1/29/02 | Into the San Blas islands of Panama

The weather didn't exactly get better, but it did let up enough for us to decide we ought to get going while the going was, if not good, at least adequate. According to reports we heard, close in to the coast the seas had moderated to 7-10 feet, although well offshore it was still blowing 25-30 and piling up monster waves. With about 130 miles to the Panama coast, we opted to leave Isla Tintipan around noon; we arrived at Puerto Escosés a little after 9 in the morning, after a mostly uneventful overnight passage.

We had expected to be sailing downwind, but the wind was pretty much right out of the north, so on our southwest course we had a nice broad reach, a fast sail but somewhat bouncy as the waves built. We had two big strikes on our lines, both of which ran out entirely before we managed to slow the boat; a little while later, we got a small strike and Britt reeled in a little tunny, which we earmarked for dinner, and right around sunset we got another huge strike. We gave this one to Kevin to reel in, and he worked hard but excitedly for fifteen minutes as we slowed the boat. It turned out to be a sailfish, similar to a marlin but with a much bigger dorsal fin, so we released it when Kevin finally got it up to the boat.

Having three people on board for an overnight worked out well; we all got a little more sleep, or at least more rest, since sleeping on a roller-coaster is a little tough. None of us got sick, though, or even scared -- until we got to the entrance at Puerto Escosés. Here, 10-foot rollers piled up as the bottom shoaled, turning to towering haystacks which crashed white spume against the rocky shore. Somewhere out there was Roca Escosés, an exposed rock about half a mile north of our route; other walls of water hid breaking shoals, deep enough for our draft in calm conditions but dangerous in this maelstrom. As our charts for this area are neither precise nor particularly accurate (other than the guidebook chartlet) we strained our eyeballs trying to discern the safest path, and we were soon past the scary stuff and into the relative protection of the bay inside.

A few small rollers still slid down the bay, but we anchored in the lee of a tiny island, a rock really, with several palm-frond huts on it. On the shore nearby were more huts, a small village of them, but they all appeared empty. After a morning nap and a light lunch, we dinked over to explore. The village was deserted but not abandoned; we could see evidence of recent habitation, and the land behind was extensively cultivated with bananas and coconuts. While we explored, we saw a local sailing canoe slice expertly through the big waves near the entrance, and after it landed we walked over to introduce ourselves to the occupants.

The San Blas islands are a semi-autonomous area of Panama, the home of the indigenous Kuna people. The Kuna raise fruits and vegetables for consumption and sale (apparently they sell and trade coconuts to the Colombians), and they fish from their canoes which they sail downwind and paddle upwind. The canoe we saw had a young and very attractive couple in it, with their baby, and a young man of 13 years who was probably a relative. They giggled and chatted with us in Spanish -- a second language for the Kuna, who speak their own language, but the children learn it in school -- and assured us it was no problem for us to walk around the village which was used only for living in while farming the area. They were from the town of Muletupu, about six hours to the north by motorboat.

Puerto Escosés was not the best of anchorages, so the following morning we nerved ourselves for the six-mile run to Suletupu. Nerves were required since we had to cross the entrance we arrived through, which still had huge rollers sliding through. We hoisted a little mainsail to help with our stability, and motorsailed through the big waves which hit us broadside. Fortunately none of them were breaking, or big enough to knock us down, but it was sort of spooky. We clearly saw Roca Escosés from this perspective, from the back, but it was easy to steer a safe course in 70 feet of water all the way to where we began to get the protection of offlying islands. (And the family we had met had done this in a tiny sailing canoe!  With a baby!)

Suletupu is one of these islands, a rocky mountain nearly 500 feet high, covered with coconut, breadfruit, and other crops farmed by the people of the nearby village of Caledonia. (From the name of this town, and also from the name Escosés, Spanish for "Scottish", a bit of local history can be inferred: in 1698 a group of Scotsmen attempted to colonize the area, failing miserably.) Our guidebook described a basin next to Suletupu as a peaceful and isolated anchorage, and we could see as we looked over that it was perfectly flat and calm despite the waves raging to either side of Suletupu. Getting in took a bit of effort, as the channel between coral shoals was difficult to see in the not-very-clear water, and on our first attempt we chose the wrong path -- when the depthsounder hit 6 feet, I hit reverse, and we managed to back off without literally hitting anything at all. Then the sun magically appeared for a brief moment, and we saw the correct channel; soon we were inside and anchored.

