Pirates, Storms & Black Jesus - Sailing Portobelo Panama

Let's go for a little mini adventure. Welcome to Portobello or Portaspello as some of the cruisers fondly call it. Didn't really smell that bad so I don't know why they call it that but seems to be some people really like Portobello and some people really don't like it. Not much of an in-between. Kind of interesting. We've been here for a week and I'd say I'm indifferent. I like the history. There's not much going on here. But one thing's for sure, all adventures start right here. Victor said it doesn't smell here but one thing that does smell is all the random dogs. So if you get one that comes up to you, maybe that's where the name comes from. And so what was what was the place we docked at? Casa Vela is by far the most friendly, cruiser friendly place we've been to. And I would say friendly place we've been to period. Bar none. We've been here for a week. We've landed our dinghy here many times and every time we just make sure we buy a beer, buy some rum, buy something to support him. You can give him a buck to get ready with trash, fast wi-fi. He'll run an extension cord if you bring one so you can work outside. Super nice guys, super nice people and this is definitely a spot for cruisers. We'll take you quickly through town and show you some of the other places we found and share a little bit of our experience. And then we go to the fort. All of the grocery stores are lovingly referred to as China number one. China number two. Number three. You give them one line, just one line. I still like your passion though. This is China number four and there's something really special about it. We will show you. Okay, go Dan, go. Because my inverter's bad. That's the one we bought. Looks like a real beauty, huh? At least they have an inverter. Where to next guys? Black Jesus. How's the story go? So I read that a fisherman found the statue, thought it was a sign that they were blessed and there was a big disease coming through the land and then during that time everybody started to get better. Then they had a festival every October 21st for Black Jesus. And they walk him around the town and they have to return him after midnight because at one point he's too heavy to carry and it's a miracle. He's too heavy to carry so they have to return him after midnight. We can go into the door but we can't continue on because you're not allowed to wear short sleeves and shorts, pantalones corto. So I had heard about this food truck, the little fruit veggie truck coming into town. They say it goes into Lytton as well. But I hadn't seen it yet since the first time. Very excited to load up the backpack. All right back to the bread store. I love it. Kids don't need much. Just a little plastic playground. I remember being that exact age just running around like crazy on the monkey bars and the little plastic slides. And point a camera at them give them just a tiny bit of attention and they go nuts. Love it. The people here have all been mostly have been really friendly. Oh yeah for sure. Locals especially. It's a vanilla custard filled pastry. Yes it's always this loud here. Yeah it's very similar to like a custard filled donut. It's good. I get some right? I'll go get you one. We're going to go back to the other banteria? Yep. Oh man. Anything else? No. This is the pan con tomate here at Rico Rico. It's tomato, cheese, and a pastry. Pan a mi? Si. I say that I finally figured out how to order a quad shot. Which is four espresso in one cup. In Spanish. How do you say it? They have wi-fi here too and they were pretty good with the setting up shop the first couple of days but I think by like day three they were kind of like because they changed the password on three different times. It's like I think their way of going. No mas. Get out all. Like eat enjoy but then go. Don't sit here and use our tables for your office. Group consensus after eating at both. Better pastries here. Better bread, challah bread, french bread here. And better ambience here. Yes. No ambience here and no outlets here. When your inverter breaks don't go here because they don't have outlets. Yeah. But they do have outlets here. Portobello is Spanish for beautiful port. It was named by Columbus in 1502. The Spaniards brought all their gold and treasure here before sailing it off to the king of Spain. Apparently one-third of all gold in the world has passed through this little town. All that loot attracted plenty of pirates and the city was sacked over and over again. The most famous attack coming from Captain Henry Morgan in 1668 in the dead of night. What was the story you told me about Captain Morgan? They attacked Portobello. Totally ransacked it for like two weeks and one of his ships sunk out here and they excavated it and the Captain Morgan company paid for the recovery of the shipwreck. At one point there were 10 forts built to try and protect all the king's booty. But now only three remain. We were drawn in by the history and we visited almost daily. Inside these walls we found peace and tranquility which is totally ironic. The forts are protected as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In fact the entire city is considered to be a national park. Basically there's a crap load of history in this little town and there's still rumors of lost treasure scattered about the sea floor. Like we said all adventures begin here, land adventures anyway, and they also end here because you have to patronize them. You have to, it's such a chore. Oh there's plenty of other stuff to do. I'll say it first. In the water. Dan you want to do the honors? Oh it just stopped raining. We jumped in and we thought visibility was total crap. And then we dived down. I gotta show you. I gotta show you how crazy it looks. It's four months of your lives. And snacks. So it's departure day. Dale and Justin are jumping ship and going on another adventure. So you're gonna be on SV Dances with Dragons. Tell us about it. 58 foot monohull. Yeah. Currently broken down but hopefully awesome sailing. Skipper's name is? Wayne. Yeah. He was supposed to pick us up this morning but his boat broke down so now we're cabbing over to meet him where he got towed into a marina. So typical sailing. Totally fun. So are you looking forward to your next adventures which are going to be where? Where are you headed you think? San Blas. San Blas and Columbia. So cool. Very cool. Dan's leaving in a couple days so he'll be back to just the two of us. It's gonna be awfully quiet. Real quiet. Thank you for everything. Two crew down. Go back to the boat. Well it's been a good week in Portobello but time to move on. We are headed to Linton because well our inverter officially crapped out on us. I'm sure you've heard us mention that multiple times by now. But we have a new one waiting on us in Panama City and we are going to pick up a rental car in Linton and make the drive. If you like this video leave us a comment below. If you have a friend share it with them. It all helps us out. Anyway we'll see you Sunday. Thanks for being a part of our adventure and goodbye.