.  Like the old days, they are heavily armed, albeit only with hair-trigger tempers, crabbiness and know-it-all attitudes instead of rifles.  I can’t say that I blame anyone too much — the Canal authority has rather blatantly shown their antipathy towards private yacht traffic by allowing passage for only 3-5 boats every other day (there is absolutely no justification for this), and most everyone at Shelter Bay is anxious to start a new and exciting portion of their journey … not to sit and roast, basting themselves with beer, in Central America’s lower large intestine.  Basically, Shelter Bay Marina is a place where pissed-off people are incarcerated on a U.S. military base that’s intentionally highly isolated from the society that surrounds it – sort of like a certain place in southeastern Cuba, but minus the torture.

Nonetheless, we have met some very fun people and continue to check some action items off of our list.  I enlisted the help of John and Shirlee on S/V Solstice to sort out the remaining details of the single sideband radio and our SailMail account which is a very welcome development before we embark into the great wide open.  We also hauled the boat out of the water and had the bottom painted.  After 6 months in the, ahem, “nitrogen-rich” Bahia de Cartagena, this massive and heart-stoppingly expensive job was necessary.

On our approach, we marveled at the 30 or so tankers and freighters anchored outside of the entrance of the Panama Canal waiting for passage.  We passed through the “goalposts” (that’s kind of what they looked like) indicating the opening of the canal breakwater, and then took a right turn into Shelter Bay Marina.

The assault on Spectacle’s roach problem (now referred to as the War on Terror) is coming along nicely as well.  Due to our unusually conscientious/formalistic (depending on your view) regulatory framework, the United States is missing out on all kinds of extremely effective, and equally frightening, insect extermination systems.  I purchased an aerosol spray that is an absolute killing machine … one quick blast will instantly drop a roach in full stride.  Andy zapped a fly the other day and the thing was dead well before it hit the ground.  We no longer use this (nicknamed “Napalm”) without ample ventilation and immediate hand-washing.

Emigdio, the electronics guy, is checking out the single side band (SSB) and VHF (very high frequency) antennas.  Although I’m no SSB expert, I have never been able to pick up anything resembling communication on any channel, and the VHF has been spotty at best.  Antenna problems are fairly common, so hopefully Emigdio can save the day.  Although we have two backup, handheld, battery-operated radios, the boat unit is quite convenient (and powerful) to use underway.

In matters less important but highly irritating, the light on the cockpit chartplotter (manufactured by our good friends at Raymarine) has burned out.  We have called the Raymarine reseller in Panama City, who happened to have the guy from Raymarine standing next to him at the time of his call.  Andy said that we needed a new lightbulb for a Raymarine RC520.  The reseller relayed the message to the Raymarine guy, whose laughter was audible in the background.  Apparently, this is viewed as a nearly prehistoric unit.  This “ancient” equipment was new on this boat in 2001 and spare parts now basically can’t be had.  Have we mentioned how much we love Raymarine?

We aren’t buying a whole new chartplotter just for a light bulb, so it looks like nighttime navigation checks will involve either a flashlight or a trip down to the navigation station belowdecks.

The ongoing saga of the boat’s teak trim continues as well.  The former owner of this boat prided himself on the flawless varnish job on the toe rail.  Maintaining a perfect varnish job, however, has proven to be far more effort than we are willing to put into an essentially cosmetic project.  As such, we decided to let the wood go natural.  I sanded all the varnish off of the wood and treated it with teak oil.  As it turns out, maintaining even the natural wood has also proved to be a lot of effort, especially in equatorial heat.  But we think it looks even better than the varnish and it’s not quite as much work.

When we arrive at places where people need work and labor is cheap, we’ve been hiring people to sand and treat the rail, which is what we did last summer here in Cartagena.  Another boat in the marina recommended a kid named Carlos.  They said he did great work for them, and he’s learning English at night while manually laboring during the day to support his wife and young son.  After striking a deal with the eager young Carlos, we were informed by the marina manager that we had committed an infraction of sorts regarding the workmen’s pecking order.  There are guys who work here at the marina on a regular basis taking on any project available … no matter how difficult or unglamorous.  In their view, Carlos is inconsistent … highly visible and very charming when a lot of cushy jobs are available and disappearing when the hard work starts.

Evidently, Carlos pulled another disappearing act right after we prepaid him and left the country last August.  Now, on our return, Carlos is back but continues to be in especially poor favor with the regular workmen for a variety of reasons:  1) for skipping out on our project, and 2) taking off to Panama for a month and returning with T-shirts and souvenirs and stories of fun and adventure.  And of course, Carlos is in pretty poor favor with us since it’s clear he failed to complete the work for which he was commissioned.  But our boat sitter, Alberto, is holding Carlos’ feet to the fire, and a couple of days ago, Carlos returned to our doorstep with hat in hand.  After some negotiation, we struck a compromise and agreed that Carlos owes two days of work.  Because of his extended “vacation,” he pleaded for more work, but at that point, we didn’t really have any more work for him or any real desire to fork over any more cash to him.  In any event, we felt a bit bad that we had contributed drama to internal marina politics.

Back in Cartagena, we have been excited to revisit some of our favorite hotspots, especially the fantastic El Santisimo.  Additionally, a new French bistro – “Oh-La-La” — has recently been opened by a French husband/Colombian wife team, and its pretty impressive value for money — delicious French specialties made with a nod to local Colombian ingredients and flare.  Three courses plus wine ended up under $50 for the two of us the other night, and everything but the wine was pretty darn good.

Although we are quite sad to leave beautiful Cartagena, I am really excited to get this show on the road.  We should pull out of here on March 5 and be in Colon, Panama, about two days later.