I’m not going to post the log but rather give a few highlights. First there was the Dilemma as to when to depart. I don’t think most other boats experience the same issues since they have big motors and plenty of fuel they can pretty accurately plan their arrival time in spite of the wind or lack of it. I usually try to plan my passages so that I can sail all or the majority of it when possible. Now from Isla Grande to Chichime San Blas is about 45 miles. Even motoring at 4.5 kts were talking 10 hours, so for example if I left at the earliest feasible time to allow for visual navigation say 7 AM I would be arriving at 5 PM, just a little too late to see the reefs on the way in to the islands, and no margin of safety. I usually try to plan the arrivals to new islands (especially when there are reefs and shoals to be negotiated) for 4 PM at the very latest. This brings up the option of leaving around 6 PM but that would mean I wouldn’t be able to arrive for at least 14 hours to make a daylight approach around 8 AM so I would have to average no more than around 3 kts and have to sail all night. SO, my solution, imperfect as it may be, was to leave around 3 AM, giving me plenty of time to arrive before dark in San Blas. Only down side was that I would have to leave Isla Grande in the dark which wasn’t too bad since it was more or less straight forward and I had already sailed in once so I had a track on the GPS.

So, I was finally underway to San Blas around 3:30 AM, Dinghy stowed away on deck, and motor sailing along at about 4 kts, I can do 5 kts, almost 6, but slower conserves a lot of fuel and I had plenty of time plus I didn’t want to have to buy fuel before Columbia almost a month away. By around 10 AM several of the big fast boats that left the same area were almost caught up with me, and inevitably arrived to their destinations in San Blas well before me, no big deal. I managed to sail only a very small part of this trip, and motor sail maybe half of it. The majority of the time is was just the diesel getting us there. No fish, nothing exciting, but a nice smooth motor-sail in very calm wind and seas. I think I arrived in Chichime around 2 PM or so with plenty of daylight to spare. I took a picture of the anchorage from the guide that should be on the web site, basically its just two small islands and a reef, with one very tiny little island near the entrance. Tiny as in one or two palm trees, maybe 20’ wide. While I was a little nervous during the approach (as usual) once again it turned out to be rather straight-forward, no problems.

Within about 30 seconds of having the anchor down the local Kuna Indians have there dug-out Canoes paddled out to your boat and are offering local hand-crafts, fish, lobster, crab, etc. If you don’t buy anything they start a little begging routing, asking if you have any magazines, chocolate, cooking oil, rice, onions, the list goes on! Funny, I don’t think any of them asked for money. Chichime probably isn’t the nicest anchorage in San Blas but it’s easy to navigate your way in, and there is plenty of decent snorkeling, and the local Kunas are friendly enough. The area is small enough that I didn’t even deploy the dinghy, rather I explored the two small islands and one tiny one simply by swimming from one to the next. There are about 6 families total on two of the islands in Chichime with maybe 5 to 7 in each family, living, it what looks like a little palapa hut. More or less primitive, with no lights, electricity, most of them don’t have motors on their boats. A few did have cell phones, and on sunny days would paddle out and ask if I had enough solar-power to charge their phones, which of course was no problem. Then the kids caught on that I had a first aid kit so I would get a daily canoe of the wounded after a few days, typically cuts scrapes etc. Finally just before I left I even started getting pitchers, coolers, etc, things that needed glued or epoxied for repair, but over all considering that your visiting their islands I would say they weren’t too demanding. After several days of swimming, snorkeling and just plain relaxing I was off to another Island group, the West Lemon Cays, only a few miles away.

I’m going to miss the monkeys on Isla Linton… I just re-read my last post, wow there were a lot of typos! So everyone will just have to overlook them and hopefully not assume that I’m an illiterate idiot. A lot of the time I’m writing these emails on a computer with a low battery, outside, in nearly 100 degree weather, while being attacked by insects. Ok that might be a worst case scenario but it’s often a combination of those factors. More often and importantly I just want to get my thoughts expressed and then get off the computer and back to experiencing everything. Plus times like this (sitting in my cockpit outside at night with full batteries in a cool breeze) that I tend to get too wordy perhaps but you’re still reading so what the heck :-).

