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The cruising adventures of Sid and Manuela

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

SAN BLAS




We left Puerto Lindo at 7 am on the 8th of November 2014. There wasn’t much of wind but the sun was out and the seas where calm and we motor sailed the 42 miles to Chichime and arrived at 14:00. The trip was uneventful except the dinghy davits let go, but it was an immediate and easy fix.

There were 20 boats in the anchorage and enough space for us to find a prime spot right in front of Gabydup, which was nice to see that they cleaned it up and don’t use it for garbage burning anymore. Although it seems the island is slowly disappearing and is only 1/3 of the size it was when Gaby was here three years ago. My first swim in the pristine clear water was such a treat.


Unfortunately the wind picked up to 25 knots out of the West during the first night and continued for 3 solid days turning this otherwise calm and protected anchorage into a lumpy mess. Some occasional squall hit with higher winds and of course in such an occasion a catamaran had just anchored in front of us and was less than a boat length away from us. It was a close call but do you think he got the drift, absolutely not; he just stayed where he was. So that didn’t help with a restful sleep.
Approaching storm (view to the West)
View to the East
It was nice to see that the veggie guy comes now to Chichime; he had a good array of fresh veggies, eggs and even beer and cuba libres. Why did I provision?!!
Plus the Kuna fishermen deliver Centoyo, monster crab and lobster

I was hoping to see the old Kuna lady “Sipu” and her son Carlito but found out they are at this time in Carti. I had presents for her that are taking up rather a lot of space in the V-Berth, oh well, guess have to wait a couple months to unload them.
The relatives that replaced them on the island are rather unfriendly and pushy and wanted her presents for them. Now that we found out Sipu was not here we decided it was time to leave the lumpy anchorage for the East Lemons where the next Kuna family lives we had presents for.

What a treat it was to anchor in the calm water off Nuinidup Island in the East Lemons. But what an eye sore to see this ugly power boat with hippy paintings on both side sitting in front of this beautiful little island. Finding out that it is Dennis’s boat from Portobelo, just as much of a wreck as his catamaran in Portobelo that ended in pieces ashore after a storm. A guy on Susanne Carolina is taking care of this wreck and needs to pump out water twice a day with 2 Honda gas water pumps or the boat would sink. What an eye sore this boat is.

The second morning in the anchorage around 6 am Sid listened to some guy yelling at a woman cowering on the foredeck and throwing stuff at her.  Then she got up to get into the boat, but he grabbed her and threw her overboard. She swam around the boat to the dinghy climbed into dinghy and got back on boat and he came charging after her with something in his hand, (couldn’t tell what it was), she went down below he followed, heard him screaming and yelling. She came back up into cockpit and you could see cloths being thrown in to the cockpit by him. This was during a period of 2 hours so the story has been condensed. Several times he pushed her into the water and her climbing back out. Finally she put something in the mouth and jumped in the water and headed towards a neighbors catamaran. He jumped into his dinghy and chased her down and tried to maneuver her back to the boat, hitting her several times in the head with the dinghy. She got away from him by yelling and screaming and getting attention from the neighbor boat and they took her on board. We later talked to her and found out that she met him here on her way from Cartagena to Panama and he offered her a business opportunity on his boat. She had already started a website for their tourist business and was barely two days on the boat when she realized he was crazy. She was packing her stuff and he started attacking her.  The reason she kept climbing back on board she wanted to get her passport, that’s what she had between her teeth when jumping in the water. She had a horrible headache as he beat her up with whatever he could find inside the boat even a frying pan. She said that she would press charges so Sid offered to be a witness. The catamaran owners told us that this guy had done this to their friend a month back, also female. But of course they were not interested in helping her with the police. The friendly Kuna family with a 3 year old boy living on the island witnessed the ordeal as well. They were pretty traumatized by it and scared and want this guy gone, so he called the congress. Unfortunately no police ever showed up and the guy got away with almost murder. The victim also said that she knows now how victims in this situation feel and she said that she was trained in self-defense but that she had no chance against this lunatic, she was pretty upset about that.

On the 11th of November we celebrated the 37th Birthday of Paradise, wow Sid’s been living on the boat for 37 years. For me it’s been 27, half of my life time.
Paradise is home and as often as we talk what we would buy if we won the lottery, which we don’t play by the way, we come up with the same answer each time we would build Paradise into a 42 foot new boat.

Almost every day a veggie boat came by which is really great to know I don’t have to provision too many veggies when coming to the San Blas. I have never had so much spoilage in veggies and dry goods as here in Panama. The humidity attacks everything. A pan cake package I had bought just a week prior was already moldy inside out. I have to go through the boat once a week to check on what has spoiled, even though all the packages I store in zip lock bags or even vacuum packed. 

