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Published: January 8th 2008
Sailing down the Colombian coast, big, grey, dusky mountains so close by. The mist is rising up the gullies and ridges, looks like bushfire smoke, wreathed in the trees, slowly tearing itself away, spiralling up to join the massive thunderhead, taking up half the sky, a gigantic slow motion explosion, billowing out, twisting and contorting, blindingly white, so pure and perfect, a larger-than-life, laundry detergent commercial.
Spooky bit of mainland Colombia here. The Darien. Impassable, no roads, incredibly steep mountains, dangerous swamps and lots of people with guns: Colombian police and military, their Panamanian counterparts, the guerrillas, the cartels’ militia, CIA, FBI, DHS, KGB, ASIO(?)…it’s the bit of Colombia that borders Panama, the link between Central and South America, and you can’t get thru’.
4 weeks at sea, had a burger at the marina cafe, first meal I haven't had to cook in 4 weeks!...so now the megablog.....4 weeks in the compilation.......and no synopsis, you'll just hav to do it or not.....and thanks for all the messages...fantastic...I will get back to all of you.....x
It’s been tropical wet season weather, overcast, rain squalls, then hot sunny periods. Absolute downpours some nights…and days.
Colombia is still coke
central and stories of local mega busts (including a naval frigate) are rife. Interestingly there’s not so much of a drug problem on the streets in Colombia. They haven’t developed the social problems of America and elsewhere that continue to fuel the demand.
Well, it was time to move on. Cartagena’s getting ready for Christmas parties. Our destiny, Colon, but a lot to see along the way. Heading for the San Blas islands, a long string of small islands along the Panamanian coast from the Colombian border to almost Colon. But we decide to call in on 3 Colombian islands on the way down.
Only 25 miles or so to Islas de Rosario, a small cluster of islands with a mooring area in a sheltered bay. The main island has a large military or Coast Guard presence and a few modest hotels, fisher people, private houses and an amazing aviary.
We had heard about the aviary and went searching in the ding. After questioning a few locals we located the little ding dock. A small sign with the name was the only indication there was something here. We walked up a narrow path thru the bush and came across
2 bloody emus!!…well, what a treat, good ol’ Oz emus…I spoke briefly to them but got no response!
There’s no entrance as such, no ticket box, no signs, no people!….we wandered around cages and fences with all manner of exotic (and more ordinary) birds from around the world.
The paths meandered across an acre or 2, we may well have missed many exhibits as there was little sense of order and no signs. Some of the cages had proper little info signs but many were unmarked. I still don’t know what’s behind it all, but it is well kept and all the birds looked healthy and as happy as could be expected. We saw 2 guys carrying food around but no-one else at all.
For such a classy collection and obviously well maintained facility to be so anonymous was just too bizarre!
On another of the islands, quite away out in the ding, a better signposted but similarly deserted….the famous (?) aquarium. From the little café (generous description) at the dock I get directions up to the entrance. Well, a bit more here! A huge rock and glass tank with all manner of colourful local fish, information sheets and giant
fibreglass sharks, dolphins, turtles etc hanging from the roof beams….but….the deserted little ticket box, the ancient turnstile, the chains…..and the sign advising ‘closed til 3.30pm’ …it was about 2pm!
Back at the jetty we got beer and waited.
At 3.20 I return, still no-one around but the doors are open, A guy walks past and tells me to just go on in.
The doors open out onto a series of covered walkways that spread out over the sea, dividing the whole area up into a series of individual pools, all flushed with fresh seawater and holding different types of fish.
The biggest pool, about 20x10 metres is home to 3 dolphins, a family group it appears. And, they’re our regular blue bottlenose not the little motley brown locals. From the set-up it looks like they put on shows. They have platforms, balls, hoops etc….you could say porpoise built….but no show today of course…everything is deserted!!
Other pens contained sharks, groupers, turtles, a whole bunch of different fish, and over to one side, on shore as it were, with a bit of dry corally land in his cage, a giant crocodile! A monster!
