Last time we left you on Xmas day in the stunning Islas Pinos. This time we will travel a little further in to the Kuna Yana or the San Blas islands and tell you about our adventures.
We spent a couple more days in Islas Pinos and then decided to move North to a place called Bahia Masagandi. We had a lovely sail taking a long tack out from the island and a close reach took us past a real stereotypical desert island, called Iguana Island stuck out in the shallow reefs.
We had to keep one eye on the intermittent depth sounder, when it worked the depths alarmingly jumped from a safe 17m or so to patches of only 6 metres under the keel. We had to rely on the Bauhaus charts again here, because our CMAP charts were still only a crude blocky representation of the land with no depth soundings at all. Sailing in the San Blas has been wonderful so far. Force 4 winds whisk you across the boystrous seas that sparkle in the sunshine and change colour from deep menacing black through to azure blues depending on the bottom you are crossing.
Eventually we reached the headland guarding the entrance to Masargandi and headed more downwind through a narrow channel between two islands. Reefs showed themselves on either side of us with breaking white waves. We turned in to a wide open beautiful bay with mountains on one side covered in thick impenetrable rainforest and jungle.
Eventually the wind died and on came the engine for the (easy?) approach in to the Bay. I was following what looked like a 15m deep channel on the chart quite relaxed when there is a monstrous bang and Azimuth lurched a shook for a second and slowed markedly! Looking over the side, we saw the ominous light blue colour of a coral head. We had grounded! Arghh! Azimuth still had forward momentum and no sooner had the coral head shown itself than it disappeared in to a dark blue colour. Talk about a wake up call! Engine revs immediately to zero while we flapped about looking overboard for the sign of other coral head nasties. We wavered around, but nothing else was to be seen.
Our track to our anchorage whilst very slow was uneventful and we dropped the hook in 10metres. For the entire time, our depth sounder had failed to work! Oh well it’s a fickle beast, and I guess the next time we have Azimuth pulled out of the water, I will do something about fitting a new one.
We got on the radio and let our other two buddy boats Sirena and Coral Moon know about the position of the rock, so they would be able to take avoiding action. I got the hookah out straight away and dived the keel to survey the damage. I am glad to report that apart from the removal of the anti-foul and a foot long white stripe along the starboard side of the front of the keel, there was no other damage. A lucky escape indeed.
Having satisfied myself that Azimuth would live another day, the adrenaline subsided, the heavens opened, our friends arrived and we looked out the windows at the beauty and remoteness of Masargandi.
That afternoon, Mark and Donna on Coral moon invited us out on a dinghy expedition to explore the mangroves at the bottom of the bay. What a special place, we motored our dinghies through the warren of mangroves that closed in to narrow passages and opened out in wide open bays. Birds took off from the bushes as we disturbed them. Not a crocodile in sight though.
We had a couple of nights enjoying the peace and tranquillity of this place and stayed another night on our own after our friends had left.
New Years eve arrived and we had agreed to meet with the other cruisers at a place called Mamatipu for the celebration together. We set sail, very carefully avoiding “Azimuth Rock” which I had marked with a skull and crossbones on my chart plotter! Another exhilarating close hold whisked us along the cost to a small island covered in huts and a very pretty azure blue bay full of people in dug out canoes. Mamatipu is a very traditional Kuna Indian village, and after we arrived, all the cruisers were invited to meet the village chief and hear the “ground rules” for our visit to their island.
We also met Pablo for the first time. Pablo speaks very good English, because he had actually lived in the UK for 6 years where he was married to an English woman he had met in Panama. She had arrived on a yacht. Pablo explains that he was expelled from the village when he requested that he wanted to marry this woman. Kuna tradition expressly forbids relationships with foreigners. So he was forced to leave. In the end it didn’t work out for Pablo in the UK and he eventually returned to his home village and married a Kuna woman.
So that afternoon, Pablo took us on a tour of the village and we realised how densely populated it was for an island that is about a mile square. 400 adults and 1200 children lived in thatched huts. In the centre of the village was a huge thatched hut called the “Congresso” where it was mandatory for everyone to meet everyday. We got such a warm welcome from everyone and were surrounded by kids pointing at us and saying ‘grande’ (tall), all of us blokes were over 6 feet tall, and stood at least a head over the tallest Kuna Indian.
We were eventually directed to the chiefs hut and sat at a table outside. We shook hands with the chief and then his aide explained about the community in near perfect English, and talked about the celebrations that were happening over the next few days. He invited us to make a donation to the celebration which we all did, and the chief gave us his blessing and explained that we were free to roam the village and would be safe.
Pablo invited us to celebrate New Year with him and his wife in his compound next to the beach. He arranged for cold beer to be delivered and a fisherman supplied 10 lobsters, octopus and conch shells for a meal. We arrived that evening bearing stuff for the party. Lights were placed around the hut and tables set up. Pablo and a couple of the cruisers got a fire going using coconut husks as kindling and Pablo built a cooking frame from bits of metal salvaged from an old satellite dish!
