We Were San Blasted

Three and a half months in the San Blas has a way of changing your behavior. Before we went into the islands, the land where time floats away, we were pretty motivated people. Vlad worked on our boat and made money by working on other people's boats. I did all kinds of chores and boat maintenance without a second thought.

But the San Blas turned all that to mush, leaving me at least with little drive or ambition, just a bit too dreamy for the real world and with an "oh, why don't we just go swimming" kind of attitude. That kind of thing works in the San Blas, but it sure doesn't get your stainless polished. When we finally left the Kuna Yala and encountered, you know, normal things like going to the grocery store or arranging travel plans, they left us exhausted and wondering how do people do more than one thing in a day. And  to make matters worse, we discovered that our brains had also gone on a bit of a vacation. All of a sudden we were having to make plans and think logically and and just generally be aware, and it wasn't a seamless transition. I was seriously considering doing some math problems just to get my brain back into shape!

The San Blas is just a different way of doing business. Instead of multitasking, you mono-task. Instead of dodging traffic at 40 miles an hour, you're dodging reefs at 2 knots (and the reefs don't move!). Almost nothing has to be done right away, so you let go of the frenetic tempo of the outside world.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), we now have that tempo back. We put our boat in Shelter Bay Marina and have worked pretty much continuously for eight hours a day. Like normal people. Somehow, I even managed to cook dinner and do the dishes.

P.S. I just wanted to say thank you to all the wedding well-wishers. All the love means a lot to us!     

Green Turtle Cay Marina

Have you ever had one of those moments when someone helped you without any prompting and left you feeling pretty darn relieved? Well, something just like that happened to us when we were anchored outside of Green Turtle Cay Marina. We had just left the San Blas, and the tradewinds and the accompanying six to nine foot seas were blasting. Our plan was to pick up fuel at the marina so that our tanks would be topped up before going through the canal, preferably after spending the night in the anchorage.

Unfortunately, that particular anchorage was not as tranquil as the last time we dropped the hook here on our way to the San Blas. In fact, there were some pretty big rollers coming through, an uncomfortable way to spend an evening for those of you who haven’t experienced the joys of sleeping while bouncing before. But we weren’t too troubled. It’s just one night, and we’d experienced WAY worse.

But then we saw this man who was standing on the marina breakwater with a Rottweiler motioning for us to come inside. This man was Yogi, the manager of Green Turtle and a fixture in this area of Panama after working for years at Isla Elephante in the San Blas. Before we knew it, we were ensconced in a slip and enjoying all the privileges that being attached to land has to offer – mainly the ability to take a walk without having wet, salt-ridden shorts from the dinghy ride.

And we got two nights in the marina sans charge. If you purchase diesel from them, which we did, you get a free night, and if you’re a first-time customer, which we were, you get a free night as well. It was an odd – and pleasant - marina experience, not only to not be overcharged but to not be charged period. The marina is steadily growing, adding amenities like restrooms and showers, as well as haulout facilities. Yogi said that they hope to have the haulout up and running by March, meaning that Shelter Bay, the only marina on this side of Panama with a haulout yard, would finally have some competition. (Currently, Shelter Bay’s prices are so high that we are forgoing a bottom job until we get to someplace more reasonable - like back on planet Earth.) 

We don't stay in marinas often, but we thought we'd give Green Turtle a shout out because of their excellent hospitality. 

Goodnight, Sweetheart. It's Time to Go.

Our last look at the San Blas. Sniff, sniff.

We knew it was time to leave the San Blas Islands when the tip fell off of the speargun somewhere in the waters surrounding Salurdup Island. We spent three and a half months sailing through these islands, meeting some amazing cruisers and Kuna, snorkeling through some of the best reefs I’ve ever seen and just zenning out on the sand, palm trees, repeat blissfulness of it all. However, all good things must come to an end, and when your speargun breaks in the San Blas the end comes more quickly than expected.

Some things that we will miss about the islands:

-       The reefs!