There were a few buildings, inside one, a
long passage in total darkness with 20 illuminated tanks, other rooms had displays and endless exhibits, quite a production.
A few students were measuring fish samples and stuff, I think it’s a research centre as well, probably part of one of the mainland universities.
A young guy, an engineering student doing some time at the aquarium, showed us around a few parts. Then we were done. As we went to leave I asked our friend about paying. I was keen to pay the entry price as it seemed v worth while to me. He insisted we just head off as there was no-one else around.
It’s all too strange…..altho’ I’m sure that when the tourists come from the mainland, it is much busier, but again, it’s almost xmas, holiday time, where is everybody? This total lack of people, everywhere, on all the islands, is a little spooky!
There are many small islands making up this group. I could see quite a number of private places on some islands, some v substantial. Mega palaces on their own island. There were other islands only as big as a house block. With just enough room for a house! And mostly only about 1m
above high water at best. And deserted.
On all 3 Colombian islands that we visited there was a familiar theme…local fishermen and their families, some coco and fruit ‘farmers’ and nothing much else. Some land has been sold to outsiders but the private houses seem to be only used v infrequently, some for only 2 or 3 weeks a year!!…and, each of these houses has a family of locals who live there, maintain the places and look after the owners on their rare visits…cool setup!
The next group of islands was the San Bernados, a further 25 miles down the track. The main island was heavily jungled and a couple of fancy docks indicated some big resort places inland. We didn’t go ashore. Especially after watching a couple of giant Rotties patrolling the beach. But we didn’t see anyone, it was deserted, even the rare sandy beach at the point had no-one.
Only a couple of hundred metres off this sandy point was another, smaller island. This one was totally built over! A bizarre patchwork of thatch, bamboo, corrugated iron and masonry. Must have been a few hundred people there. A straggly set of power lines and greasy black smoke.
Didn’t look like home to me.
And this place is only a stone’s throw from this pristine palm lined beach on the deserted island.
The third island, Isla Fuerte, was indeed another paradise spot, but maybe not for everyone! Pretty basic but absolutely away from it all, I just hope they can keep it simple like this.
We parked in a sheltered corner of a slight bay. Like the others, Fuerte was surrounded by v shallow waters, many reefs and some deep channels. It pays to know your way around. Fortunately we have accurate charts and info for the GPS system. I still spend time peering off the front when we’re approaching the cays.
Around the bay the locals have sold some land and there are 45 private houses, It’s the only part of the island where land has been sold to outsiders. Most of the places are pretty small and modest accommodation, 2 or 3 are ‘hotels’, but in a very rudimentary sense, and a dive centre is the only commercial venture open. But all the private places have their local families who live there.
They say there are 800 people here. I might have seen 30. There’s a
small pueblo, town, around the point (what’s the point) a few desultory fishing boats, a few people hanging around. One shop has a gallery in a lean-to at the side. Really, the ‘shop’ is just one room of a house with a few shelves of cans and packets. Surprise, bloody Kellogs corn flakes! The ‘gallery’ has a few of the usual hippy bead crap, some supposedly local made wind chimes but they are all so perfectly cut and carved, I wonder. It’s also a museum, whoo hoo, and the girl shows me a pile of broken pottery, that’s it! Used by the local Indians 800 years ago, she tells me.
There are a couple more ‘shops’ and that’s about it. I wandered thru’ the back streets, tidy little houses, some brick and adobe, others thatch huts. The streets are basic but only take donkey traffic so no need for anything more elaborate.
The people are consistently friendly and all seem pretty laidback but there’s not much happening here. School goes to year 12 and then the students have to go to the mainland for further education. This is a huge culture shock and many do not survive.
