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.
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| Approaching storm (view to the West) |
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| 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?!!
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| 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.
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| After the rains it was so clear you can see the mainland |
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| 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.
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?
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| 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.
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| 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.
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?!!!
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| Ray with cleaning fish |
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| 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.
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| 30 knots of squall and Infinity was still kyte surfing |
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| This was a good blow |
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| 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.
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| Unfortunately some boaters leave trash on the islands |
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| Beach treasures |
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| My favorite beach treasures steamer clams |
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| Owen caught a fish almost as big as his wife Betty |
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| Well almost |
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| Nurse shark |
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| 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:
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| 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.
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.
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.
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| Do you think the pink ribbons will keep the birds away? |
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| 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.
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