Altair Cruising Log

San Blas Islands of Panama

Our departure from Cartagena for San Blas Islands of Panama was delayed by almost a week when we discovered a leak in one of our 45-gallon water tanks. Not ideal. We returned to the anchorage and had our port water tank on deck within two hours. We are very fortunate in that our water tanks can easily be removed without cutting away parts of the boat interior. We debated a welding fix but decided this could cause new problems with our 23-year-old aluminum tank so decided on a repair with glass mat fabric and resin after email discussions with a boating building friend; a fix Paul could easily do himself. We had some glass mat and were fortunately able to obtain resin from friends, as you could not easily get it in Cartagena. We discovered the problem mid-afternoon Sunday and had the tank repaired, tested and back in place three days later.

Then off for the Rosarios, an island group 18 miles from Cartagena. After cleaning a large crop of barnacles off our bottom and baking chocolate chip cookies we had a good weather window and left for San Blas. We had a great sail for the 180 miles crossing of what can be a stormy stretch of water with 15 knots of wind from the NE (behind us) and only moderate seas of 3-6 feet instead of the 20 feet they can reach. We were moving along faster than anticipated so reefed (shorted sail) to slow down and ended up heaving to (sailing term for standing in place) for five hours waiting for daylight to enter through the reef and into the magical tropical islands of the San Blas. We arrived in this fabled archipelago on December 13 in rainy, blustery conditions that did not exactly match what the brochure had promised.

The San Blas islands are home to the Kuna Indians and while officially part of Panama, the Kuna Indians have governed the region since the 1920’s when the Panamanian government granted the tribe the right of self-rule following a Kuna uprising that lead to the death of 22 Panamanian policemen and 20 Kuna who had befriended them. Today, the Kuna not only govern themselves but have two representatives in the Panamanian legislature, as well as the right to vote in Panamanian elections. Officially called the Comarca de San Blas, the archipelago is made up of about 350 postcard perfect islands on the Caribbean shore of the South American side of Panama and the Kuna like to say their archipelago consists of “one island for every day”.

Dense jungle on the mainland coast has kept any roads from being built, thus protecting the area from many of the intrusion of westernization by automobile. Contact with the outside world is through numerous small airports on many of the islands and small coastal trading boats that ply their trade up and down the coast. The Kunas are very unique, proud and colorful people and allow no outsiders to own land or businesses yet welcome cruising yachts in the islands. The entire Kuna population is estimated to be about 70,000 total; with 32,000 living on the districts islands, 8,000 on tribal land along the coast and 30,000 living outside the district primarily in mainland Panama.

Much of Kuna life is communal with the island Kuna preferring to live closely together on a few islands so only 40 of the hundreds of cays are inhabited with the rest mostly left to coconut trees, sea turtles and iguanas. On inhabited islands, the many traditional bamboo sided thatched roofed houses are clustered together so closely there is scarcely room to maneuver between them. Other islands are inhabited by only a few families while still others are inhabited by small groups on a monthly rotating basis to care take the islands and harvest the coconuts. Every coconut is important and someone owns every one; in fact coconuts were the districts’ principal currency until the late 1990’s. They were sold to Colombians who make the rounds in old wooden schooners and then the coconuts were used in the production of candy, gelatin capsules, cookies, shampoos and other products.

Traditional way of life and dress is followed by many Kuna women who continue to dress as their ancestors did. A black line painted from the forehead to the tip of the nose distinguishes their faces. A gold ring is worn through the nose, although much smaller than in the past. A length of colored printed cloth is wrapped around at the waist as a skirt, topped by a short-sleeved blouse with two brilliantly colored molas. A printed red and yellow headscarf and many necklaces, rings and bracelets complete the daily outfit. To make themselves more attractive, the women also wrap their legs from ankle to knee and lower arms in long strands of colorful beads.

The Kuna are famous for their molas that are a form of reverse appliqué and beautiful works of art that the Kuna women make by the thousand. The word for blouse in Kuna is mola and the majority of San Blas women wear blouses with these brightly stitched fabric wonders on the front and back. Besides forming the mainstay of traditional female dress, molas are sold to visiting tourists and yachtsmen, or probably more appropriate yachtswomen. Whenever we would anchor near a village, ulus would soon surround us waiting for Suzette to come on deck to see what they had to offer and hopefully make a selection. We always did our best to look at a few and be courteous while Paul made balloon animals and hats for all the kids and even some of the women. Buying molas can become an obsession for some and we have seen them made into all sorts of things including pillows, bags, purses, vests, women’s tops, outboard engine covers, and much more; some ever so creative.