-       The awesomeness that is protected (i.e. behind a reef) tradewind sailing. It’s so good that even I don’t get seasick.

-       The spearfishing.

-       The wonderful people we met. (I’m especially talking to you, Reach, Infinity and Kaya! We are so sorry that we didn’t get to say goodbye.)

-       Giving random Kunas rides to Nargana.

-       Not having to lock up our dinghy or our boat for that matter.

Reasons we are ready to leave:

-       The lack of cheese.

-       Three months without a decent internet connection. It sounds trivial, but it gets old after a while.

-       The inability to take a long walk without going in circles.

-       The fact that the Kunas own all the coconuts. We are really looking forward to being able to pick up a coconut off the beach, break it open and eat it without starting a trade war.

In summation, the San Blas is probably the only place we’ve cruised that we feel ready to leave. Not because we didn’t like it, but because we were finally in one place long enough to see most of what we wanted to see, to get a decent understanding of what the place was like and to come out the other side feeling fulfilled. Plus, it's one of the few spots where when saying goodbye it really makes sense to quote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - "So long and thanks for all the fish."

A Video for Friday

Here's a crocodile along the Rio Diablo for your viewing pleasure.

Visitors: Round Two

To top off our whirlwind of visitors, Vlad's daughter and her boyfriend stayed with us for a week just before Christmas. We took them on the rounds of the San Blas, which if you can't tell is perfect for visitors. Lots of snorkeling, spearfishing, beach exploring and the general relaxing vibe of this island group definitely gives guests plenty to enjoy and was especially nice for Natasha and Adam who had both just slogged through their college finals week.

Not to mention that they got to escape the Texas winter for several days, and Natasha even survived Vlad throwing her out in the dinghy without any instruction on how to work the outboard.

We couldn't ask for better guests. Plus, Adam shot us a squid! Which, of course, was delicious. Thanks for coming to visit us, guys! We miss you.

More Photos from the San Blas

And even more San Blas pictures. Can you see why we wanted to stay?

Spearfishing

A 20-pound snapper Vlad shot on Christmas Eve!

Vlad went spearfishing for the first time a couple of months ago, and he came back a changed man. “It’s like being a mid-level predator,” he said with this exhilarated expression on his face. On land, if you have a gun, you’re pretty much at the predator apex, but in the ocean it’s a different story. You’re slow. You only have one shot. You’re not nearly as good at being underwater as the fish are, and if another fish with sharper teeth wants the fish you’ve speared, well, it gets it.

I don’t find being a mid-level predator particularly appealing, but Vlad loves it. Now, he wants to go spearfishing every day, which is an odd obsession for someone who doesn’t even like eating fish. He will spend hours out fishing with some of the cruisers we’ve met, who we’ve dubbed “the killers” because they go cruise the outer reef with giant fins, are able to hold their breaths for 3 or 4 minutes, dive down to forty feet nonchalantly looking in caves and are only satisfied if they land a fifty-pound grouper. 

So far, Vlad has shot us a smorgasbord of squid and fish, including the awesome snapper (a special thanks to the crew on Infinity for all the good Christmas fish wishes), and I’ve even given it a shot, popping a lion fish, though it escaped into a hole. By the way, lionfish are an excellent spearfishing practice, if you can get past the whole poisonous spine thing. They are an invasive species that kills the reef, and they have no natural predators in the Caribbean. They stay still, making them easy targets, and they taste pretty darn good too.

Here's a post on the triggerfish - one of our favs - from Controlled Jibe. They say that the Mexican's call the trigger conchito, or "little pig," which is funny because our cruiser friends in the San Blas call it "pork of the sea."

When Brothers Come to Town

My brother, David, with some Kuna kiddos

Our brothers came to visit us for ten days, and, yes, they brought ten cases of beer! (None for Vlad's brother Todd, though, who was a professional cyclist and does not imbibe.) We bounced around from one anchorage to another, delivered school supplies and photos from my mom to Isla Tigre, gave a Kuna family a ride, saw a MASSIVE crocodile on the river and did a lot of lounging around in hammocks.

