March 21 - April 18 - San Blas Islands, Panama
It's have been three months since we sailed, so preparations for the departure from our new "home" Santa Marta, Colombia took us some time. The weather forecast was very positive for next couple days and our pantry and refrigerator were full of the provision (probably more than we actually can consume in one month). On Saturday morning our friends from Alero and Landfall helped us out to cast off under farewell sounds of the horn, and here we are, sailing again and hoping for the nice weather all the way to Panama. First night was a bit rough, with higher seas that we expected, but on the third day wind died completely and we had to turn the engine for 5 hour in order to make it before sunset to the first island in San Blas, Isla Pinos. At this point we were pretty much off the grid - our chart plotter showed that we anchored on the land in the middle of the island and the cruising guide points were a bit off. This island was beautiful! Right from the post card pictures - a bit hilly, the perfect sandy beach, huge old coconut palms on the shore, amazing aquamarine hues of the warm Atlantic water. We got our first visitors the next day in the morning, paid $10 for anchorage and $5 for the tuna fish. Generally, most male kuna indians speak Spanish and couple know English. We met David, who spoke perfect English and who showed us most of the village and asked us to drive on the dinghy to the bigger island to cash the check he had. The trip to and back from Mulatupu island was a bit rough, in one of the tiendas where David cashed his check we bought a new little bucket for the boat, we were looking for this size forever! We figured out that on arrival to the new island we would need to visit a "congress" - the big round community hut made of bamboo and palm's roof with a lot of hummock where the chiefs of the tribe are hanging out. The chief position of the kuna's tribe is voluntary, and their responsibilities include marring and divorcing people, births/deaths registrations, promotion and support of social and cultural developments of the given island tribe. In Isla Pinos we bought our first "mola" - traditional kuna art of fabric application of different colors and different designs of birds, fish, animals and just abstract patterns. Some of the molas are very elaborated and take around 6 months from start to finish. The kuna women wear these applications as part of their outfit in the place of a corset.
Kunas are very friendly, curious and like to laugh. They like to know your name, marriage status, children, relatives and age. It's very easy to make them laugh too, that was Kevin's job. We perused Isla Pinos in all directions.
We met a lot of villagers, saw their very simple live style in the round bamboo huts with the roofs made from the palm leafs. Most don't have any furniture in their huts and sleep in the hummock, but some have even TVs (not sure there are channels available) and all have the restroom outside situated over the water - so to say, self cleaning no suege required toilet. And yes, you don't want to swim in the sea near the villages.
All islands in San Blas seems to host different kuna tribes, and you definitely can see that difference in the mola designs: some have just geometric pattern and others are very elaborated with animal and birds applications.
On our way to PorVenir we visited other multiple islands which look pretty much the same: round bambu and palm leafs huts, the monument to the island's prominent person near the "congress" hut, a school, couple tiendas with caned milk, flour and detergent. We visited Ustupu - overpopulated bigger island with 2 panamanian armed coast guards playing on their phones, Aligandi - the island hosting the real hospital in the concrete building with four big wind turbines, there we made some ladies friends while buying their molas and who allowed us to take pictures! Then we made it to San Ignacio de Tupile where we finally met other two cruising boats from Holland. We spent very nice day hiking on the mainland jungle and visited kunas cemetery. This is a tradition for kunas women to spent Sunday in cemetery to attend to the tombs of their relatives - burning the coals on the tomb, cleaning around, get a meal with them, etc. Ladies gracefully showed us their passed away relatives and told stories about them. In the jungle we saw a kuna doctor - he was picking up some medicinal herbs and plants for different diseases. We saw parrots, wildly growing pineapple, cashes, cacao, coffee and different types of bananas. And, of course, anywhere we went and talked with women, Kevin made them laugh and even allowed to take picture of them!
In the next couple days we visited other kunas islands: Aredup Isla - which has a bridge to the next island with a Hospital there and all village women were cleaning dirt roads near hospital with self made brums, then next day was Devils Cays - uninhabited little island with a lot of rolling waves, could not wait to leave it; then Tigre Isla - women are still wearing traditional molas and it seems that the whole island is a big craft shop with molas and other traditional stuff, and, of course, we bought more molas and traditional skirts (not sure I will wear them). We got some corral reef snorkling, but did not see much fish, must be out-fished already by locals.
