Panama, San Blas Islands - Jan 2007
The San Blas Islands are technically part of Panama. However in fact the islands and a good portion of the neighbouring mainland are owned and governed by the Kuna Indians, a old race who have what is regarded as the best surviving traditional culture in the whole of the Americas.
In practice the entire territory of islands and mainland, known as “Kuna Yala” is a world apart, having no roads, electricity, banks, or other modern conveniences. The Kuna Indians live mostly on the coast and on some of the islands nearest the coast. The islands are well protected by the outer reefs, and the water never gets that rough. The islands are not more than a few feet high, and those that have villages are literally completely covered with houses built out of canes for walls and palm leaves a bit like thatch for roofs. The men go to the mainland to grow and harvest fruit, vegetables and coconuts, or go fishing in their dug-out canoes (ulu’s) for fish, crabs and lobster. The women make “molas” to earn money, these are multi-layered shapes of embroidery used to decorate shirts or blouses, or can be used as cushion covers and many other articles. The areas most frequented by tourists are where the US Dollar is very important. Ulus come to sell fruit, seafood, molas, or just as often they come with nothing and hold onto your boat for a while, and eventually you offer them a drink and have a quick chat, then they go away! The Kunas have their own language, and many speak no Spanish, let alone English. So communication is variable, I feel we improved our Spanish by having to try so hard!
We arrived at Porvenir on New Year’s Eve. The way in through the reefs was scary, and the area for anchoring equally scary. Even with our anchor alarm set, we would have trouble keeping off the reef if we dragged. There is not space to leave out too much chain either.
In other respects the island is amazing. It is not much bigger than the airstrip built on top of it, with a hotel one side and the offices the other. The offices are small and have three staff, one for immigration, one for clearing in the boat, and one for “Kuna tax”. As they were closed over the new Year we spent USD 30 on molas and were barely prepared for paying all the office fees when we finally got to see them! We had two dollars left after all that, and there are no banks! It is possible to fly to Panama City and get cash, but the return flight would cost 80 dollars, and you can’t return the same day! So we decided to leave Porvenir for some uninhabited islands - the nearby Limon Cays - and rely on trade or barter for any further buying! We had plenty of food for a couple of weeks, and there was always fish! So we stayed a few days in the protected anchorage in the Limon Cays among a few other yachts. We went swimming,windsurfing. snorkelling,and Nigel went spearfishing successfully most days. We met a few friendly locals. One tiny island of coconut trees had a house with a family of nine people living there! We landed there to say hi, only one man spoke Spanish, so we talked about his family and entourage of chickens, dogs, children, etc for a while. The son aged seven had his own mini ulu.
A Kuna family arrived at our boat one day with a baby, a toddler girl and a boy about Dan’s age. They held onto our boat for a while and we were not sure what they wanted, eventually through some sort of misunderstanding they came on board, so we provided some drinks and talked a bit although the Spanish was very stretched. Then we got Lisa and their baby playing in Lisa’s tiny inflatable pool, and finally the dad asked if we had a camera. They all wanted photos! I don’t think they have any photos because the kids didn’t know how to smile for the pictures, but they eventually smiled when they saw the results on the computer, which we then printed for them to take away! Kunas normally do not wish to be photographed, but when they get to keep the result, things seem to change!