While some Kuna have switched to outboard engines to power their ulus, many continue to paddle or sail these unique canoes. Hollowed from a single tree, ulus range from 8-10 feet in length for general use by a family to larger ones 25-30 feet for a whole island. Your basic ulu has low sides and is paddled with simple carved paddles using a “j-stroke”, a unique stroke with a twist. Others are sailed with the helmsman using his paddle held in place as a rudder. Ulus have no keel or dagger board which is what keeps a sailboat from tipping over, basically what counteracts pressure on the sail. We were amazed when we first saw an ulu racing along with the crew standing on the side and leaning far out to balance the boat and keep it from tipping over. There seemed to be a competition to see which boat got home first proving that wherever you are, if two sailboats are together, it’s always a race.

Five years ago while just starting out in the Pacific, we heard from fellow cruisers who had come through the Panama Canal, what an incredible cruising area the San Blas Islands are. The nice thing about the San Blas is that there are numerous anchorages within a short sail of each other, sometimes just an hour or two for change of scenery. You can chose between uninhabited islands with other yachts for company or more secluded anchorages all to yourselves. If you want a cultural experience, you can anchor by a village and walk the narrow ‘streets’ among the close together houses looking at molas strung out for sale. And this with easy availability to water, fresh fruit and veg, and most important the ease of getting boat parts when needed. Within a few days, parts can be flown in from Panama City or within a week from the United States. And if you need a “big city fix”, a short 45-minute plane ride puts you in Panama City; the short flights also making it easy for friends and family to visit. This magical blend has made it a favorite spot with boats that stay from several weeks to several years or simply return year after year.

Instead of trying to visit every island and anchorage, we explored a bit and lingered at a few favorites. The main part of San Blas seen by visiting yachts and land tourists is the 35 miles stretch from Porvenir to Tigre in the western end; leaving the rest of the 70 miles of the archipelago little visited. While we spent most of our time in this area, we did explore down the coast to Snug Harbor for a week, always nice to get off the beaten path at least a little. Initially we had planned to spend three months or longer in San Blas exploring the close together anchorages in between working on various non-essential boat projects like our wood work. But our schedules always get a bit pushed and our stay here turned out to be a mere six weeks. Go explore or do wood work? Seemed a simple decision. While we did get some projects done we decided exploring took a priority and after all the miles covered in the past year just hanging out seemed a bit favored.

Another great thing about the San Blas is not much to spend your money on, well once you are done buying molas that is. Once you are all provisioned, you can easily exist on $100 a month or less, always nice for the bank account. One regular expense was the local bread. Kuna Bread is more like a soft, flat bread stick than loaf of bread but we quickly adapted it to a variety of purposes including our morning toast and lunchtime sandwiches. After ‘Tuna on Kuna’ for lunch one day, it became our standard joke of what were we having on Kuna today?

In San Blas one needs to be completely independent with their rubbish disposal. There are no garbage cans ashore and the Kuna generally dump any rubbish off the edge of the island so never a good idea to give it to them. Our solution: Organics are chopped up and dumped overboard and quickly devoured by fish living under the boat; tin cans and bottles are sunk in deep water between islands; aluminum cans are saved for Kunas who ask for them as they turn them in for cash; packaging and plastics are burned on islands above the high tide mark making certain everything disappears; and non-burnables such as batteries, aerosol cans, and such are stowed away on the boat for disposal at the next major port.

