Wow. What a few days we have had. Mostly islands, booze, music and a lot of laughs.
So after two nights and a full day sailing we finally arrived at the first anchorage and the party really began. Music (mostly South American Spanish music) blasted out from around 7.30am til 02.00am in these beautiful tranquil anchorages. A lot of rum was drunk, a lot of beers were drunk and many cigarettes of various types were smoked. This was their trip though so we just chilled and went with the flow. I don't know how she managed as she is usually a bit uptight about these things but Gilly just let it all wash over her. Away from the responsibilities of skippering she relaxed enjoying everything going on around us. I'd forgotten how much more energy 20-30 year olds have than our usual 50s, 60s, 70s crowd, young at heart though we may be.
The San Blas islands are absolutely stunning. More like I imagine South Sea islands than Caribbean ones. Over 400 of them are dotted around an area off the coast of Panama. Here are some pictures of these magical islands.
The islands and much of the adjacent mainland is "owned" by the Kuna tribe. They seem pretty laid back, making their living by fishing, selling tourist bits and pieces and charging a small tax to visit their islands. Gilly wants to be a Kuna in her next life! They are a very attractive race, especially the small children, with big smiles across their faces.
Their islands are so low lying though that a rise in sea level of only a metre or so would see many of them disappear. A recent big storm inundated several islands completely. These are basically coral islands separated and protected by reefs, shallow areas of coral on which the waves break. Behind the reefs all is calm but being on them is not a good place to be. We've never seen as many wrecks. Maybe twenty battered and broken hulks lie in the shallows with waves continually pounding them. David, our French skipper told us the story of many of them. Skipper had too much rum, anchor dragged at night, came in at night etc etc. So you have to work to benefit from all this beauty but boy is it worth it. Many sailing boats spend several months here before making their way further west and through the Panama Canal into the Pacific. Maybe that will be us some time soon? There are far fewer boats in the anchorages here than in the Caribbean Island chain that we are used to. Many are private charters out of Panama but there's a good sprinkling of live aboards too. There's not a lot of stress round here I have to say.
As we got to know each other barriers slowly dropped and we learned about relationships, big events in their lives, likes and dislikes and plans for the future. Many envied our lifestyle but they are not ready for our quieter life yet. There is too much to do and see!
Some things it's hard to put across in words. When we show people pictures of our Trans Atlantic crossing it's hard to put across the feeling that you are fighting to stand up or make a cup of tea. Everything was affected by that continual rolling motion. In much the same way it's hard to put across the continual blast of music from this trip. As soon as one track ended another began. Unknown tracks and others that they all knew, joining in at the top of their voices.
And to their credit they made us feel like one of them. The boat name, we finally discovered was, El Gitano del Mar which means Sea Gypsy. One of the previous cooks was an Aussie with limited Spanish. Her favourite phrase was Fucking Bueno (fucking ace in "Spanish") and this has become Sea Gypsy's catch phrase. You can even buy T-shirts with it emblazoned on the back. Yes, I was tempted, but thought better of it!
There were a lot of names to remember so to make things easier most were initially know by nationality. Mariana and Mariana (soon referred to as 'M' and 'M squared') were "Portugal". Their lives had been more sheltered than the rest and as one of them said to Gill "We don't do this sort of thing in Portugal". The three Canadian lads were "Canada" and with South Africans, Aussies, a German, two Swedes, a Puerto Rican, two Americans and us Brits we were a pretty cosmopolitan lot.
The next couple of days we spent moving from anchorage to anchorage. Amazingly most boats seemed pleased to see us! We swam, we snorkelled, we fished (another big wahoo?), we lazed and we chatted, and of course we listened to music.
The group stayed as one remarkably well considering the cramped conditions but by the last day things had started to break down. Portugal was pissed off with the music, One guy admitted he had some personality disorder and started cursing the skipper and the cook, especially when the (admittedly crap) final night BBQ food arrived 4 hours late. To cap it all there was an international bonking issue. The rest of the group was not impressed. More dissent in the ranks!
After the crap BBQ we were invited to the Olympic Games on one of the little islands. Our boat won the high jump with lanky Swede Hannes leaping well over 1.50m but we lost the "pass a woman from your front, through your legs, up your back, over your head and back to the starting position" (only because the generator failed and the lights went out as we actually achieved this incredible feat). I say "we" but I have to say this wasn't my strongest event. Finally we lost the tug of war because the opposing boat had a 15' tall man mountain pulling for them. Somehow David shinned 30' up the pole in the centre of the bar in less than 2 seconds (quite amazing and reminiscent of the way Bernard Moitessier used to scale the mast on Joshua number one). Limbo dancing also took up an enjoyable few minutes as young and older attempted to shimmy beneath the bamboo pole. We left the party early at 1am hoping to get a bit of sleep but 30 minutes later the rest of the team arrived, the speaker was switched on and we were treated to another two hours of drunken debauchery.
Next morning the cook, who earns 45US dollars for feeding 22 people for five days had been transferred to another boat, we had a replacement skipper for the return leg and David had checked us out at the cutest little border post set amidst thatched huts on yet another perfect desert island. Christian, the German, earned a hearty cheer when he was finally released from the clutches of Immigration following a date of birth mix up. When a helicopter circled overhead we had thought that was the last we would see of him.
Then it was time to pack up and retrieve our belongings from all over the boat. As "senior passenger" I made a little thank you speech both to the crew and to our fellow guests. My final summation that the trip had been "fucking bueno" was received with a loud cheer. In response they told us we were Legends and they would have liked us as their Mum and Dad!
Finally we set off on a 45 minute fast boat ride to the mainland amidst much raucous singing, beer and rum drinking (yes, they found another two bottles of rum hidden away somewhere) before spending three hours in a 4x4 up through the mountains and finally down into Panama City and some degree of sanity.
Brilliant. What a trip!!
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