Why do bananas go all at once? I never figured that one out. I had 10 bananas over ripe and realized I had not one banana bread recipe. Thank goodness for What’sApp and the gourmet group we Diva’s have created, within 3 minutes I had more recipes to know what to do with and Sid thoroughly enjoyed the yummy Banana bread recipe I chose.

It was a huge disappointment to find out that the friendly Kuna family with the two kids was not here anymore, and it was more disappointing to find out that they will never return to the island as this island now belongs to a distant cousin who took it over. I have so many presents for her and especially for her kids. Guess we have to find out where on the Robeson’s islands they live and deliver the presents.

Although clam in the anchorage we had daily squalls with nasty winds. The third night in the anchorage a huge thunderstorm headed out way and as it closed in it became more intense and then kabooom, kaboom and again and again. This lasted about 10 minutes before it was over with, but unfortunately there was a direct hit to a boat and 4 others with side strikes. Morgan was about 200 feet from us and Sharda told me she was just coming out of the door to her cockpit on their catamaran when a bolt hit right behind her boat, sending her right back into the door. Dave had just installed an electronic battery monitoring device he proudly showed to Sid the prior day that was now toast. Luckily we were spared of any damage. I have never heard of so many boats getting damage all in one thunderstorm.

After the rains it was so clear you can see the mainland
 
Nuinidup Island



The weather gave us a break during the night of the Leonide Meteor shower that was pretty awesome. We strung the hammocks out and even fell asleep in them.
Beautiful rainbow in cloud above boats

Yummy cocktails for
a gorgeous Sunset
 
Bath time after rain filled dinghy with water

On the 18th of November we received sad news of Binnie’s passing. She had battled complications from lung cancer since June and had been in Boston since May in intensive care. She was a great lady and we feel so fortunate she had asked us to move into her little house to be a presents on her property. We started a friendship beyond friendships with her. She insisted numerous times for us to invite our families and friends. I can never thank her enough for that as both my brother’s family came for a fun visit. Binnie was a good friend and a very generous person to everybody knowing her. She will be dearly missed. Summer Place was always an open house for all cruisers as Binnie loved company and loved to share her home, the void will be felt by all cruisers who knew her.



For thanksgiving we moved to the Hollandays Keys, which is probably the best part of the San Blas. The water here is always clear, filled with an abundance of sea life. 
The weather was still sending us squalls with winds up to 30 knots but the rain was less frequent and the sun came out on some days.
We found a good anchor spot but abandoned it a couple hours later as we got eaten up by no-see-ums had, guess we were just a bit too close to Bug Island. What part of BUG ISLAND did we not understand?

BBQ Island
Sharda and Dave on Morgan invited us amongst some other boats for Thanksgiving on their boat. I offered to make Tipsy Sweet Potatoes but realized I did not have any Marshmallows. Now what? Well, just made your own. That was a very interesting process and I encourage anybody to try to make them. It’s really fun and oh they taste sooooo yummy.
Looked a little weird but flavor was incredible


The dinner was wonderful and Sharda went all out to decorate the two tables as elegant as she could. The boys were sitting outside since they talk boat parts and the girls inside she decided. It was wonderful.

The boys table

The girls table
The Turkey 
The hosts Sharda and Dave

In our new anchor spot we were sitting with about2 feet of water under the keel and the view of the ocean’s bottom was incredible, looked like the surface of the moon with craters and all. Occasional rays, spotted eagle rays, conch, nurse shark, trigger fish and other fish swam by and squid were hanging around the chain. It was too inviting not to hang out underwater light and each time we enjoy the sea life swimming towards the light again and again. After the light show we would retire to our hammock and watch shooting stars until our eyelids got too heavy and we dozed off into a peaceful sleep. Until of course the rain of yet another squall rudely awakened us.
Ain’t life great?!!!

Ray with cleaning fish

Spotted eagle ray
 

Everybody here agreed that the weather this year is rather unusual. Nobody has ever seen so many squalls with heavy winds at this time of the year. Ortiz, one of the veggie guys told us the weather had been so bad in the last week that 4 boats were sunk. 3 cruising boats and one vegetable boat from Colombia, wow not to mention the German boat the sank a week prior.
30 knots of squall and Infinity was still kyte surfing
 
This was a good blow

Rare to see mainland from the Swimming Pool, only after heavy rains



Michele on Reach does yoga every day on BBQ Island and she invited me to join her and Sharda. I am getting the hang of it now and I am doing yoga every day on the beach. What more beautiful place can you find for yoga in the breeze under coconut palms with the breaking reef in the background?  Tranquillo I’m telling you!!!