Back on board,
lunch
see food dietour local contact, Antonio, paddles out with some cocos I’d asked for. No price is given. He insists these are a gift….and that I should offer him a gift in return! After some discussion a 500g bag of rice was seen to be an acceptable return gift. All a bit odd as in every other way he was quite the pushy little operator and not afraid to ask for tips up front and even came by one night just begging!
Fuerte has no policeman, no crime, everything is open and unlocked, and a v strong sense of identity in their little piece of paradise.
It’s only 20 mins by outboard panga from a small town on the mainland (you can see the mountainous mainland clearly, maybe 6 or 7 k away) but the road to this town from the nearest airport is somewhat dangerous and this adds to the isolation. It is so wonderful to be in such a pristine environment without the usual gringo developments stuffing it up.
I went for a wander across the island, about 45 mins along winding paths thru the bush. It had rained the night before and the track disappeared into bog holes, dragging
my flip flop into the mud, I had to dig down into the glutinous clag to retrieve it, then I realised that unlike nearly all the other islands I had been on, this one had soli. Rich dark soil that could grow anything. Most of the land seemed clearly divided up into farms with crops of of cocos, corn, papayas, platinos, great mango and breadfruit trees and a local speciality, the limon/mandarino, a lime/mandarin fruit, great in rum although a bit strongly tart for some. Very good for cerviche they tell me!
Well, we had to keep moving and pulled out of Fuerte heading for the San Blas.
I was taking a shift driving and noticed a spurt of water about 500m away off the starboard bow. As I watched I saw it again, and again, like every 10 seconds. I figured it must be a whale but it was not moving and blowing so frequently, odd. It stayed on a parallel course to us, still blowing like crazy. I hoped it was not in trouble, I mean what could I do?…go over in the ding with a bucket of asprin?….I’m no whalologist but this didn’t look right! I thought
I saw a couple of others with it but couldn’t be sure. Then it gave a little head stand and disappeared. It was a little whale doing tricks…just the same as I’d seen in Alaska on the ferry when a baby whale did tricks for 10 mins as we passed.
As a postscript however, a local fisherman told me whales rarely get this far and it may well have been a family group with a problem. Depressing thought.
The San Blas, how many islands? 365 maybe, 369? Do I hear 400? I think the difficulty in getting an exact number is due to the definition. This whole chain, the whole area, is a shallow plain with hundreds of islands, reefs everywhere, outcrops of coral…is that an island? Maybe it’s the coconut growing ability of any given bit of dry land as cocos are v important here. Families are allocated so many palms, often on islands way distant to their home base and they are passed on from father to son. All the cocos are owned tho’. You never just pick them up here.
So we dribble along the chain of perfect islands. Some are quite big, several acres, some
local fuerte belle
looked pretty incredible cantering up the street! have small huts and others, the main centres, are almost entirely covered in buildings. Absolutely chockers. It’s too strange. Several thousand people crammed onto one island while all around pristine little perfect paradisical places are deserted.
OK, for power and water, company, schools and all that, or maybe the Kuna are just a very sociable lot!
The indigenous people here, the Kuna, are very proud, independent people with their own autonomy and strict rules of governance, and a pretty laidback lifestyle. V distinctive features, short stature, nuggety, round, flat faces, like Peruvians/Bolivians, that inca, mestizo stock, and big feet but long slender fingers. Fabulous smiles full of teeth and the kids, ayayay, just so perfectly kid-like.
They moved from the mainland to the islands after the floods of 1925….I still can’t quite get it….when the floods came they moved from the mainland, with the 3,000m mountains, went 500m offshore to these pissant islands with the highest ground being less than 1m above high water!! It all looks very fragile, One decent storm and most of it would get washed/blown away…except for the protection of the reefs! (later)
Our second stop, Ustupu, a larger town taking over a whole island, 8,000
lobster boys
islas rosario plus people. Biggest settlement in the SBs. Densely crowded housing, some solid looking structures, 2 storey, once-painted-white, colonial Spanish style, churches, school, police station, water towers. All decked out in bizarre xmas stuff.