Case in point.

We even saw a Kuna wedding, which consisted of a bunch of guys tossing the groom in a hammock and then picking up the bride and placing her in the hammock. She keeps getting out of the hammock until the fourth time they put her in when she stays. Then everyone cries. I have to admit, I also got a little misty. Sorry once again, no pictures.

 We had an amazing time with the bros, even my little brother Aleks who suffered from an impressive sunburn (gingers weren't made for tropical climates, Al). We miss them mucho! Despite the fact that they left us with three cans of Spam.

To Panama City and Back Again

It's an incongruent feeling to wake up in the morning and take a ten-mile ride over choppy seas in a dugout canoe and then be in a place like the above photo by 2:00 p.m. Literally, I had not seen a large building since Cancun, and Panama City is chocked full of them, a metropolis of astounding proportions when the most people you've seen recently was watching the school band practice on Nargana.

As I've mentioned previously, staying in the San Blas meant that we would have to take a trip back to somewhere with a grocery store, and after weighing our options we decided that Panama City made the most sense. And I have to say the whole experience was pretty darn fun. We got the aforementioned dugout canoe ride, then an awesome jeep ride through the rainforest on washed out roads with a driver who, while slow and cautious, also listened to a strange mix of soft rock that made me reminiscent of awkward middle school dances (Bryan Adams??? On a jungle jeep ride???). And then we were dropped off in the middle of downtown Panama City somewhere near the place we were staying, a cruisers hostel of sorts, but with no real idea of how to get there because one of Panama City's planners forgot to add street addresses and no one has ever bothered to correct the problem.

But we had yet another secret weapon. Roger. My little brother described Roger as the guy who makes the entire city of Panama run, and I think I have to second that motion. We hired him at $10 bucks an hour, and he took to get our crew visas sorted out. (A moment for bureaucracy: when entering Panama, you get a 6-month visa. Then you have to leave the country for 72 hours. Cruising permits, however, last for one year, and cruisers are able to tie their visas to their boats. Last year, the price for this was $10. This year, it is $105. It was the cheaper than us going to Costa Rica, but still.) He then took us to a marine store and drove us to PriceSmart - the Central American version of Costco - where we restocked on everything and bought cheese, glorious cheese!

We popped into some other grocery stores and then as quickly as it started, our trip to the big city was over. We reversed the process - jeep ride at 4:00 a.m. and the same dugout canoe laden with all of our stuff and finally back to our boat, which some great cruiser friends watched for us while we were gone.

In case anyone is curious, Roger's phone number is 507-6717-6745. The cruisers hostel we stayed at was very nice, cheap and centrally located. Plus, it had a deep freeze and a huge fridge, which is really helpful if you're provisioning. The person who runs it is Deborah, and her number is 507-6153-2089.

Staying in the San Blas

All in all, it’s not a bad place to stick around. There are so many different spots to see within an hour’s sail, and every new island is a surprise. Our latest favorite anchorage is in the Central Holandes right above Miriadiadup. To the north of us is a vast shallow lagoon protected by reef and to the south lies the prettiest island I’ve seen yet in the San Blas, covered in palm trees and ringed by a sandy path with perfect ocean views. Three Kuna families live on it, keeping it well maintained, and they sell some pretty darn nice molas, if you’re into that sort of thing.

The massive surrounding reef system provides fantastic snorkeling and spearfishing, and there are a ton of other islands nearby to take a walk on. And, no, I’m not on the Kuna Yala tourism board. But I should be!

The San Blas in Photos

Here are some more San Blas photos to give you a taste of life down here.

Who Needs a Maytag

One of my least favorite chores on a boat is doing laundry. Invariably, the clothes are still both dirty, soapy and, when we tried washing them in seawater, also salty. Not to mention that we've just put in a lot of work for zero reward. I've taken to washing just a few things at a time in the sink, all in fresh water with a tiny bit of soap and some ammonia. This system works pretty well, but since water conservation is a big deal onboard most of the time we just break down and pay to have our clothes washed.

