The trip from Chichime to the Lemon Cays was very short, only a few miles with light wind and I didn’t even bother with the main sail only flying the Genoa part of the way. The entrance caused me a bit of grief since the charts in my Panama Cruising Guide did not completely agree with the paper charts. No harm done but I did abandon my approach twice since I was expecting closer to 60 feet of water under the keel yet I only had 10 feet or so. I just motored VERY slowly hoping not to bump into the reef that I could clearly see looking over the side. That’s one down side to single handing, you can’t put a look-out person on the bow to alert you of visible obstructions or to point you towards the deeper water. Once I crossed the reef there was plenty of water in the anchorage, almost too much! The anchorage is between a few islands with a very deep hole in the middle, over 50 feet if I recall correctly, with a few eight to ten feet deep areas near the islands, not really an accommodating place if you have more than three or four boats in my opinion. I decided the safest place was in ten feet of water over 150 feet from another boat. After an hour or so the other captain came over is his dinghy and told me I was too close, that was the first time I’ve had that told to me ever even though I have seen plenty of cruisers complaining about it to others. Stupid thing is that we were not very close but this guy decided he needed 300 feet of chain anchored in only 10 feet of water giving him a 600 feet swing, so in fact with the ground tackle he ignorantly chose to deploy I was too close, but it just seems awfully rude to me, putting out well over three times maximum chain needed and taking up half of the anchorage, and unnecessarily damaging coral heads as he swings on his chain.

The lemon Cays had an interesting looking little restaurant and hotel (huts) that I never checked out since I was trying to save money. It was small and secluded and the only customers I saw were ferried in on a small launch presumably from a nearby island. Since I was only here for two days I didn’t do as much snorkeling or walking on the islands. I spent one full day attempting to spearfish on a very nice reef. Once again the best spots always seems to be cuts in a long reef where you can snorkel inside the protection of the reef or swim out through the cut into very deep water. I even took a shot at very large barracuda (and missed of course), I think finally after swimming with them for a month I’m no longer nervous around them, even the ones that are five feet long or so.

I also bought my first Mola here from a Kuna Indian, they are decorative hand-sewn cloths, see my pictures. After two days I moved again, this time to the more popular West Lemon Cays again only a few uneventful miles away. The West Lemon Cays anchorage had a lot more space, probably 15 boats could squeeze in even though there were only five to eight boats at a time during the few days I was there. Unfortunately I can’t recall the snorkeling so it must have been ok, but I probably didn’t find the best spots. What I do remember was that there was good fishing right from the boat, as long as you were willing to stay up at night to land the fish, the first night I caught two nice size Yellow Snappers? And two other large pan fish.

The West Lemon Cays had Kuna Venders in their little dugout canoes (ulus) just as aggressive as in Chichime, at one point I saw at least four Kuna boats together close in upon a large sailboat as they were anchoring, all competing to sell their Molas, fish, and lobster. One nice thing about the East Lemon Cays is that there is a very little store (a hut about the size of a typical bedroom) with only the most basic canned goods, oil, rice, potatoes, booze, etc. I didn’t need anything and it wasn’t very cheap however they also sell fresh baked ‘Kuna Bread” that look like little foot long baguettes for something like 15 cents a piece, very good when it’s fresh.

While I was there I heard over the Cruiser Radio SSB net that one sailboat in a neighboring island group had lost a dinghy and motor over night. Only a few days later I saw a Kuna transport boat pull into my area with an inflatable dinghy! After one VHF relay I was able to contact the owner and establish that it was indeed hers so I rowed over to talk to the Kuna who found it while making his daily runs transporting fuel from the mainland out to a small island, he agreed to wait a few hours while the cruiser sailed over to pick up the dinghy, they negotiated a $100 reward for finding it. Unfortunately I suspect the motor will never be found. From what I’ve heard from most people is that theft and crime is very rare in San Blas and Kuna Yala, but I suppose a dinghy left in the water with a new 10HP outboard for the taking is just too much temptation.

Most people actually hoist their dinghy up in the air or on deck with a halyard for the night to protect it, or pull the engine off and leave it chained in the cockpit. Leaving your dinghy and motor in the water back in Colon Panama was almost a guarantee it would be stolen. Something else to point out, is that while James (atomvoyages.com) was helping with the refit and equipping of salsa he insisted I get a small 3.5HP or so motor rather than something bigger. It seems that nearly every time an outboard is stolen it is 10 or 15 HP, something to consider when buying a motor. Mine also very light only 30LB or so, uses very little gas, only downside is that my dinghy will not plane out so I max out around 4 or 5mph compared to the 15mph I could probably do if I had a 5hp or bigger.

Over all the West Lemon Cays is a very nice anchorage, the local islands like most other places had a few families living on them that were friendly and didn’t mind cruisers exploring the islands or having happy hour on the beach. I could have stayed longer but I needed to get to Cartagena since Jen and Dave were flying in within a few weeks, one last stop, Holandes Cays.

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