We cut around the lee side and its like a river, and with a current to match the illusion. Just as well as the houses on the outside have rickety little ramps leading out to straight-drop dunnies built out over the water. Some are made from a few sheets of corrugated iron or palmfrond thatch lashed to bamboo poles, the more elaborate are your classic brick shithouse style.
They also have this curious way of keeping pigs, they’re all in cages off the ground. Really weird, the pigs have to step on bamboo slats and never get to wallow! V unpiglike I would have thought. And I didn’t get to try any local pork! Yet.
Some of the houses have three overlapping and lashed together stick poles, holding flimsy antennae, could this be TV?…radio maybe?…looks almost like a cargo cult attempt to copy western techno, but I am told they get TV sometimes.
The town is laid out with streets and a plaza, small stores hidden in
darkened huts, you really have to hunt out the stores. Not that we’re buying anything except maybe bread, and beer of course, the 15 slabs we left with are almost gone. Everyone is universally friendly, the kids all smile and call out…hola, buenos, where you from? What your name?…..just so like Bali 30 years ago, it’s uncanny.
You can’t take photos on Ustupu, or even draw or paint. Strange.
Dozens of canoes ply the waters, some just sitting and fishing, others transporting people, small loads. Most of the canoes are your real, carved log types. I watched a guy carving one yesterday, he’s got a little (v sharp) hand adze, he’s about 80 not out, sitting there chipping away. I asked him how long? He reckons 3 months for this one! (Another postscript: someone else told me 1 month, but they might have been thinking of a younger carver!)
These ‘ulus’ are real works of art and must last forever. Solid, unsinkable, stable (?) Usually one person rowing from the stern in an unusual style. They only paddle one side and either flick the paddle out or hold it against the current to maintain straight line, doesn’t look super efficient,
but they get around, sometimes women but mainly men paddling.
Some of the young blokes like to come and hang out around the yacht. Young, restless and bored!. …they ask me how ‘chicos malos’ translates I tell them ‘bad boys’ they are hysterical. I was going to draw a attoo for the leader of the pack, it would be perfect. Most of the adults have a range of crude, fantastic tatts.
But good kids….keen to practice and learn English, don’t know what the future holds for them. They hoon around, capsize their canoes but right it easily, always bailing water, their lives, the lives of everyone on the islands is WET.
This amazing chain of islands, some deserted, some with 1 or 2 huts, others abso chock-a-block with buildings!….they all have their own charges and someone, usually No.2 paddles out to collect $5 or $8…but all v cool and friendly. Onshore all the kids are calling out Hola!, como te llamas? De donde vien?
Some canoes have crude sails with a distinctive pole high on the mast holding the sail out.
I’ve been drawing prototype ulu-marans, suggesting to the fishermen how to optimise sailing stability by joining 2 ulus or
using an outrigger sort of deal.
It’s been raining all night. Really pissing down. The ding is out of the water on its davit, and it’s overflowing water! I took the bung out and it drained for half an hour. The water around us is like a river, light muddy brown, tons of crapola floating past, and more rain, thunder and lightning. We may stay another day here. Ustupu-fied.
Although, there’s always something relatively reassuring about being on a boat in heavy rain!
And the islands just keep on going, the horizon is dotted with them, tricky navigation between them,
Right now I’m looking at an archetypical cartoon desert island. A 6m diameter little heap of sand in the middle of nowhere with one solitary palm. Exquisite!
A little further along on the reef is the hulk of a coastal freighter run aground.
We are moored in a little group of ‘perfect’ islands. Only an acre or so each one. White sandy beaches, lots of coco palms, some mangroves and rich green grass. Separated by shallows of 3 -4 metres, some v narrow passes between reefs, 2m now, v slowly picking our way thru’, tiptoes, eyeballing from
the bow, just how deep is that coral head? Overcast days like this make it nearly impossible to see. Sunny days easy.
