Well, here we are, back in the West Limon Cays. Below is the email/blog post I have been working on since August 1st. We hope you are all well and happy, and enjoying the last bit of summer back in Canada.
Life in the San Blas continues to fascinate and amaze us, and there is still so much to see and experience. This is what we have always imagined cruising being about. We are self sufficient, making our own water, running generators as needed for power. We are anchored in the middle of paradise. Small islands lined with white sand, topped with palm trees dot the horizon. The azure water is clear and clean. Civilization is miles and miles away. Life is simple and sweet. We take each day as it comes. Chores and maintenance depend on the weather, as it is rainy season. When it does rain, it is usually during the night (Ron and Goldie can attest to that!) or in the morning. The skies generally clear up in the afternoon. The boys do their schoolwork in the mornings while we do our work, and then most days the afternoon is free for swimming, snorkelling and diving. The boys and I continue to work on our Spanish, using the Rosetta Stone program. Hopefully in a month or so I will be able to hold a simple conversation in Spanish; it is all actually starting to make sense.
We had an awesome time with Greg’s sister Goldie and her husband Ron. They were here from July 21 to August 1. We swam, snorkelled and did some diving (they brought their dive gear), got into the Kuna culture and generally just had a lot of fun. They really enjoyed getting to know the boys. Dylan taught Ron how to clean lobster. Whenever a Kuna boat would come by singing “langosta”, Ron would hop to attention and begin bartering. We feasted on grilled lobster, broiled lobster, steamed lobster, boiled lobster, and lobster salad. What used to be a once a year treat on our anniversary has now become one of the least expensive seafood we can buy. We continue to eat our fill of these succulent crustaceans and are still not tired of it!
The boys got out their instruments and serenaded our guests. Unfortunately, the salt air has been a little hard on Dylan’s saxophone, and some of the keys are sticking. It is in dire need of a good cleaning and tune up, so once we can get to Panama City, we will look for a music store to have that done. Both boys play the guitar really well, and after happy hour and dinner, would sit on the aft seat with Aunt Goldie who sang along. Her favourite song was “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. Brett played guitar, Goldie sang, and Dylan sang and whistled in the appropriate spots. They were quite the trio!
On Friday, July 23 we headed to Chichimi, two islands about 3 miles east of Porvenir. There we reunited with our Aussie friends Terry and Elaine. They left on Sunday for Panama City and to put their boat up on the hard for the winter, which they spend back home in Australia. We were getting low on fresh produce though, so on Monday, we headed 8 miles southwest to the Carti Islands, to do a bit of provisioning. The island we stopped at was jam-packed full of tiny huts and narrow pathways. We managed to find a few “stores” (these are hard to differentiate from the “houses” and sometime include both) but very little produce. In one hut we learned that their produce boat was delayed due to mechanical, and was expected within the hour. We found our way through the maze of huts to the “cafeteria”, a tiny restaurant on the water, where we enjoyed a fabulous lunch of fish or chicken, with rice, beans and salad for a whopping three bucks each, including cervesas. Then we filled our bags with lettuce, cabbage, carrots, peppers, celery, tomatoes, potatoes, limes, watermelons and a bunch of pineapples, and dinghied back to our boat. We spent the night in the anchorage, and in the morning, made our way to the West Lemons, a couple miles from Porvenir.
We spent two days anchored here to do internet. This is the only place in all of San Blas to have internet. The “internet cafe” is a straw shack attached to their straw hut. There was a big satellite dish out back, so all you had to do was hook up to an ethernet cord, and for $3.00 per hour, you had pretty good internet. There were about four cords working, so you had to time it right to get a spot. Unfortunately, it was really buggy, both on the island and on the boat, and the water wasn’t very clear, so once we had done the internet we needed to do, we headed back to Porvenir.
The raw water pump on our big engine was acting up a bit (actually squealing like hell and smoking) so Greg didn’t want to go too far in case we would need to have parts flown in. He did get it fixed though; he took it off the engine and disassembled it and it turned out that for over thirty years crap had built up inside. This was not a fun job for El Capitano, as it is a very large industrial pump. He accomplished the task with very little complaining but “some” swearing. Ron was a good assistant, handing him tools as needed, just picture a nurse handing a doctor the scalpel... you get the picture. Ron and Goldie were a great help on the boat, they scrubbed decks, washed windows, and even scrubbed the rust off the sides of the hull. Ron and the boys helped Greg clean the bottom of the boat.
We had a great time exploring the reefs around Porvenir both snorkelling and diving. Greg buddied up with Goldie, who did a couple of dives. She really enjoyed it, but her ears bothered her, so she stuck to snorkelling after that. Before we knew it, time had flown by and their visit was over. They flew out the morning of August 1st. The boat seemed way too quite after they left! We spent the day relaxing and on Monday, got back into our routine of boat chores and maintenance.