But I have finally found a place where I enjoy the whole laundry thing. The Rio Diablo. Yes, I know that translates to the Devil's River, but when Vlad and I took a heaping bag of dirty clothes upstream in the dinghy I swear we found laundry heaven. We motored about 20 minutes up the river, and it was like a Kuna superhighway. We were constantly passing people in cayucas who were tending gardens or bringing fresh water back to Nargana (the water pipe is broken in town). We hauled the dinghy up on a sandy bank in clear, cold, fresh water and commenced to laundrying it up.

I did the washing in a bucket, and Vlad did the rinsing in the river. He developed an efficient, assembly line process that consisted of throwing clothes upstream, catching them, wringing them out, and repeating until they were rinsed. I, however, just got covered in soap. We got to watch herons and jesus lizards and tiny fish all while completing one of those basic household tasks that you rarely think twice about on land. And we were not alone in our efforts. Another cruiser and a Kuna woman and her grandson were washing clothes at the river bend as well, creating a nice feeling of community in the middle of the jungle.

But after finishing our giant bag of laundry and heading back down the river, we got to meet another not-so-friendly river denizen. The crocodile.

We had heard from the other cruisers that there were some crocs hanging out in the water further down stream, and while Vlad navigated us through the half-submerged tree trunks I was on croc watch. We were both lamenting the fact that we had yet to see one when we spotted this guy lounging on a piece of drift wood. Vlad kept getting us closer and closer while I took pictures until we finally got a little too close and the crocodile hissed at us, mouth open and filled with jagged teeth, and slid into the water. Cue my mini freakout. That sucker was eight feet long! Washing clothes in the same river where crocodiles wile away the hours certainly gives an extra thrill to laundry day.

We Saw Our First Shark!

Sorry, no pic, but it was in water. :)

I was inside starting on dinner when I heard Vlad urgently call my name with that tone that can only mean, "Come quick. There's something really cool out here." So I ran up the companionway stairs and looked over the side, catching a long look at the seven-foot-long nurse shark swimming slowly under our boat. She was a grey black, unmistakeable shadow, cruising through the anchorage with an effortless nonchalance. We considered jumping in the water for a closer look, but she disappeared into the darker, blue water before we could make a final decision. 

To be honest, I'm afraid of sharks, which is neither unusual nor particularly unwise, but I curb that particular phobia with statistics (you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than attacked by a shark, etc.). And a nurse shark is a pretty chill beast. People pet them, for crying out loud. They rarely, if ever, attack humans and even then only under intense provocation.

The next day we were snorkeling in the reef right beside our anchorage in the Cayos Holandes, and we saw another one. Evidently, this area of the San Blas is chock full of nurse sharks and reef sharks, neither of which are very dangerous to humans. We spoke to a cruiser who does a heap of spear fishing on the outer reef, and he said that most of the sharks are nonagressive. Occasionally, a territorial reef shark gets a bad attitude, but he said that they are generally small - between three and five feet - and that he just moves to a different area, making all well in shark world. The only bad boy shark that he has personally seen around here was a 10-foot-long bull shark on the outer reef, and then he got out of the water immediately.

So my shark-o-phobia has subsided quite a bit since I've seen a couple of them just swimming around doing their shark thing and will hopefully recede even further as we see even more of them in the reef. Always excepting the bull shark, of course. One of my former editors wrote a funny/scary piece on bull sharks here.

We Are Getting Hungry

That's our total selection of fresh food.

Remember when I said that you wouldn’t starve in the San Blas even if you didn’t bring a good selection of provisions. Well, I was wrong! We came back to Nargana, the several thousand people village in the Central Kuna Yala, because we were down to an onion and our last 10 gallons of water. Filling up on water was not a problem, but food has been another story. We’ve been here for four days, and so far have been able to buy onions, potatoes, fake cheese (hey, it’s better than nothing) and green bananas.

