The last time we spoke, we had just arrived in the Central San Blas Islands. This time, we will tell you a bit more about this beautiful part of the world as we get ready to take the next big step in our journey … transiting the Panama Canal.
We had had most of the San Blas Islands to ourselves up to this point. Now we had arrived in the more popular central region of these incredible islands, and had to share it with a lot more cruisers. No more desert island anchorages to ourselves? Oh well, its still an amazing place to visit.
First stop was a small group of Islands called Coco Banderas. These islands are about 2.5 miles off shore from the mainland and are surrounded by a huge outer reef that protects the lagoon inside. When we arrived it was flat calm, and not much wind, however the wind picked up over the next few days and in the end it made the place pretty rough to anchor in. That had the effect of clearing out most of the other boats and eventually we had the place to ourselves. It is an idyllic place where you can jump off the back of your boat and snorkel over the coral reefs, or simply take a swim to the nearby island and float in the water off the beach.
After a couple of days, we realised we had some new visitors under the boat, several nursing sharks! That made jumping in the sea all the more “challenging” although they were not big and more frightened of us then we them? They fought over any food scraps that we chucked overboard that was entertaining.
After a week or so, we decided to pull up the anchor and move to the Hollandaise Cays. These are probably the most popular for cruisers and we can see why. It didn’t feel too crowded and actually there was plenty of room to anchor. Another stunning set of islands surrounded by an even bigger reef. The wind was blowing pretty hard here, but the anchorage was flat despite the huge rollers that were hitting the outside of the reef. We took a trip to the local bar with our friends Donna and Mark on Coral Moon.
We took the dinghy to go and explore some of the outer reef where you could walk out in very shallow sand a long way against a strong current and then float back to the dinghy. In the channel whilst in the dinghy we saw a stingray pass underneath us.
The colour of the water in the shallows of the outer reef was so inviting and a really beautiful place to swim.
After another few days we moved to Lemon Cays and met up again with Donna and Mark. This was a little more developed. We were anchored in a group of 3 islands, the main one called Banedup and all the islands had a bar!
One night, we managed to buy a couple of lobsters from some local Kuna Indians. We had fun with those as this was the first time had ever cooked these!
Unfortunately we were rapidly running out of money and food! The local vegetable boat turned up to the rescue a few days later and we stocked up lots of fresh produce. We went a bit mad, and when the bill arrived, it completely wiped us out. The guys took pity on us and actually gave us $5 back! Oh well, we thought, that’s fine, we had enough food to last for a couple more weeks until it was time to head further up the coast to real towns where they have ATM’s and shops where we could stock up again. A couple of days later another official boat turned up in the anchorage. It turned out that we needed to pay another anchoring fee for the central San Blas islands. They wanted us to pay $115! I told them in very bad Spanish that we only had $5 left! Could we pay by credit card? They told us we could do a bank transfer…. errr… ok, we said. We tried, but of course, the UK bank was having nothing to do with transferring money to a panama bank! So it was a fail. What could we do we asked? You have to leave the San Blas was the reply …. Bummer!
Donna and Mark took pity on us, and took us to the bar that evening and we got very drunk.
We both felt terrible the next day, so stayed in the anchorage and went snorkelling to a nearby island over an old wreck on the beach.
Then the wind died for the next 4 days. We were in a bit of a quandary at that point. We had said we would leave, but it was a 45 mile trip to the next place along the coast to a place called Linton Bay and that’s an 8 hour marathon motoring session in no wind. We decided to push our luck and ended up staying another 4 days until the wind picked up again! We got away with it, and got to do another 4 days of lovely snorkelling and exploring.
Eventually the wind did pick-up and we set sail towards Linton Bay. The wind was very light but the sea was totally flat too and Azimuth glided along at 5 to 6 knots. Then the wind died for an hour or two. At this point we noticed a small rip in the Genoa, so took the opportunity to do a repair whilst at sea. We motored for an hour and then the promised winds started to kick in. Great we were sailing a beam reach in still flat seas with 15 knots of wind. Perfect sailing. Then the wind stepped up a gear! Ok, so now its 20 knots, but the seas were still flat and we are doing 8 to 9 knots towards our destination until…. Another gear change! 25 knots, sea state picks up rapidly. Quickly we reefed down and for the next two hours surfed our way down the coast at times hitting 11 knots. We were relieved to finally get round the island in to Linton Bay. The relief was short lived though … the place was rammed full of boats. The only place we found we could anchor was on the edge of the pack and we had a terrible night of rolling and pitching in a large swell. Probably the worst anchorage we have had since we left Madeira.
After suffering this anchorage for a couple of days, we decided enough was enough and headed round to Portabello Bay. This was more like it! A huge bay that was very well protected. Its easy to sea how this became the main Spanish Port in Panama and where they exported all the gold from Suth America as well as traded slaves coming from Africa via the Caribbean. The local population called themselves Conga, from their African roots and they are descended from slaves who escaped from the Spanish and set up villages in the area surrounding Portabello.
The town is a simple easy going place today, but you can tell it was a closely guarded community in the past and the sheer number of cannons and 7 forts in the bay show how serious the Spanish were. That didn’t stop Francis Drake from attacking the place as well as Edward Vernon in a fierce battle. A good deal of the town was demolished by the 5000 cannon balls that Edward fired on the town in one day! However the Spanish rebuilt and the town has an interesting history.
The local bar called Casa de Vela (or house of sailors) is run by an eccentric Italian called Francisco, who is passionate about his history and we enjoyed his stories of the battles.
We took the opportunity to visit all the forts in the bay. One of the forts is built on three levels, one at the beach, one on an escarpment further up the hill and the last on top of the hill. It was a tough climb in the heat of the day, but well worth the effort. We could hear the howler monkeys in the trees all around us as we climbed through the forest. Check out the huge spiders!
On another day we took a trip with our friends Donna and Mark into the rivers and mangroves at the end of the bay which were beautiful. We even saw some monkeys in the trees at the side of the river. A very special unspoilt place.
Well the time is approaching for us to go through the Panama Canal in to the Pacific! A few days ago we left Portobello for the short sail to Colon and the entrance to the canal. We are currently anchored in the flats outside the entrance. We took a trip to Colon to start the provisioning for our trip across the Pacific. Oh and it seems that on that trip in to the mangroves, something got me good on my right leg, which is currently swollen up like a balloon! The doctor in Colon said it was nothing to worry about, and gave me some cream. Fingers crossed!
Finally, have you wondered what it is like to be anchored in a boat next to the jungle? Well watch the video below taken by our friend Donna very early in the morning. They were anchored right next to us at the time. Enjoy!
So join us next time as we transit the canal, and drop anchor in the Pacific!!