On Tuesday a fellow named Tahsin from the boat Delfin Solo came over to ask Greg if he had a belt for his engine. Greg gave him a couple of spares we had on board. He was going to try them, and let us know how they worked, and if not, he would head into Panama City to try and find what he needed. We told him we were going to go back to the East Lemons for a few days. Wednesday morning we pulled up anchor and motored there, about a five mile trip to the east. After only one night though, Tahsin called us on the radio asking for help with his engine. He couldn’t find the belt he needed and asked if Greg could possibly take a look at the engine. We motored back to Porvenir, where Greg spent the day unsuccessfully working on his engine. They decided they needed to go into Panama City again, so a trip was planned for Friday. It is a two day trip, because the boat picks you up from your boat, takes you to shore, about 8 miles away, where you ride in a SUV full of back packers and other cruisers. It is a two hour journey through the mountains, where Greg said everyone drives like absolute maniacs! (No surprise there!) In Panama City, they found what they needed for Tahsin’s engine, and Greg found a backup breaker for the generator that we needed. They had supper, and spent the night in a cheap hotel (they called it a “hooker” hotel), it was on the water front on the Pacific side. Early the next morning, they set out for the supermarket to do a bit of quick provisioning. Everyone and everything was packed into the SUV, and back to the shore and the boat, to take them back to our boats. They arrived in Porvenir at about 10:00 a.m. Saturday and resumed working on the engine.
Both Tahsin and his wife Rengin are from Turkey. They, along with their cat Gatito, aboard their 45 foot sailboat, take backpackers from Cartagena to the San Blas and Panama City, to Cartagena. We really enjoyed getting to know them, and the group of back packers they had on board. The group they had ended up taking a catamaran back to Cartagena though, because of the delay with the engine. Greg and Tahsin finally got things working so Delfin Solo could make the trip back to Cartagena. That night, a sailboat ended up on the reef on the north side of the island. A hired captain tried to go to into Porvenir at 2:00 a.m. on Friday the 13th. The boat was being bashed to death on the coral, so they ended up in the life raft and drifted to the island in the dark. They had eight backpackers on board; another backpacker boat took four of them, and Delfin Solo planned to take the other four, after getting supplies and water in Carti. The ruined boat is slowly being claimed by the sea.
While in Porvenir, we befriended a local Kuna, named Nestor. While Ron and Goldie were here visiting, he took them to the island he lives on, to his house, and gave them a tour of the island and the school. One day, shortly after Ron and Goldie left, he and his wife came to our boat and invited us to one of his daughter’s (Caritza) birthday party. He also asked if we could bring the birthday cake, with “Happy Birthday” and her name written on it. I baked a chocolate cake from scratch, but when it came to the icing, I had a bit of a dilemma, as I had no icing sugar. I scrounged through all of my cookbooks and found a recipe for a glaze, which called for chocolate chips, water and white sugar. It worked well, and I added some coloured sprinkles for effect. I had no way of doing writing on the cake though, so I made a little birthday sign on the laptop, printed it, and mounted it on the cake with two straws (see photo). They were completely delighted! We enjoyed a “Kuna” birthday party, which was really the same idea as our traditional party, lots of kids running around and playing. We were served coconut water to drink, and plates of coconut rice (the grownups also got a piece of fish) and the chocolate cake. Nestor asked us to sing our birthday song, which we did, and Caritza blew out the tea light I had put on the cake (no birthday candles!) As no one but Nestor spoke English, we just visited amongst ourselves, smiled a lot and enjoyed watching the cute little kids frolicking.
It was interesting too, to see how they live. They live in two huts, one a cooking hut, the other a sleeping and living hut. The cooking hut has a couple of fire pits, where they do all their cooking, and an area for preparation. We watched Nestor’s wife grate coconut for the rice, with a big circular grater. (Wish I had one of those!) Their living and sleeping hut had a double bed in the corner where Nestor and his wife slept, and the rest of the hut was scattered with hammocks and a few chairs. Everything is very, very clean, and the sand swept. The whole island is like this, as crowded as it is, they are very clean people. Their bathrooms consist of a makeshift dock leading out onto the water, sided with either bamboo or tin siding, so the waste just goes right into the water. Nestor has two pens with pigs, which are fed scraps, and a pen with chickens. The older women dress in traditional Kuna wear, while the teenagers and children wear regular clothes, toddlers sometimes just underwear. There is always clean laundry hanging out on lines. We really appreciated being invited to this party, to see how simply they live, and how content and happy they are. It is sure a far cry from the U.S. and Canada, where life is materialistic, complicated and stressful!