These islands are pretty fragile. There wouldn’t be anyplace more then 1m above high water and any decent storm would wash the whole lot away. But all of these islands are protected by reefs.
Great long lines of breakers mark the reefs. And sometimes just sailing along, suddenly you see a few little whitecaps….a bit closer you see the little break…yes, another little reef. Cuidato!
Some of the bigger islands are several acres, covered in coco palms, some mangrove, sandy little beaches, occasionally a big tree, like a mango or breadfruit, just idyllic.
But even out here in the middle of nowhere a guy turns up with his son in a dugout. He tells me he is from Tigre island, 30 miles away and comes over here for a couple of days to harvest his cocos. All the islands have cocos and all the cocos are owned!! You never pick up cocos anywhere in the san blas.
I can’t imagine how scary it must be for this guy and his kid and a load of cocos getting back
to his island! Gutsy play!
He was selling some cocos to another boat, I asked him about fish and he said he’d bring some mañana! I haven’t caught a fish since Cartagena. I stopped putting the big line out after catching too many huge chunks of seaweed. No fun whatsoever! Anyway, last night I chucked the handline in with just a hook and a bit of meat.
Caught 3 nice fish in an hour. Don’t know what they are but they’ll get eaten tonight. Of course, they’re ‘reef fish’. Pescado entero! I think I now know how to do it. Start off in the frypan and finish in the oven, or in my case the bbq. And I still have 10 little lobsters in the freezer. Might make a mornay with them for lunch!
So, the pescado entero was almost there, just one more try….and the lobster mornay was to die for!
Maybe it was xmas day yesterday, bloody marys for brekky, lobster mornay lunch and for dinner….roast leg o’ lamb, roast spuds, beans, pumpkin, gravy, mint sauce..jajaja
There’s always the roar of the surf. The outer reef is about 500m away and takes up half the horizon, on
the other side, in the distance, the mountains of the mainland.
The constant roar belies the purity of the white foam and occasional plumes of spray rise up against the darking skyline, hanging like shrouds, more like warning beacons, last for ever. And the wreck. Out on the reef. It’s more than high and dry it has twisted along it’s length, totally left to rot away. This whole plateau is shallow, inside the reef, even the ding connects now and then, almost shallow enough for bone fishing(?)
Today another 6 little lobster from the fishing guys, a bit small but really tasty.
16 boats here last night and with a sunny day today several have headed off. There was a great research vessel, looked like a tugboat, squat and solid, a whole bunch on board. A mega rocket yacht, multi mil model, 120’ long, the tallest mast in the harbour, 5 spreaders, looked awesome. Then the usual bunch, a few other cats and mostly monos.
The superstructure of the wreck catches the last rays of the setting sun, poetic scene, ship foundered on reef, the background an operatic backdrop of hazy shapes, pastels of grey, blue and white, all blurred
and peaceful.
The little desert island also catches the last rays in the palm, the wind is predominantly from one way so even when it stops the palms still look windswept, brush strokes on an isolated canvas.
As the sun sets the water turns from the brilliant crystal azure of the day to a more sinister dull green, thoughts turn to dragging anchors and things that go bump in the night. The water at night looks hard, cast in bronze, the waves move thru’ it but it still looks craggy and cold and hard….green, gunmetal glinting, molten lava, boat-eating stuff. Cute little islands become the shadowy haunts of pirates and other baddies. The soothing background rumble of waves on the reef now sounds ominously close and threatening. Reefs have teeths., ready to bite the bums of yachts….gusts of refreshing wind become anchor-dragging gales…and so on…
Entry to the Swimming Pool is Free.
We motored down to the next group of islands, known amongst cruisers as The Swimming Pool.
Ten little islands really close by each other, lots of places to park as we carefully negotiate the shallow channels, tiptoeing between the reefs.
