It’s been a while since our last update so this will be a long one.
We left Shelter Bay marina and headed for the San Blas islands, also known locally as Kuna Yala. It’s about 65 nautical miles from Shelter Bay to Provenir, the beginning of the San Blas, and where we needed to check in. The first day was a short 20 mile jump to Isla Linton. It was a bit crowded, but we found a place to anchor and settled in. The next morning we left at first light since this was to be a 40+ mile jump and we wanted to get there in time to check in. The wind helped us a little, but we also had a big current sweeping us along and we were motor sailing along at 8 knots where normally we would be getting 6.5! Hopefully this current will not be as much of a factor when we return this way.
At one point a tiny yellow bird fluttered down on deck, exhausted and looking for someplace to rest.
After about an hour, the little one had recovered and flew off, hopefully he made it to shore.
With the current pushing us along, we made great time and arrived at Proviner to check-in about 2 pm. As we approached the anchoring spot at Proviner, several kayaks of Kuna indians came paddling out wanting to sell us molas, lobster, etc. Of course because we had an audience it took a while to get the hook set, only when nobody’s watching does everything work perfectly :-) I bought a couple of molas and we went ashore to check in.
The Kuna Indians are an autonomous nation living within Panama, much like the North American Indians back in the US. While technically a part of Panama, they are self-governed and have their own laws and ways of doing things. Their main sources of income are coconuts and molas, which are cloth applique panels made by hand sewing and cutting layers of colorful cloth into intricate patterns. Later on I’ll have some pictures of several I bought. The Kuna’s are a matrilineal society, with the women controlling the money and making most of the decisions in the village (sounds right :-) They are trying to maintain their traditional way of life against the onslaught of modern ways. It is illegal for a non-Kuna to marry or fraternize with a Kuna and many of the islands are off-limits, especially at night.
Their main mode of transport around the islands are “ulas”, canoes hand carved out of large logs and paddled or sailed.
After checking in we headed to Chichime, a protected anchorage across the channel since the forecast was for snotty weather. As soon as we got settled in, more women and children came by in their ulas with molas, this could get expensive :-)
The weather forecasters were (unfortunately) spot on and we had a week of wind and rain, so really didn’t do too much. A couple times we got brief gaps and did a little snorkeling. The visibility was good, but there wasn’t a lot to see.
When the wind is howling, what is better than to fly a kite:
The Kunas were having fun sailing around the anchorage:
Chichime is a popular anchorage during the weekends with the motor yachts out of Colon, they didn’t let the wind and rain ruin their fun and spent Saturday swimming and roaring around in jet skis.
We got a brief gap in the wind and rain and decided to move to a quieter spot. We threaded our way through coral heads to Yansaladup (love some of these names) where we met up with Ken and Sylvia on Ann Lucia. We went through the canal with them about two months earlier, it was great seeing them again.
One afternoon we rigged the dingy up with the sail and went sailing in 25 knots! It was a handful but very fun.
We also spent a week in the “swimming pool” in about 8 feet of depth with crystal blue water over white sand. We had a wonderful snorkel at the entrance to the pool, spectacular coral and very clear water. Unfortunately anything edible has been harvested from throughout the islands so we didn’t see any lobsters, crabs, octopus, medium or larger fish, etc. We also saw some areas where the coral was white and dead and heard from other cruisers that if the Kuna thinks there is a lobster hidden in a hole, they’ll squirt bleach into the hole thus driving the lobster out where they can catch him. Unfortunately the bleach kills the coral.
The weather finally looked good and we decided to start to head back, passing islands stuffed full of coconut palms and maybe a caretakers hut (and nothing else).
A very sad incident happened while we were there. A French single hander boat went up on the reef outside of Chichime. We heard the radio chatter as we were leaving Yansaladup but were too far away to help (though it was probably too late). The story we heard was that he ran into a reef about a year ago and has spent the last year on land fixing everything. He only put his boat back into the water a couple of days before and this was his first stop after leaving shelter bay.
A week later, we went past the poor stripped hull:
This must be a tricky spot since a year ago a commercial shrimp boat went aground on the outside reef, we left the San Blas very sober and careful.
After a small amount of drama getting checked out, we left the San Blas in route for Bocas del Toro. After a full day of motor sailing, we pulled into Linton, on the Panamanian mainland. We were tucked up close to the jungle covered shore, serenaded by the roar of howler monkeys, the squawks of parrots, and numerous other unidentified jungle noises. I hadn’t realized how noisy a jungle was after the sterility of the Kuna Yalas.
After a couple of days in Linton waiting out yet another storm to pass by, we made the overnight jump to Bocas del Toro. We spent all day and night dodging thunder storms. You can see them on the radar and hopefully go around them, though at times we were going more sideways than forward. Just at sunset about a dozen small birds started flying around our boat and into our dodger. Four of them settled onto our binnacle and the rest tucked into folds in the mainsail. We tiptoed around them all night but they seemed oblivious to us, happy they weren’t flying around in the wind and rain. Once the sun came up they slowly woke up, chirped a thanks and flew off. Tom and I joked that these birds don’t really make the long migrations that scientists claim, they just hitch rides on boats.
This passage went to the birds:
After a long, but safe night, we threaded our way through Bocas del Toro archipelago to Red Frog marina where we caught up with our friends Gordon and Jayne on Comfort zone II. More about Bocas and the marina in the next update.