Other than that, the shelves in ALL the stores are bare when it comes to vegetables, except for a few rotten peppers, and there are no eggs anywhere. Generally, the food comes in by boat, these rough Colombian trading vessels stacked with propane canisters, flats of Gatorade and a random assortment of vegetables, toilet paper, Ritz Cola and beer. But if the boat doesn’t come, you can be left in food limbo land like we are at the moment, living off of oatmeal, potatoes, canned food, dry goods and Kuna bread.

We’re not going to get scurvy or anything, but it does make me wish that we had stocked up even further when we had the chance. It also makes me wonder what it’s really like for the Kuna. They keep gardens on the mainland, but it must get pretty tough when the boats don’t show up on occasion. Plus, Vlad and I can’t stop talking about the economics of this place. People here want eggs and vegetables and all that goodness, but oftentimes they either can’t get it or they can only get what is available, as thought the laws of supply and demand have abandoned this place entirely.

Anyway, we’re hungry, but the veggie boat should be here soon. I hope.

Time Just Slides By

Out here in the Cayos Holandes, one day blends into the other. It’s got that strange serenity, that whole time slowed down like taffy sort of feel to it, the repition of coffee drinking and reading and fiddling with boat projects. And then when the sun is high, we explore one of the many, many snorkeling spots - watching a spotted eagle ray glide by with an entourage of smaller fish or looking at the tiniest neon pink anenome waving gently in the current - or finding a wrecked boat in the reefs or wandering around on one of the islands, ending the day with some keel scraping and always a couple of hours of hiding from the afternoon storms.

Each day has the same components and the same basic structure, and we just can’t seem to fill up them up, as though we have an extra two or three hours to play with. We haven’t even worn shoes in seven days. Es tranquilo, without a doubt, and I’ll be sad when we finally run out of food and have to head back to Nargana. I knew I should have packed in more potatoes.

Wrecked Boats

One of the wrecked boats on the reef.

A reef boarders the outer edge of the Eastern and Central San Blas, slowing the ocean swell and providing excellent snorkeling spots on calm days. And it sinks ships. Many, many ships. So far we have spotted six boats broken on the reefs here, and we think we see more off in the distance. Some are big metal cargo ships, slowly rusting and breaking to bits. Others are sailboats, their captains caught unaware in a storm or at night. And still others, according to the Kuna we’ve talked to, were smugglers or drug runners who perhaps got a little too close.

We’ve been exploring them when we can find our way through the reefs and shallows in the dinghy, and they are cool to look at and provide some fun snorkeling opportunities. But it’s also a reminder that as nice and pleasant as the San Blas Islands seem they are not kind to mistakes, and many of the wrecks are recent, meaning that chartplotters and GPS won't always save you. Traveling at night here would be insanely stupid, and we are always prepared for a squall to pop up complete with 50 knot winds that could potentially blow us into the coral. Second anchor, anyone?

In the San Blas, the less risky road is not a bad choice.

San Blas in Photographs

Here's a little taste of life in the San Blas in photographic form.

In Love with the Swimming Pool

Our new anchorage with a storm approaching

They call this little spot in the Cayos Holandes the Swimming Pool, and it’s pretty much exactly like its name, except I’ve never seen a swimming pool that had a sting ray living in the deep end. It is the most popular anchorage in the San Blas, according to the guidebook, and with good reason. An immense reef system and several small islands give great protection, and the water is that gorgeous blue green straight out of a Caribbean daydream. It’s also nice and shallow, anywhere from 10 to 15 feet with a sand bottom perfect for setting your anchor.

It’s the kind of setting that makes you want to throw yourself overboard, and that’s pretty much what we did upon anchoring. Plus, the water around here is boiling with sea life. Over the past couple of days, we’ve seen multiple rays, a variety of reef fish, starfish, conch, a trigger fish that the other cruisers have named Bob and best of all turtles! I hadn’t seen a single turtle on this trip until we got to the San Blas, and in this anchorage we’ve seen multiple giant sea turtles with yellow and green speckled shells.