It's always fun to explore the islands, go fishing, or claming and the snorkeling is just awesome here. 


 




 




Unfortunately some boaters leave trash on the islands




Beach treasures

My favorite beach treasures steamer clams
Owen caught a fish almost as big as his wife Betty
Well almost








Nurse shark

 





Paradise

Eileen Ferrell a huge old commercial boat owned now by Joyce and Lorenzo organized once a week a party on their boat. The first was Spaghetti feast. Everybody had to bring a sauce for the spaghetti; they provided the pasta, what fun. The second one it was Pizza night, everybody had to bring toppings, wow what delicious pizzas. One surprised me with just kernel corn and crab meat, wow.



And of course we organized a Noodeling Party behind Paradise, what fun:

Filled with Rum Punch
 

 





 

Time goes by fast and we realized we are slowly running out of diesel keeping the batteries filled, besides the veggie boat hadn’t shown up for 2 weeks due to the wind and everybody here was pretty much out of fresh produce so I took an order and we pulled anchor and were underway towards Nargana with an overnight stop at the West Cocos. Since high winds were in the forecast again we decided to cut the Cocos short to one night and just provision in Nargana and head back to the Hollandays for Christmas before the weather turned on us.

It’s been 13 years since we were in Nargana last and it was great to see Frederico again, the Kuna guy who greeted us 13 years ago, letting cruisers keep the dinghy in front of his hut and him taking us around the island showing us where the best buys were. He’s still doing the same and when he saw Sid’s mustache a big smile was in his face as he recognized us.  
He helped us find Argentina, the Kuna lady and her husband who lived on BBQ Island 3 years ago when my cousin Gaby visited us from Norway. After her vacation with us the Norwegian News Paper interviewed her, they thought it was amazing how she went to Panama alone and sailed on a sailboat to the remote San Blas islands to meet the Kuna Indians and they wrote a two page story on her vacation. The photo in the middle shows her in the middle with Argentina and her husband with Gaby. Unfortunately Argentina was not on the island either but Frederico introduced us to her sister and I presented her the news paper clip. She was so happy and said she would hold on to it until her sister came back. Guess we will see Argentina on our next visit to Nargana.


Nargana is pretty much the same as we left it but we found it a lot cleaner then last time, although the waterfront is still as littered with trash as it was then. Some of their waterfront backyards reminded me of Redneck yards. There are quite a few more stores and numerous restaurants in Nargana now. We also saw the police at its best; they arrested two young guys and a girl for drugs. They sat outside in front of the congress building shackled up in the blistering heat for hours.

Nargana

Anchorage



Building a new wall between bedroom and living room
Kuna Christmas Tree made out of soda bottle caps and grocery bags


We realized that we needed a new survey for our insurance renewal in February so when bad weather was predicted for at least 2 weeks we decided to cut our San Blas time short and head back to Puerto Lindo to celebrate the Holidays there. 
Spent the night in Chichime:




Kuna fishermen
We had a good motor sail back, did 8 knots at times. It was two days before Xmas and we knew everybody we knew in Puerto Lindo had their Xmas plans and we did not want to interfere with their plans so we decided to bypass Puerto Lindo and head to Portobelo instead where we knew that Anita’s neighbor Fayne was going to be alone.

 We had a wonderful Christmas with her and the other neighbor’s employee Dario also alone joined us. Can you imagine ham and turkey for 4 people; we had so much left over I don’t want to see food for a long time.
For Christmas Eve appetizers and cocktails

Escargots, Green Chili Dip, Pineapple and Poo Poo Platter

Fayne


Dario

Lots of food for just the 4 of us. Ham



Merry Xmas
Well that changed when New Year’s Eve approached. I made enough poo poos to last for two days. We played games until 3 am. Of course did the midnight Happy New Year toast. It was a fun time.

We did a sewer tour through the Portobelo harbor again. Yes it's a sewer tour, the boats are getting worse and more are sunk.

Do you think the pink ribbons will keep the birds away?





The other boat of Dennis, on the bottom, can't sink anymore


We are glad we made the decision to come back early, every since we left the wind has been blowing like snot and the waves in the middle between here and Cuba today the 3rd of January are 16 to 20 feet. A gale with 50 knots of wind is blowing off the northern coast of Colombia. There is 30 knots of wind from San Blas to Cuba. Where we are the waves are 10 to 13 feet, hope they subside by the 8th when we head to the Shelter Bay Yard.


Hope you had a wonderful Holiday season and we wish you nothing but the best for 2015. Cheers
Look at this beautiful moth that spent the night with us

Of course food wise we really suffered

Beer butt chicken


Tuna 3 ways with seaweed salad

Marinated Eggplant
 


Lasagna


Escargots
My newest Molas


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