Every shade of green in the foliage: palms,
the little isla where everyone lives
when there are 20 perfect, deserted islas next door grass, lianas, trees, mangroves. The texture and colours are beautiful. Blisteringly white sand, sculptures of driftwood, the shallow water is spectacularly bright light tourquoise, swimming-pool-chlorine clear. As the water deepens the blueness just intensifies, dark patches mark the reefs. It is so beautiful I could weep.
The outer reef here is only half a mile away. Great whale shapes on the horizon, rogue wave, smashes into the reef.
Another monster wave rises up and curls over the reef. The bulk of the wave is thrust back into the next oncoming wave. When they kiss, an enormous spurt shoots skyward, 20 or 30 feet high. Spectacular.
And we sit calmly in the lee of a little island. Almost no wave or swell where we’re parked, but a v strong current running thru’ and swirling eddies are moving us back and forth. Another see-to-the-bottom site altho’ only 3 or 4 metres deep.
Thinking about food again, my ongoing obligation. I’ve got 6 little lobster in a mesh bag, hanging off the back. I had to bring them onboard and put them in a bucket of water while we sailed over here. They were looking a bit tired so I had to decide
whether to drown them in fresh water or just bung them in the freezer to sleep. I put them in the sink in fresh water. They soon fired up but then went very quiet. I lifted one out to check. It snapped and I dropped it in fright. Later I bagged them and put ‘em into the freezer.
A week ago I popped some little ones direct to freezer. A day or so later when I dropped them in the boiling pot I thought I saw a nanosecond between cryogenic and boiled, where one or two seemed to flinch. Crikey, I don’t want to torture the poor little suckers!
Food is ongoingly on my mind. I think about the next days’ meals, what’s left in the larder.
This 4 weeks sail from Cartagena to Colon has been a good trial for The Crossing (becoming italicised now) altho’ we have stopped and bought some stuff.
I’ve only got one cabbage, one pumpkin, some spuds and onions left. The last carrot is decidedly flaccid and some ugly black marks are appearing…and limes, of course, for the rum. I’m so hanging out for some fruit and fresh veges.
Oh, we also picked up
a hand of bananas, well, actually the whole arm! Split into 2 lots, one hangs in the cockpit, the other in a brown paper bag in the shed. Both appear to be ripening at the same rate….like nothing! 10 days on and one little nana is sort of yellowish if you crinkle up your eyes. (PS now they are coming good…)
We moored in a 2 - 3 knot current. It’s like parking in a river! And inevitably soon a dugout (ulu in Kuna, kayuko in español) slinks up. We get Eduino onboard, lovely guy, only a skinny little bugger but you can bet he’s strong as. Big toothless smile and wispy HoChiMinh beard, He paddles his ulu across the open seas to collect his cocos…and sells fish and molas to the boaties.
He has a mask and snorkel but no fins so we give him a pair. Next morning we pick him up and he takes out to a reef way out. We never would have gone out there. He obviously prefers to get here by ding rather than paddle! We snorkel around this amazing reef, huge staghorn or elkhorn or whatever corals with enormous fine branches and solid
to touch, great wafting leaves of the finest filigree, every colour and shape and texture. Better than many scuba dives. Squillions of the usual reef fish.
Eduino soon dives under an overhang and comes out with a giant crab…..soon he has 2 more. I’m holding his mesh bag and each time I have to undo the knot and hold it open. He’s negotiating the crab into the bag, I’m fighting the current and trying to keep the massive pincers away from my body! As we continue to snork around, the bag brushes my leg and I freak out……then he grabs a big lobster.
Back onboard, new year’s eve, crab for lunch. I was always a fan of Queensland mud crabs, then I got onto Dungeness in Canada, now I’m sold on these buggers. Unbelievably sweet. The cockpit is a bit the worse for wear as we snapped and smashed the tough bits with multi grips and pliers!
I caught 3 fish the first night. A big jack and 2 plate size reef fish. Eduino dropped off 2 conches in the arvo. So I’ve now got 2 major crabs and a lobster hanging in the water, 2 big conches, fish and
locals
rosarios filets. Seafood central.
