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4th April – 15th April 2005
bump into Lisa “Pixie”, a friend from the ARC, walking down the docks of the marina in
Cartagena. She had been crewing on various boats to make her way from St.Lucia, and was
now looking for passage to Panama. Knowing her to be a bit luved-up, but sassy and a great
laugh, we were sure she’d be fun to have along for the ride, so promptly agreed she’d crew the
next leg, and possibly help as a line-handler for our up-coming transit through the Panama
Canal. It also seemed a timely encounter in the “you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours”
sort of way. Quintin wanted to get certified to scuba dive, and Pixie was a Dive Instructor;
whereas Pixie & her boyfriend Stuart were trying to gain experience on other yachts before
buying their own, and we could give her the benefit of our experience.
The sail down from Cartagena to Panama was straightforward, Pixie proved reliable crew with
plenty of experience, and with good wind we made 268Nmiles in 44hours.
We went straight to Colon, at the Atlantic entrance to the Canal, to prioritise all the ‘red tape’
associated with the Panamanian authorisation for transiting the Panama Canal. After two days of
administration and dodging thunderstorms, we finally secured a transit date – some 12 days
later, due to a backlog – so quickly packed up and high-tailed it out of there, setting off back to the
San Blas Islands for 5 days of blissful relaxation.
En route we stopped 20 miles up the coast at the historical port town of Portobelo. In days of old,
the Spanish brought all their gold and treasures plundered from the Pacific side of the Andes
here before loading it onto their Galleons for the return to Spain – it is claimed that in its day 1/3rd
of the world’s gold passed through Portobelo, filling their customs house to the brim, and hence
silver ingots lay stacked in the street!! Unsurprisingly, the English (including Sir Francis Drake
and Admiral Vernon again) found this too hard to resist and attacked the fortified city in attempts to
plunder and control. Drake was actually buried on a small island nearby, and the legend has it
that $1,000,000 goes to the first person to find his coffin.
One of the principal reasons for stopping in Portobelo was to rent dive equipment and tanks to
take with us to the San Blas islands. However, it proved too much of a temptation not to go for a
dive on Drake’s Island while we had the time. Sadly no sign of any coffin, so we remain as poor
today as when we started.
Having heard about the San Blas Islands among the yachting community for years,
expectations were high. However, we’ll be the first to admit that of all the beautiful places we've
been in the world, nowhere compares to the unspoilt tropical paradise of these islands. It felt like
stepping into another time zone and dropping off the modern world completely... truly a picture-
perfect paradise, completely off the beaten track, which is precisely why it remains totally
unspoilt. We could happily have stayed there for months!
There are some 3,000 islands scattered across a couple of hundred miles in a long line off the
tropical north-east coast of Panama. The entire archipelago is the preserve of the diminutive
'Kuna' tribe of native Indians, who retain their traditional and very simple way of life, living in small
straw huts on a select few of the islands, travelling between villages by dug-out canoes powered
by oar or sail, living from the sea, and collecting the abundant coconuts which are their main
produce. All the land is communally owned by the Kuna, and noone else is allowed to live there.
The Kuna are amongst the friendliest most genuine people we've met: full of smiles and
generosity. We were greeted by a steady procession of dug-out canoes paddling out to welcome
us: we traded t-shirts, milk (a luxury for them), water (in short supply), and fishing line for
coconuts, lobsters etc, and in contrast bought a few “molas” (the brightly-coloured traditional
embroidered tapestry panels the women sew and wear as blouses) for mucho US dollars.
While the men of the village busy themselves fishing and collecting coconuts for pennies, the
women are now the real bread winners, with their main income coming from these intricate
molas, which have become popular as wall-hangings or scatter-cushions (clearly not the
traditional use!). We were invited to visit a couple of families living on tiny islands as caretakers,
and they welcomed us openly. With their only visitors being a few passing yachts, the trappings
of modern life have not yet touched the Kuna's way of life, and it was a joy to behold.
We found our first anchorage between two palm-fringed white-sandy islands and had it to
ourselves for 2 days, taking the opportunity to snorkel and dive on the pristine coral reefs
surrounding the islands: beautiful living corals, abundant multi-coloured fish life, stingrays,
shrimps, huge conga eels, clear water, sunny days.
Our second anchorage was reached by some VERY tricky navigation between hungry reefs,
with Mark in Polaroid sunglasses up the mast as lookout for the shallows and dangers, but our
reward was an idyllic spot in turquoise waters set between another beautiful drop-off reef and the
tiny island of ‘Morodup’ (really needs to be pronounced “Moorrrrrrrrrodup” with a Lord of the
Rings voice!); no more than 50m in diameter, home to nine palm trees and a single family hut!!
The advantage of having a qualified PADI Dive Instructor onboard meant that “Dive Mistress
Pixie” gave Q sufficient tuition to finally qualify him as an ‘Advanced Open-Water Diver’, and
Mark knocked off a few more specialties on his way to ‘Master Scuba Diver’, so we can now
jointly rent and use Scuba gear on Skardu anywhere we go. We did a series of shallow dives on
the adjacent reefs, a deep dive down to a reef at 30meters, and a fun night dive – all in great
conditions.
In between Q's hammock got lots of use, strung under the awning from the backstay to the
boom... lazy, hazy, happy days. (In fact the hammock was a donation from Q’s Dad, who at 73
used it on his 3-month solo trip down the Amazon River from source to mouth… the
adventurous spirit runs in the family… but that’s another story!)
Sadly we had to leave this Paradise on Earth and return to civilisation to organise our impending
transit across the Central American continent... thus it was with more than a little wistful regret that
we raised anchor to depart, and both of us promised ourselves a return visit to this magical place
one day... after all, we only visited 6 out of 3,000 islands!