We left Porvenir on Saturday, August 14 and motored (no wind!) to the Coco Banderos Cays. Luckily, the day before a produce boat came by and we were able to stock up on fresh produce. It was about a 20 mile trip and took us four hours. The water was calm, and everything ran smoothly... we love it when that happens! We anchored between two small islands, and enjoyed the view! According to the Panama Cruising Guide, “the Coco Banderos are a group of extremely scenic islands, situated behind a four-mile long protective outer reef barrier. These uninhabited islands may be the most beautiful in all of San Blas, with their white sand beaches, towering palm trees and crystal clear waters.” The book isn’t kidding, it was absolutely gorgeous here! We anchored between Olosicuidup and Guarladup, in 34 feet of water, and you could see the sand bottom. The boys put their sailing dinghy in the water, and had a blast exploring the islands. The second day we were here, the boys sailed their dinghy to Guarladup. I was hot and wanted to take a swim, so I donned my fins, mask and snorkel and swam to the island. The bottom was mostly sand and grass, dotted with coral here and there, and small fishes. We had a visit, and then we set out back to the boat. I was swimming in about four feet of water when I saw a big fish, which turned out to be a Palometa. I was pretty excited. I told the boys and swam after it. It was quicker than I was though, and headed the wrong way, so I gave up the chase and turned around, headed towards the boat. Swimming along peacefully, I happened to glanced to my right, and just about left a brown stain in the water. Swimming alongside me, about ten feet away, was a good size shark, bigger than I was. He was a nurse shark, we saw them in Porvenir, and they are not supposed to be dangerous, but nonetheless, I could prove to be a tasty meal for him. I stayed calm, and just kept swimming, and soon I lost sight of him. When I was almost to the boat, I looked down and saw him swimming under our boat, right below me. Safely back on the boat, I decided to pay more attention to the time of day when swimming. “Shark time”, is late afternoon, around four o’clock, that’s when they are supposed to come out to feed. Note to self: DO NOT SWIM DURING FEEDING TIME!
Sunday morning dawned clear and sunny, but as the day progressed we could hear thunder in the distance and dark skies and clouds looming on the horizon. I spent the morning and early afternoon scrubbing the decks, and hoped for a good shower to rinse the clean decks (we use salt water only for scrubbing up top). Well, I got my wish, because at about 4:00 the skies opened and we had a good downpour. There was very little wind so we all stood outside bare butt with shampoo and soap and got a beautiful fresh shower. The rain let up about an hour and a half later. We had supper, (yup, lobster!) watched an old James Bond movie, (the first one actually, Dr. No, what a classic!) and went to bed. About two a.m. we were awaked to a torrential downpour with shrieking winds, thunder and lightning. Thirty to forty knot winds, out of the east. Greg and Dylan kept watch during the storm, but our anchor held firm. A small catamaran had trouble though, and had to reset their anchor twice. We had to close all the portholes because the rain was pouring in from all directions. The storm lasted a couple of hours, so we finally all got back to sleep sometime after 4:00.
We continued to spend our days swimming and snorkelling. The boys had some success spearing. Brett got a nice lobster and a couple of parrot fish. Dylan and Greg have been hunting rocks : ) (Brett told me to say that.) A few boats came and went, but on the whole it was a very quiet anchorage. We had a few Kunas come to the boat, asking us to charge their cell phones. We did, and Greg asked for “Langosta” as payment, but we never did receive any. Another Kuna, Apio, came by with a bit of fruit to sell, and said he could get us veggies, fruit, vino, pan, etc. We gave him our order. The next day he showed up, he had maybe one or two things. We gave him part of the money up front, but day after day, he sometimes showed up, other days not, and when he would, he would have like, a couple of half rotten carrots, etc. We finally gave up and Greg sat him down, went over our list, showed him everything we did not get, and got most of our money back.
We were getting really low on supplies, and wanted to do internet, so yesterday, Monday, August 22, we motored to Nargana, an island five miles away, right off the coast of Panama, and near the entrance to the Rio Diablo. Our guide book said there were various stores and you could get wireless internet at the school. We met “the guy”, a local named Frederico, who has been a guide there for twenty years. He took us around to the “stores”, where we picked up a few scant supplies, but the produce boat had not been in lately, so there was no fresh produce to speak of. We asked about internet, but unfortunately it was not working. Later, talking to another boater on the radio, I learned it has not been working for two years! So much for that!
This morning Greg and Dylan went to get a few more supplies, and at 11:00 a.m. we pulled up anchor and motored to the West Limons to finally send off this email I have been working on for weeks and weeks!
Love from the Galley Wench of the Dutch Dreamers