So after a few days anchored off of Isla Linton, and one long (30 minute) dinghy ride to Isla Grande next door (allegedly the party island that you should stay away from). I decided it would be an interesting place to spend the weekend. Thursday was dead, there were probably over a dozen bars on the water, a lot for such a small strip of island, one you can walk from one end to the other in about Ten minutes or less. Oh let me back-track. I forgot to mention the Mike from Infini took me up on my offer to do a little offshore fishing / trolling in Salsa, he was so sure that we would catch fish, much more convinced that I was. There are some rocks about 2 miles offshore I think they farlonnes rocks??. The book “The Panama Guide” says that there is good fishing there so we took Salsa for a little sail with a nice breeze and after about One hour is was FISH ON! A nice uh Jack-something? Perfect size for Sushimi for Three and dinner for three later. After fishing a few hours instead of returning to Isla Linton where I was (and Mike and Sue on Infini still are) we anchored Salsa off Isla Grande and then Sue (who was keeping an eye on my Dinghy) towed it over and picked up Mike so we wouldn’t have to stow it or tow it during the fishing.

Back to Isla Grande… As I was saying Thursday was dead and Friday not much better. After dark there were about Four or Five open bars, most small tiki – type bars, very cool, but not much life, most only had a few people, surely families staying on the island. Saturday I ran into a large group of people from the Peace Corps in Panama that were taking a little weekend get-away on the Island. After about 10 beers, see another $10 of beer money to good use, and stories of monkeys and mangrove tunnels two girls decided to join me for a long dinghy ride (no pun intended honest) the next day. The Monkeys, all three this time, put on an awesome show, I didn’t have my camera but hopefully the girls will email them to me so they can make the website. One girl, Terry had TWO monkeys eating out of her hand at the same time while they were hanging from palm trees, made a great photo, and sure enough when she backed away with the food they grabbed her hair and held on! I’m watching this 10 feet away in the dinghy on the beach. Why was I in the dinghy rather than hobnobbing with the monkeys you might ask. Well a neighbor on a Catamaran said that he had heard several stories of the Monkeys attacking. There favorite maneuver being to jump into the dinghy so that you cant leave without fighting your way back into your boat. So I was defending the ship and securing our fast getaway. After the Monkeys made it clear that they didn’t want the girls leaving the island, at least not while they still had food we just threw some fruit and uh, frosted mini wheats (Monkeys like em) on the ground to occupy them while we paddled away. Next a quick ride through the mangrove should be pictures of those on the website now or soon, and then a race back for them to make their bus, which of course left early so they missed it. That turned out OK for them since the next one was only three hours away and I explored the little town on the coast opposite Isla Grande to discover, vegetables, gasoline and a very cheap restaurant, all things that I thought I Might not see again before Columbia. After doing basic exploring on Isla Grande with some hangover worthy partying I still needed to find the path up to the light house. Totally worth it! It’s a great view, after you climb up the actual tower to light itself. I’m only in Panama do they leave these things wide open to they general public. Then again maybe its not open to the general public since you need to hike up a hill through a jungle with a path that resembled a really small stream, I wont describe the view, you just have to see the pictures. But I will mention that climbing a light house is weird, definitely not for the claustrophobic! The thing is tall and really narrow, the only thing that fits inside besides the light at the top are stairs, a VERY narrow and windy series of steps. Then up top, there is of course the light, and a very cool ledge / overlook with a 360 degree view. Finished exploring, fueled up, and fairly well provisioned I was fully ready make the 40 mile hop to the San Blas Islands.

Location as of 8/17/08 apprx. 7:45 AM DST

Location as of 8/16/08 approx 8 AM DST

Location as of 8/-4/08 approx. 3 PM DST