It was a beautiful evening. A strong breeze blew across the beach and the sky was lit up by the stars. The beer was flowing freely. It took an hour or so to cook all the food and set up a long table where we all sat and had a delicious meal of lobster with side dishes that we had all bought from the boats. What a place to celebrate! I for my part had bought my guitar and songbook from the boat, and after a few more beers demands were made to get the guitar out! Ailsa and I sang our hearts out and everyone sang along, much to the amusement of Pablo and his wife. It was a lot of fun. The time flew by, we had celebrated UK new year and the Dutch new year already earlier that evening and now we celebrated Kuna New year at midnight.
Pablo announced it was time for us to go in to the village and see everyone. He told me to bring my guitar too. What a crazy experience was to follow. We were all pretty drunk, and I have never felt so welcome. Everyone in the village was out partying from the babies up to the village elders as we wound our way through the narrow streets with shouts from and to everyone of “Feliz Ano”! Pablo stopped at a hut where a bunch of elder guys were sat. He pulled up a chair for me and said play us a song! So I got the guitar out. A huge crowd appeared as we started “Jackson” by Johnny Cash. It was definitely not my best rendition but none the less a huge cheer went up a the end and demands were made for another song. We complied with a number by 4 non blondes with the cruisers singing along. Hand on heart I claim this as the strangest gig I have ever played! I think I shook everyone’s hand to shouts of Feliz Ano. It took at least an hour to go round the whole village, and it will be an experience I wont forget for a long time.
We got back to the boat at 2am. That’s incredibly late for us! Cruisers bedtime is normally around 9pm! Ailsa had a small incident getting back to the boat, she did what we affectionately call a ‘Jane’ one foot on the beach and one foot in a moving dinghy resulted in an almost complete fully clothed immersion in the sea. At least its warm here!
The next day was a very slow one. Much moping around. Been a while since we had a hangover. Our Dutch friends on Sirena arrived that evening with a huge bowl of Lobster Bisque that Linda had made from all the lobster shells that was delicious. Thanks Linda!
A day to recover and we were off again working our way further up the coast towards the Colon. It was another exhilarating sail, weaving through tight passages between small islands and reefs and past more Kuna villages. We arrived at Golondrina Bay, so called because in the guide book, it claimed the bay was full of Golondrina birds a local type of smallish heron. It was a nice anchorage with a very narrow entrance, and we took the dinghy out to explore. The bay was lined with mangroves, and we did see a few of the birds.
We decided to move on again the next day and headed through another narrow passage between reefs out in to the open ocean. A fantastic sail whisked us up the coast through more reefs until we arrived at a magical desert island anchorage at the isle of Aridup.
Aridup was surrounded by a boisterous reef and other satellite islands. The anchorage was roly, but we decided to give it a go, just because it was so spectacular. That afternoon we headed in towards the small strip of beach near the anchorage in the dinghy. We quickly had to do a u-turn as it shallowed up to a wall of reef. It seemed impenetrable, so we motored in the deeper water offshore and eventually made our way in to another bay and rowed the last section to a beautiful unspoilt beach.
The pelicans were swooping across the bay and diving in to catch fish. The sea was lightly lapping the shore and the breeze was blowing through the coconut palms. Truly a magical place.
We got a visit from some guys in a canoe and they sold us a fish for tea. Another guy sold us some coconuts. This really is an amazing place to visit by boat.
The next day I dusted off the snorkelling gear and headed out over the reef for some of the best snorkelling I have seen since leaving the UK.
It was still roly though! Our friends on Coral Moon, Donna and Mark had moved to another place very close to us called Snug Habour, so after two nights of rolling outside Aridup, we pulled up the hook and headed the 2.5 miles to Snug Harbour and a meetup.
Another amazing anchorage awaited. This one a huge flat lagoon surrounded by several small islands and reefs. Apparently this harbour had been used by boats for hundreds of years trading for coconuts. We ended up spending 4 nights here, just relaxing, and enjoying a few drinks with our neighbours on Coral Moon.
More fish was had this time traded for beer! A boat load of fisherman turned up who looked like they had already had one beer to many, but they were happy to trade 3 beers for a couple of delicious red snapper. A bargain in our opinion!
We moved on again a few days later. The wind had been quite strong for a couple of days and the sea outside the reef was rough but then the wind dropped and the sea state settled a bit. We set off and after an attempt to sail in no wind, eventually turned on the engine for a 15 mile passage to Farewell Island. We dropped the hook just off a desert island with a long sandy spit off one end. We took the dinghy into shore to go and investigate.
Another amazing place all to ourselves. We were able to walk out several hundred metres along the spit and still the water was only up to my waist. A really spectacular place.
After one night on our own at Farewell Island, we moved on again to a small group of Islands called Sabudopored. Now we had arrived at the edge of the central San Blas islands where all the cruisers hang out. It feels strange to be sharing an anchorage with lots of other boats. At least there is loads of room. Mark and Donna on Coral Moon are anchored next to us, and we have been taking dinghy rides out to the islands around us. The other day we had a picnic together on the beach! This place truly is paradise!
Join us next time as we explore some more of the San Blas Islands and work our way towards Colon. We will going through the Panama Canal on the 23rd February!