Chichime, San Blas

Riding the bus into town is really a hoot. It is an old school bus painted with fun graffiti, the inside is also all decked out. Above the front window is always a mirror the width of the bus, for him to see how many seats are still open, is surrounded with colored feathers. Pink feathers seem to be their favorite. Of course the busses are very, very old and not sure how well they are maintained. When they step on the brakes they have to pump them while they squeal like crazy, worse than running your fingernail on a chalk board.
When all the seats are taken they stuff everybody into the bus like in a sardine can and who does not fit hangs outside by the door. The bus was so full before I knew it I had a baby on my lap and a broom in my hand.

Ever since we arrived in Portobelo it's been nothing but rain, rain, rain and rain again with occasional thunder and lightning. Our neighbor got hit and was pretty lucky he only lost his VHF radio and GPS. Later when we finally left Portobello we noticed that our radar was not working proper anymore possibly due to the lightning strike to our neighbor. By the way I have to add that the 10 boats we know having been hit by lightning all except one had a brush (static disapator) on top of the mast, our neighbor did too. I guess from now on we will have to check our neighbors first if hey have a brush on the mast and if so anchor way away from them.

Gaby is having a wonderful time and Sid and I decided that we will keep her on the boat, she did a wonderful job cleaning the water line and I don't have to do any dishes anymore. After she had settled in and was used a little more of the motion of the boat we pulled anchor and left for the San Blas. The sea was calm there was not a breath of air so we knew we had to motor. As soon as we headed out of the bay and turned right the sea state changed. Huge (6 to 7)rollers fortunately far apart and a backwash from the shore turned it a bit too rough for poor Gaby. We assured her that green looked really good on her. We never had enough wind to sail but it was enough to motor sail until halfway when the engine over heated (hose clamp came off and ½ the antifreeze spewed out). As luck would have it, at the same time the wind started to pick up, we pulled all the sails out and in no time we were sailing 5 to 5.5 knots. It took our mechanic Sid about 15 minutes to fix the problem then we waited a little over an hour for the engine to cool as the wind died down again and we started the motor for the last 18 miles to Chichime in the San Blas. We watched as several clouds ashore started to rain and one started to follow us just about when we started up the engine again and we out ran it. But arriving in Chichime a huge system hung over there and poor Sid had to drop the anchor in heavy rain. We were not anchored 5 minutes when the first ulu (Kuna dug out) stopped to sell us molas. I told them to come back the next day. Early enough they knocked on the boat and we all had fun haggling with them for a few molas, a stuffed parrot and we even traded for reading glasses and big jars of glass beads.