The San Blas Islands Experience

True Blue 1
Robin and Suzie Roots
Thu 31 Jan 2013 09:32

January 2013; the San Blas Islands

 

At the end of December we did our turn of line-handling on a friends yacht; it was a very interesting experience, not least because it removed some of the mystique of the Canal for us, and hopefully we shall feel more confident when we do it ‘for real’ on True Blue in February. Fingers and toes crossed it goes as smoothly for us as it did this time!

 

A day or so into the New Year we left Shelter Bay for the San Blas Islands; these are a string of tiny atolls spread out along the North Panama coast, populated only by the Kuna Indians. The Kunas are a matriarchical society who are fiercely defensive about their culture; if a Kuna marries outside the tribe, that person is automatically ex-communicated from Kuna society. All property (including each coconut tree on the outer islands) is owned by women; the men are the hunters and gatherers but have little say in the daily running of the household. Life is simple and there appeared to be few of the luxuries of the Western world, although most of the densely populated islands have generators so that everyone is now exposed to television. But the women still sit outside their closed-in houses, richly adorned by bodice molas and highly decorative webbing on their arms and legs. Much of the intricate sewing on the molas is done by hand, but we saw what looked like a brand new hand operated Singer sewing machine

 

clip_image002

A Kuna Family

 

Bill and Marie arrive

 

After a small hiccup Bill and Marie arrived on True Blue via a local dugout canoe. It had been a long journey for them; after their flight to Panama they had a 4 hour 4-wheel drive trip to reach a tiny settlement near the Carti Islands. Then they had to find us! Our anchoring spot was ‘just around the corner’ in a serene bay surrounded by mangroves but unfortunately the name of the bay on our nautical chart did not match any name which their travel agent was familiar with; are they lost??? Never mind, using a GPS position and mobile VHF contact we met up just a day later than planned and that was only due to an unexpected public holiday in Panama City and a road accident.

clip_image004

 

Waiting for Bill and Marie behind a mangrove island – no crocs!

 

All on board, we set off for the Eastern Limon Cay where we spent the next couple of days settling into the routine of True Blue; despite the often strong winds and current, Marie was keen to practise snorkelling and so every day we did some reef and fish spotting, hoping to be really proficient by the time we get to the challenging shark infested waters of the Tuamotos later in the season.

clip_image006

 

Training Marie to Snorkel

 

One day we were visited by Lisa, the famous transvestite master mola maker. Lisa is a well know figure in the San Blas; her intricate stitching elevates her molas to an art form and after some good humoured negotiations Suzie acquired 4 lovely pieces for future framing and hanging in our home.

 

Eager to produce food for the table, fisherman Bill put together some fishing lines but alas, despite several attempts, all that was caught was some angry eels who coiled themselves into contortions after being pulled up from their weedy home. Bill set each free with great care, not so much for their safety as for his fingers; the irritable creatures lashed out like snakes as he tried to remove the hooks from their teeth-filled mouths.

 

clip_image008

A nasty guest

 

A few days later, after a leisurely sail of 10 miles we arrived at the Eastern Hollandaise Cays, the spot where we first anchored when we arrived in the San Blas last May The picture says it all; an idyllic sandy beach, coconut palms, clear water for swimming and enough other yachts to provide a pleasant social diversion.

clip_image010

 

Hollandes Cays; A little piece of paradise

 

It wasn’t long before the locals started arriving to sell us lobster, fish, bananas and molas. Word soon got out that we were in the market for “grande” lobster and would not accept under-sized creatures, alive or dead.

clip_image012 

 

The Veggie banana boat arrives!

 

Bill settled in as Master Fisherman and proceeded to catch bait fish for the “big “one. However, the big one soon took several of his lures and hooks, not to mention the bait fish, but eventually Bill triumphantly produced some delicious fish for our evening meals. But the dugouts with the lobsters kept coming and coming; however much we tried to persuade ourselves we had more than enough food on board we were ‘lobster junkies’  and kept on buying ‘just one more’!

clip_image014

 

Marie with tonight’s dinner.

 

 Canadian friends on the yacht  introduced us to several wonderful snorkelling spots and we were delighted to see the variety of fish in some spots and the coral formations in others. Not a lot of colour in the coral but some amazing formations.

clip_image016

 

Staghorn coral

 

Feeling brave; we went with friends in two other dinghies to swim on the outer reef; this was much more exciting stuff and our first glimpse of a razor toothed barracuda whizzing past us took our breath away. The next minute our friends pointed to a nurse shark lying on the sea-bottom below us.....hmmm just hope the stories about the sharks and barracuda in the San Blas being too well fed to be interested in humans are true!

clip_image018
A “local “just beneath us as we swim along the shallows.

                                                                                 

 

We also tried to drift snorkel and in so doing almost lost Bill as the current swept him away and he struggled to get back to the dinghy; a lesson in surveillance was learned by us all. The current was really too fierce to make the event  a huge success, but a few big fish and rays were spotted as we drifted through the water, towed by the dinghy at a rapid rate with the current.

 

 

 

 

clip_image020

A blue ray beneath us

 

Our evenings in the San Blas was fun; most nights we joined  two Canadian yachts and a New Zealand couple in sundowners , either on board or in a dinghy raft. Quite a surreal experience to tie 4 or 5 dinghies together and just drift out to sea whilst sharing our drinks and nibbles as the sun went down.

To top off the variety we went ashore with our veg and fruit rubbish to feed to some local pigs as we heard their owner had gone to Panama City two weeks ago and their food supply was a bit sparse. Suzie of course had a couple of Koalas to give to some kids but word soon got out and the children came from all directions , alas they had to be disappointed as we did not have an endless supply of koalas to give away.

clip_image022

 

Local kids with Ozzie koala souvenirs

 

 

 

clip_image024 The Kuna village just behind our anchorage; not sure how long the stick and straw houses last.

 

 

 

However,  time was running on and we needed to get back to Shelter Bay marina to complete our formalities for the Canal crossing. En route we stopped in Portobello for a last look at the Panama village scene.

 

Portobello was the main, highly fortified, Spanish port of the 15th century where Columbus and his ilk stole gold from the Aztec and other local peoples. Enormous quantities of gold and other precious metals were transported to Spain from here until 5000 pirates overran the town and the harbour both, by land and by sea and held it to ransom. Perhaps there is still buried treasure in them there hills!

clip_image026

A local bus in front of the church in Portobello

The church in the background contains the figure of the Black Christ. Legend has it that the figure was being transported further south, but every time the ship tried to leave Portobello a huge storm blew up and the captain could not leave. After several unsuccessful attempts, the captain unloaded the statue, and behold! The next day the storms abated and he could leave. Each festival time, people come from all over to pray before the statue, some even walking on their knees from as far away as Costa Rica, many hundreds of miles!

clip_image028

The Black Christ effigy

We spent a day sightseeing amongst the old fortress ruins and Suzie decided to climb to the highest point above the old fortress whist Robin savoured the view from the top-most gun battery; his knees decided they did not need more exercise!

clip_image030

A view of Portobello with True Blue in the middle background

The following day, Bill and Marie went by road to Panama City to source some binoculars (ours had met with an accident) and spying some good stores, we did some quick provisioning in Portabello , depleting the local Chinese supermarkets of their rum, wine and tang mixer supply (not to mention 30 cans of pork and beans, numerous packets of fried rice etc etc).  Shopping ceased when the dinghy was overladen and we then had a lovely fast sail to Colon, arriving well in advance of Bill and Marie who took the ‘slow route’ (akka local bus and coach) back to the marina.

Our next adventure is the Canal transit on February 2nd and 3rd!