Our best and most unique cultural experience in San Blas was attending a Chicha Festival. Chicha Festivals occur after a girl has gone through her puberty rites and her family is announcing she is of marriageable age. The girls’ family provides all the food and beverages needed during the entire five-day festival and many seem to be held around the Christmas holiday season for a multi-purpose party. All the people of the island are invited to gather in the Chicha Hall with the men on one side and the women on the other. Chicha is an intoxicating brewed drink made from fermented corn and sugar cane juice. Made solely for this festival, you must wait for someone to present you with a calabash gourd holding perhaps three quarters of a liter; no one is allowed to get a gourd of chicha for themselves. Once receiving your gourd, you must first stand then recite a toast before drinking the whole lot down at one go finally spiting the residue in a corner. A village elder explained a modern twist that for every gourd full you drink there will be $50 in your account when you reach heaven. The irony of the festival, is that the girl or girls it is for, must spend the entire time in a small temporary hut next to the Chicha building and do not get to participate at all. When we arrived about 3:30 in the afternoon, numerous people were already “well lubricated” including a surprising number of women. It was wonderful to have the chance to share this event with the Kuna and amazing to be around so many Kuna women with no one trying to sell you a mola.

The Eastern Holandes Cays were the first group of islands we explored. This popular spot is nicknamed “The Swimming Pool”, some yachts have come to feel that it doesn’t get any better than this and have stayed here many months and in some cases years. The windward most island is about the size a football field and is kept clean of under brush and fallen palms by the boats in residence and is truly one of the beautiful tropical islands in the world. Every Monday there is an appetizer potluck with a bonfire to burn the week’s trash. It was a great meeting place and social time that we enjoyed tremendously. We spent Christmas here, playing games and building sand sculptures of snowmen and reindeer on the beach after Christmas Eve dinner with the crew of two other boats. We made friends with a family that lives on one of the islands full time, trading rice, sugar and coffee for a dinner with them of fried fish and coconut rice one evening. Paul commissioned a custom mola from Elise depicting Altair’s sail around the world and we were able to pick up the completed piece a month later.

Coco Bandero easily became one of our favorite anchorages. When we arrived there were 20 boats in the anchorage making it looked quite crowded but quickly found what would become known as Altair’s spot. We anchored in 30 feet of water off a white sand beach and could easily hit a coconut tree with the toss of a rock. A large turtle was our neighbor and would visit each morning. One day we had a big fiberglass Ulu come along side, it was Tienda Eide, the floating grocery store This was great! Fruit and veggies delivered to your boat plus eggs, frozen chickens with head and feet, coke even gas or diesel! Wow, paradise found at last.

We enjoyed exploring the four small islands, two of which had driftwood tables and chairs for dinners ashore. The snorkeling in the backyard was phenomenal with seemingly endless opportunities on the many nearby reefs and we caught our first, and only, crab here. Suzette spotted him and Paul descended with his lobster snare and with the aide of a friend managed to capture it in a manner that was worthy of America’s funniest videos. We ate him for dinner that night and he was delicious although Suzette had a momentary pang of guilt seeing him on the plate and still being able to picture him alive and happy on his reef.

Our favorite character at Coco Bandero is Charlie Brown, a neatly trimmed Australian border collie whose people are a German/Austrian couple, Guido and Sylvie. Charlie Brown is a great guy, has a variety of barks, varying from loud and excited to soft hellos and is very communicative. He likes to stand in the shallow water trying to catch fish or chase the pelicans along the beach. One evening Charlie's mistress, Sylvie, was taking him ashore and a group of dolphins came into the bay. They allowed Sylvie to follow them in the dinghy and Charlie Brown was SO EXCITED!!! Once the dolphins surfaced right in front of the dinghy, with Charlie hanging off the front end and we all thought he was going in the water after them. Sylvie says that Charlie starts to bark when he smells dolphins at sea well before they are close enough to be seen by the boat. Charlie Brown has such wonderful enthusiasm for life he just makes you smile.

After six weeks in the San Blas we regretfully started heading towards the Panama Canal. The date we had picked to make our move a month previously, turned out to be a great weather window and we had a good sail 45 miles along the coast to the protected anchorage of Linton near famous Portobelo. After a week here socializing with ex-yachties who have put down roots in Linton, we explored the old forts of Portobelo then we continued past Colon for a week in the jungle up the Chagres River. But these are all stories for the next installment.

We are currently scheduled to do a two day transit through the Panama Canal starting the afternoon of February 28. The Panama Canal web site (www.pancanal.com) shows footage from webcams at three locations so you might be able to see us. After transiting the Canal the plan is to sail home via Galapagos, Marquesas, Tahiti and Hawaii, planning to arrive in Seattle sometime in October 2006.

We hope this finds everyone well.

Suzette and Paul
Yacht Altair
Anchored on The Flats at Colon, Republic of Panama
23 February 2006