Midnight. NYE. All the yachties yell out but not much more. I wanted to go ashore and start a fire, get a party happening…but nada. Eduino is with us until about 10pm, he doesn’t smoke or drink, so a quiet one. At the hour we decide to let off some flares. Sort of lucky we did as they were nearly all DUDS!! Only 2 of 7 shots I fired from the gun worked and M couldn’t get any of the others to fire! Resorted to holding a handheld flare, a bit lamo after our expectations. But a salutary experience. And indeed, some of these were very expensive, state-of-the-art flares….a bit of a worry!
One more thing to check out in Panama.
Most of the islands have a few birds. I first noticed the blackbirds in Cartagena. They are like small version crows, beady eyes and a sharp whistle like someone trying to get your attention. I was constantly looking around. Sometimes it’s like that cacophony of whistles just before the start of a pommy football match that sounds like a million birds, now it’s a million birds sounding like the football crowd. Even out here in
shopper
isla fuerte the islands there are birds and I’m still looking up when I hear them call.
And always a big frigate bird wheeling around and a few grubby looking pelicans. So awkward-looking as they try to brake, fall in a tangled heap, no doubt they call it diving! Crash into the water, looking like they’ll break a few bones, then pop up, trying to look cool, flip the fish around in the beak and then swallow. If it works…..
Today the wind is up to 12 - 15 knots. Way out, the seas are up. Like a line of elephants in long grass, you can just see their backs, the bumping, bobbing, rolling dark shapes move across the horizon. Big waves. The breakers are forming further out. Cresting and crashing. Some really good looking sets, but I can’t be sure. Along the near reef, only a couple of hundred metres away it looks like a series of explosions, detonating along the line, throwing up huge sprays, awesome!
We take Eduino out again, another reef, another 2 crabs, he sells them to a yacht for $10 on the way back. This arvo he’s going to get some pulpo (octopus) and
take me fishing in ‘the hole’! Big snapper and other good eating fish he promises me. Voy a ver!
Eduino, well actually his father, has the family allotment of coconuts. 3 of the near islands are theirs to harvest. A long way from the home island, across open water, big seas, wind…in a dugout, one paddle and 100 cocos. He collects 300 - 400 cocos per month and sells them to the Colombians for $15 per 100. So he’s v keen to sell crabs and lobster and molas to the cruisers!
Then the wind!…well, this is the place for the trade winds and we’ve got ‘em. Relentless, 15 - 25 knots of wind from the north, great for sailing and we have had some lovely sailing between the islands but….I think I wrote about this last year somewhere but anyway…I can remember when I was very young I used to love the wind. I recall times in the mountains and on the beach just standing, leaning into the wind, just loving the feeling, being buffeted about, thinking of where this wind had come from, what exotic and distant places it had seen, invigorating. My parents would be telling
me to get back inside, or back in the car, or anyway out of the wind, which I would do reluctantly. But now, the wind drives me crazy! Endless, relentless, eternal blowing, it just goes on and on and on. It is exhausting, it saps the energy right out of you. And the consistent gale force blows we have here are something else again.
But I guess you would be crazy to talk it down when you live on a yacht! And it’s fabulous, mostly, to sail with.
Today we’re in the Lemon Island group of cays. Another bunch of cays, as soulfully beautiful as ever, some local fishermen, a dozen yachts,
This morning an ulu rocks up. This one has an outboard, whoo hoo, a young bloke and Lisa, the famous Queen of the Molas. Molas are the the most famous product of the Kuna. Embroided pieces of cloth with many small pieces of brightly coloured material stitched together and overlaid with minutely sewn detail. This is micro-surgeon quality sewing, all by hand and almost invisibly fine work, astounding, and many traditional designs as well as more contemporary stuff, no obvious acid influence yet!