We met two other boats from Holland (Rafiki and Cornellius), and travelling together with them was much more fun. In Nargana we tried to get some provision,but did not have much luck. However, we managed to get there some rum and wine. The veggies are brought to this island via boats from Colombia, maybe once a week, but everything is already almost rotten and impossible to use as a food. I bought some flour from the bulk and the next day discovered a lot of bugs there, and had to throw away all of it.
We had a great trip up the Rio Diablo and then long hike (3 hours one way) up to the little waterfall where kunas put water pipes to supply Nargana with water. It was a great idea, but now all water system is broken and kunas have to come in the river to get their drinking water, as they did for many centuries. During the hike in the jungle we have not seen any caimans or monkeys or wild pigs, but saw plenty of little poisonous frogs (black with neon green spots), huge butterflies and huge and ugly spiders.
After we had enough time spent in "civilized" Nargana, where all the cruisers in San Blas come to shop for the rotten food and alcohol, we sailed to the Green Island (Kanlildup) - the true pearl of the San Blas islands. Imagine an uninhabited little island all covered with tall coconut palms, a white sandy beach around the shore and, absolutely clean water where you can see in details a starfish and other creatures. The island is encircled with a huge reef with sharks and amazing corrals. The best part of this island that it's very suitable for the kiteboarding training. We found here a lot of other boats, and Fritz (from Bella Ciao, learned how to kiteboard at 62) gave Kevin very useful instructions on kiteboarding, and now he can easily getup and sail with the kite. We celebrated my birthday on the island with new friends and old too - with the great surprise we met Carlos from s.v. Gaya there, who now is working as a crew on the catamaran going to Australia.
The Green island was very pretty, but our next destination - Holandas Cays islands - were amazing. Mostly uninhabited islands are lying behind 7-mile long barrier reef. The view on the breaking waves at the reef is breathtaking, the water is very clear and you can see all the shades of blue, but this place is not easy to navigate - 15 boats got destroyed on the reefs this season, and we saw 3 of them near the reef. These boats are very easy pray for kunas, they take everything from the boats, including demolishing cabinets and little electric wires.
We anchored in Swimming pool near BBQ island, in shallow waters. The BBQ island once used by cruisers for burning their garbage and have BBQ parties on the land, now became an "adventure" tent camp for the European tourists. The island is renamed to Turtle island and the workers there charge $3 per person to get ashore of this beautiful place, or, pay $2.50 for a beer and stay how long you want, as we did. We ended up staying at this enchanted place for about a week already, and still are waiting for a suitable weather to sail to Isla Providence. On the first day of exploration surroundings we swam away from the shark and swam with the dolphins almost near our boat. Next days we tried to catch some edible fish, but just caught nurse shark repeatedly, and then some huge fish bite off a wire rigging on our fishing pool, so we must give up on fishing here. And that's fine, because we start buying fish from kunas, even though it's a reef fish very cheap for couple dollars. But we had some luck, Kevin hunted a huge lobster - that dinner was very good. However, living in the paradise is not all in pink colors: all our food supplies are slowly coming to the end (flour for bread, veggies, milk, fruits, alcohol) since there are no any provision spots around. The only option to get any fresh stuff around is to visit kunas on the nearby islands and get some bananas and green mango from them in exchange of milk and coffee. Sometimes, the "fruit" boat operated by kunas shows up in this area and we got lucky to spot it yesterday night. We bought veggies, fruits, milk, rum, beer, etc. for very cheap. Now we can sit here for another week!
Just to "spice up" our stay while waiting for the weather window we moved to the nearby anchorage called "hot tub", surrounded by the beautiful reefs alive with lots of fish. But, we did not have any luck to catch any of them either! Since these islands don't have a very convenient civilization invention - trash collection tracks once a week - all cruisers deal with the trash in the primitive way. All the organic trash we dispose right in the water, just watch for the swimmers nearby, and the rest, which is mostly plastic and paper, we simply burn on the nearby islands. That is not very plesant task because burning plastic produces a lot of toxic fumes, and some of the cruisers believe it's cleaner to dispose shredded plastic in the middle of the ocean. Who knows, what is better, but it's definitely a problem. What to do with glass and aluminium cans? Well, disposing them in the middle of the ocean seems is not posing any problem for the environment.
