A rainy season afternoon on the Chame River

by Eric Jackson

On July 19 I spent the afternoon learning to use a kayak - not very well - on the quiet lower reaches of the Chame River, from the bridge over the Pan-American Highway to near the river's mouth on the Pacific Ocean. I was a guest of kayakpanama, which maintains a website at www.kayakpanama.com and operates from the XS bar, restaurant and recreational vehicle resort in Santa Clara. Kayakpanama rents kayaks with all the accessories, conducts workshops on basic kayaking and rescue techniques, and will take people on excursions of some of the interior's calmer, but nevertheless beautiful, rivers.

The lower Chame has a few ripples this time of year, but on the 1 to 5 difficulty scale by rafters and kayakers grade the difficulty of whitewater rivers, it rates but a 1. This is a safe place for beginners, which was a good thing, because this was my first time in a kayak.

Sven Schiffer was my instructor and guide for the day, which began in the morning in the pool at XS, with my maladroit moves learning to get into and out of a kayak, and to right and re-enter one that has overturned. It is important for everyone who rents or buys a kayak to learn these fundamentals. The Novey stores, which sell the Old Town line of kayaks, include kayakpanama's workshop in the price of every such boat they sell, figuring that the safer the sport of kayaking is, the more kayaks they are likely to sell.

"We train them to keep them alive," Schiffer said of his novice kayaker students. Noting that several hundred people in this country already own kayaks, and that many of them take to the rivers or, more likely, to the ocean, without any instruction whatsover, he worrries. "There are people who go out on the ocean who don't know how to get back in the boat if they fall out. They don't even consider the problem."

Getting back into an overturned kayak is a little trickier than doing so with a cayuco, but with the proper equipment - a paddle float and a rope ladder - it's not hard to do. Getting back in without immediately turning the boat over again, and with a certain amount of grace, takes a little practice. The main thing to remember in such circumstances, and indeed to avoid them, is to pay attention to the kayak's center of gravity and maintain its balance. The main penalty for mistakes, if you are wearing your safety vest as you should be, is tired arms from working the bailing pump once you are back in the boat.

There are many kayaks, for various sorts of uses, available for purchase from Novey and other vendors. Dennis Parsick, the proprietor of XS and president of Kayakpanama, SA, said that "for open water you want a nice, big, long boat, with compartments, but you want shorter boats for white water." His rental business offers a good selection too, and for this day's excursion we used somewhat longer models, best for calm rivers, which were equipped with rudders that we didn't need or use. Were we to have taken one of Kayakpanama's more challenging excursions, like the all-day trip from the Chame River's headwaters, or the trip down the Santa Maria River that starts near Santa Fe in Veraguas, the choice of boats would have been different.

(There are very challenging kayak experiences, on rivers with whitewater most of the way or with rapids that can easily kill a person who makes a mistake, to be had in Panama. However, Kayakpanama leaves that part of the sport to others. Schiffer said that he personally likes the difficult whitewater challenges for his own diversion, but wouldn't want to take other people on such trips for a living. He added that while he will give his kayaking and rescue workshops for children and teenagers, he thinks that children lack the body strength for kayaking and he won't take minors out on excursions.)

The lower Chame, as has been noted, is not a whitewater adventure. It is, however, a birdwatcher's delight.

As we descended from woods to mangroves, over occasional ripples, the several species of herons and the kingfishers paid us little heed. They were clearly more interested in the fishing, and let us come very close to them. We saw or heard at least a couple of dozen bird species during our three hours or so on the river, but had we been equipped with birding gear and paying more attention, we surely would have seen a lot more.

The reptile world was also well represented on our journey, most notably by caymen, turtles, iguanas and a basilisk lizard that scurried up a tree branch onto the bank. We saw several species of lizards but noticed no snakes. No doubt there were serpents present, discretely hiding from the predatory birds and hysterical humans who can do them great harm.

Tame the rapids on this stretch of river may be, but I still managed to get my kayak turned around, and ran aground on the bank, several times. I did not fall out of the boat. All in all, it seems that Schiffer rated my skills only slightly above those of a hopeless case.

The kayak excursion ended where mangroves begin to give way to ocean waves. My arms and back were a little tired from the workout, though Schiffer assured me that they wouldn't have been had I put more brain and less brawn in to my kayaking technique. The afternoon continued, as most of Kayakpanama's excursions on the Chame River, do, at El Canadian, a little Canadian-owned beach resort in Gorgona.

To inquire about Kayakpanama's workshops, rentals or excursions, call 993-3096, send a fax to 993-3069, or direct your email to kayakpanama@hotmail.com. Kayakpanama can give its kayaking and rescue techniques workshops in English, Spanish or German.