We plan on spending the next few days here, exploring the islands and passes, snorkeling, turtle watching and trying to knock back the coral reef that’s now growing on our keel. We are certainly not alone in our hearting of this place, however. A few cruising boats come in and out every day, piling into the strip of an anchorage, and I can’t even imagine what it’s like in the high season when 30 or 40 boats pack together like schools of bait fish. I think we'd be finding another spot to drop the hook.

Tips on Cruising the San Blas

The Kuna Yala presents some primo cruising grounds - more than 300 tiny islands to explore, great snorkeling and fishing, interesting local culture, an off-the-beaten-path kind of lifestyle. What follows are a few things we’ve found interesting or helpful in exploring this little slice of the world.

Get The Panama Cruising Guide by Eric Bauhaus. It is pricey at $70 but essential for navigating the San Blas Islands where there’s a reef or shallow spot around every corner. We’ve heard from everyone who has sailed this area that his waypoints are spot on and not to trust any other map. Indeed, our chartplotter and Navionics were way off in several spots - once showing us anchoring literally in the middle of an island - whereas Bauhaus got it right. Obviously, good sunlight and a person on the bow wearing polarized sunglasses is a must too, but the Bauhaus book really takes the edge off of sailing in these reeftastic waters.

The weather. Before we left Bocas, someone told us that the weather in the San Blas is way better than the weather in Bocas. Maybe it’s just the time of year that we’re here, but he was way off. Yes, there is a nice breeze, making for cool, fanless nights, but it rains every day with oftentimes stormy results. Big, dark clouds bubble up off the ocean and roll in with plenty of thunder and lightning to go around. In fact, we have disconnected our major electronics due to the enhanced electrical activity we’ve experienced here, and every year several cruising boats are struck by lightning.

Buy a bunch of food first. For real. People say there are grocery stores everywhere. Well, not so much in the San Blas. There are stores of sorts, and, yes, you can buy a limited variety of fresh vegetables, eggs and scrumptious Kuna bread. You will not starve, but I really suggest stocking up on canned vegetables and fruit before coming here and any dry goods or specialty items you might want because you probably won’t find them. There is no cheese (except a limited supply of that yellow single serving stuff from Nestle), no butter, not much booze besides Balboa, not a lot of meat and not a ton of fruit apart from some abused looking oranges and the occasional pineapple. Thankfully, we went on a massive shopping spree at the big El Rey grocery store in Sabanitas outside of Portobelo, but even so we’ve had to get creative in the cooking department. 

Fill up on everything before you get here. You can get diesel, gasoline and propane in the San Blas, but it’s expensive and can be complicated. We picked up an extra 15 gallons of diesel at about $5.25 a gallon and, let’s just say, it didn’t look like the best quality. Gasoline is more prevalent but is also expensive, and propane tanks here have a totally different connector than American tanks. This created an interesting situation for us, in which Vlad had to rig up a connecting hose and then bear hug a propane tank for two hours until most of the gas transferred from the Panamanian tank to our tank. If he wasn’t such a crafty problem solver, we would be eating cold corn out of a can.

This is a great place to save cash. Yep, you heard me. The San Blas has really been a positive influence on our cruising kitty. Granted, we did spend $400 on food before we arrived here, and we were pretty well filled up on diesel. But still, this month we’ve only spent $350 so far, and that includes my mola spending spree and purchasing $100 worth of diesel. There’s just not a lot to buy here, which means it’s great for saving money, which means it’s extra great for us.

Bye to Vlad's Mom

 It was great to be able to share our life out on the boat with Vlad’s mom for a week. We traveled around, did some swimming, met interesting folks, watched as Vlad fixed, then broke, then fixed our outboards and even found a decent restaurant (you can only get chicken, but hey). Pam was an amazing guest - super helpful, great with talking to the locals and even brought her own towel. We can’t wait until she comes back.