We were the only yacht in the anchorage, but we were not alone. Neither were we mobbed, fortunately, but a few visitors drifted by in canoes. First came an unsmiling young teen named Mandi, with his 4-year-old brother, Aguilardo, who hung on our side and answered briefly our attempts at conversation. Then a man in his twenties or so, who tried to sell us an obviously used pair of woman's shorts, a very nice embroidered mola-type set but quite faded. The price quickly dropped from $20, to $10, to four beers (he asked hopefully if we had "Cerveza Mee-woa-kee") but we were not really interested, so we gave him an old Cruising World magazine and took his picture. Kevin was still practicing his Spanish with the boy on the other side, and when he saw the transaction he also asked for a magazine. We gave him one, and told him that if he had some coconuts we would like one in exchange. He slipped off and returned later with a canoeful, of which we happily took three. Later a trio of boys a bit younger than Mandi showed up to visit. Their examination of our boat led us to realize we were still flying the Colombian courtesy flag, so we pressed them into service to help us raise the Panamanian flag to our starboard spreader.

A representative of Caledonia's sahila (headman, pronounced "sila") (we think -- we might have been ripped off by someone only pretending to be an official) came to collect a $5 fee. These fees are common all over the San Blas, and the man explained that after paying we could visit the beaches, go fishing, see the village and take photos there, and so on. We asked him if there was a place in the village we could leave trash, and he looked astonished. "Right here!" he said, gesturing to the water behind our boat. "We don't leave our trash in the village, we throw it in the sea, of course." I guess we should have expected this, but it's still weird to run smack up against cultural differences. (We will continue to burn our burnables, throw our glass and cans only into deep water, and hang on to everything else until we hit a real city.) We also discovered just how off the beaten path we are, when we asked how many yachts visit this area. "Oh, many, many!" But Caledonia is in the far east of the San Blas, and most cruisers go directly to the islands much further west, so we questioned him further. "Many yachts from many countries visit. The last one was only, let's see. November, I think. A yacht from Germany."

Not long before dusk, we had another group of visitors: three representatives of the Panamanian Navy, in a large inflatable with a big outboard. (We were happy we'd raised the correct flag earlier that day!) They conducted a brief and courteous check of our passports, paperwork, and equipment, accepted drinks of ginger fizz, and welcomed us to their country, a little more officially but no less warmly than the Kuna. A few days later, when we visited the village, they invited us to see their 82-foot patrol boat. It was a former American Navy craft, and the senior officer had been aboard when they brought it back to Panama from Norfolk three years ago. He told us they spent 20 days in Virginia, then went to Panama via Miami, Key West, Cozumel, and the Colombian island of San Andrés. The Panamanian officers stationed at Caledonia switch out each month, and this turned out to be the appointed day to leave; later that day we saw their boat steaming down the channel, underway to Colon.

As in fact, we were. We were a little suspicious because the receipt he gave us had already been filled out, with the date January 22. The next day he returned, saying that we needed to pay another $15 to enter the village -- the $5 was only for the area around the anchorage. Our suspicions deepened, and we argued that he had told us it was for the village, that when we visited the village we would discuss the fee with the sahila. It so happened that when he came back we had a Kuna family aboard, and the father, Julio, came out to discuss the situation and help translate. Julio suggested that there might be a problem and that when we visited the village and paid a ceremonial visit to the sahila, we should mention it. He also said that there would be a congreso -- a town meeting -- that night. The following day, we showed our receipt to the sahila, and he accepted it as proof that we had paid. But when we talked with Julio, he said that at the congreso the sahila had asked for whoever had collected the fee to identify himself, that nobody did, but later he, Julio, had privately told the sahila who it was. That evening, a big canoe with an outboard showed up, with seven men aboard including the culprit, in the middle. I guess it was the local version of a police line-up, because the man in the bow asked to examine the receipt and then requested that we identify the man who gave it to us. We did, of course, and the man who had taken our money looked visibly worried when we did. The man in the bow smiled, returned the receipt, told us everything was okay now, and they zoomed off, presumably to administer whatever punishment was applicable -- at least to retrieve their money! [back]