Traditionally part of the Kuna
womens’ dress, molas are now the big selling item for Kuna income.
A bizarre piece of Kuna tradition - the eldest daughter of each family is traditionally the mola maker, dedicated life and all that. If a family has no daughters, the eldest son is brought up as a girl, and subsequently a mola maker. Lisa is one such, a transvestite, and has become famous for the delicacy of her fine work. Truly the ‘queen’ of the molamakers. She comes aboard and we talk for an hour or so as she shows me a whole bag of her work. A few really stand out. I buy one. 2 months work full time. $50. She tells me she has a kid in school. How can this be? I would like to find out so much more about this place and these people but you know…
Another curiosity: you can’t marry into the Kuna tribe and they can’t marry out so there’s a bit of the old limited gene pool problem. Here it manifests in many albinos who, because of their sun sensitivity, are restricted to the indoors and many become expert mola makers too. All the albinos I saw were male.
Dr Who's isla home?2
not sure if it's going up or down! Is this always so? I have a vague memory that it is a male affliction only.
The Macro World Life Deal
It’s sort of funny this life on boat. Times of immense aloneness, but always other boats around. Often too close. Some of these little paradisical islands have 10 or 20 cruisers parked in a little bay, really cheek by jowl. But at the same time you don’t always know everyone else, and you may be still totally isolated. But you have your special friends, or you might initiate a visit with another boat by radio, or swing by in the ding, and then there’s the etiquette of getting invited aboard, then endless tales of the high seas. But often great sources of information, some of these people have been sailing around for years, and always handy to swap stories about different places, fishing tricks, cooking tips, etc, especially when you come across the same model boat as your own.
So we hang at anchor. Watching the scene, watching the other boats, who’s doing what. There’s a general VHF radio frequency that everyone listens to and people are constantly calling other boats. When you make contact you choose another channel for your private chat. But you never know who has followed you up and is listening in, a bit of a disconcerting habit I find.
So, maybe just like life in a portable high rise apartment block with a party-line telephone….or being stuck in traffic on a rural highway.
The radio is always a source of great amusement with so many boats with such strange names calling each other up. I just can’t think of any right now.
Another night and day of big wind. We leave early for Portobelo, a Panamanian mainland town. 60 miles or so. This is the end of the san blas…fantastic place, I could spend longer here.
The wind is 15-20 knots, 2 reefs in the main and the jib, we’re getting 8-9 knots, the swell picks up, monster waves, 5-6m, towering over us, the wind and waves coming from behind at about 20 degrees, we are rocking and rolling, jajaja.
Big sail day, exhausting when it’s so rugged. But we got some dolphin action. This time they are right into the tricks, diving out of these monster wave faces, flipping and splashing, backwards and sideways. Looking out, and we are getting thrown pretty high on these swells, I can’t see other dolphins doing this. So it must be just for us. So. In the middle of the ocean, if no-one is watching, will a dolphin do tricks? And furthermore, if they are so highly evolved why don’t they just hang out on the beach and then dive in when they want something to eat. Instead of this totally manic racing around all day using so much energy they have to keep eating all day.
We make it into Potobelo just before sunset. Seeing a real town, with cars and buildings strikes me immediately, and it’s only been 4 weeks out. We moor in the beautiful harbour, it is perfect, Chris Colombus thought so when he first got here and set up the biggest coastal trading port in the early 1500s.
Deep jungle up the hillsides, freaking monkeys howl all night long, absolutely bloodthirsty numbers.
We ding over on Sunday morning to the town. Really bizarre. A totally decrepit, rundown little shithole but built on and around these fantastic old ruins, the fort, stone bridges, old walls. There are some shmicker houses, especially round the bay in the jungle, v privado.
Tomorrow just a few hours to get into Colon, then Wednesday I’m off to Cuba. More bangs and less whimpers…eso espero!
PS...made it to Colon...off to Panama City this arvo and off to Cuba Wed morning....
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