We were interrupted in our passage east, because one guy who had befriended us on the closest island, who worked at a new hotel there, asked if he could come and see our boat. He spoke Spanish and a bit of English. It turned out that what he really wanted was a lift, to his own island which was ten miles downwind, in the Islas Ammen. And he wanted us to tow his ulu too! This did not seem all that wise to us because we have seen so many of them capsize, but he made promises that he would take us to meet his family, they would love to see baby Lisa, he would show us around his village, his family would like to visit our boat, etc etc and we found the adventure too hard to resist! So the next day this guy, named Bonifacio, and his friend Francisco, and the ulu arrived, and we got organised and under way. the ulu towed okay to start with, but the wind had risen a lot overnight and a following sea had built up. We raised two sails and did ok for several miles. However the ulu slewed about on the waves and filled up with water several times, miraculously emptying itself just as often, as it rolled. Finally the ulu turned over! We watched it for a minute, wondering how to handle the worsening situation, when the upside-down ulu suddenly took a dive for Neptune’s kingdom below! As we were still sailing at five knots this suddenly put a tremendous strain on our fairlead and cleat, and Nigel was swearing to himself and threatening to get the knife and cut off the ulu. I suggested we get the sails down in a hurry and slow down, this we did, and got the engine running. Francisco got in our dinghy which was tethered alongside, to try to reach the ulu and right it, but he could barely do it without bringing the ulu dangerously close to our delicate self-steering gear. Eventually we let our dinghy back and Francisco righted and emptied the ulu. We didn’t bother raising the sails again but motored, and sure enough another couple of miles and the ulu went over again. This time we stopped and Bonifacio dived in to right the dinghy. We tried towing him in it but it only raised the ulu’s centre of gravity further, and surfing own the waves Bonifacio got quite worried! So we stopped and helped him back on board, not easy in the waves. We made it finally to the island and Bonifacio guided us in, I was verifying on our Cmap chart software too. We anchored just in front of a reef, behind the island, and Nigel made some lunch for us all, with a bottle of wine. Kunas don’t drink most of the time, but they both had some wine!
They went off and we said we would come to the village later. In the event we never got the chance, because Bonifacio turned up with one of his sons and they wanted to watch a film on TV! So we played them Cars, which has a Spanish soundtrack, and by the time they left it was too late for us to go ashore. Bonifacio promised us that in the morning he would get us lobsters as a gift, which we got excited about, but in the morning he said he had tried but he couldn’t see well enough as the water was not clear, so we got nothing! Anyway we agreed to come to the village at ten o’clock “to meet his family”.
We turned up at the appointed time and place, only to be greeted by just about all of the village children! Lisa was taken away by a Kuna woman to be fussed over, and we proceeded to be taken to see some of Bonifacio’s relatives, then his own family. Everywhere we were surrounded by children! We asked to take pictures of the children, of course this escalated and we took lots of pictures of everybody, promising to print the best ones to give to them! We were offered various items, but we had no dollars. The only items we bought were some ulu oars for Dan and Lisa, which we bartered for with some powdered milk. This seemed a good souvenir!
The visit provided an opportunity to see inside one or two of the Kuna houses. They have a compressed dirt floor, and not much else on the floor. The Kuna’s mostly sleep in hammocks suspended from the roof. In one house we saw some conventional beds, which was a surprise.
We learned that a Kuna house takes six weeks to build, the first two weeks being for collection of the materials from the rainforest on the mainland. There always seems to be a roof repair man at work somewhere in each village.
In one house which we learned belongs to a doctor / witch-doctor or their equivalent, there were rows of boxes containing animal bones, skulls, etc.
When we finally said goodbye and went back to the boat, everyone saw us off. Later some of the kids we had met paddled out in their ulu’s and we ended up asking them in and letting them watch Tom and Jerry! They didn’t seem very interested in Dan’s toys, but Dan had a good time with them anyway. We offered them all drinks but they didn’t ask for anything else. They found the film hilarious, and as Tom and Jerry doesn’t involve talking, there was no language problem. We enjoyed the kids the best, they are friendly and do not want anything, unlike some of the adults who are often after dollars or “freebies” of various sorts.
Later Bonifacio and his family came and we put on Pirates of the Caribbean for them, unfortunately it had no Spanish soundtrack but in any case three of the four only speak Kuna. They certainly took advantage of the free touring cinema as they don’t have any sort of TV in their village!
By the end of the day we had had quite enough of being celebrities and decided to head off to somewhere quiet. We didn’t sleep well either as our anchor alarm went off and we were worried about landing on the reef. We let out a bit more chain and watched carefully for a while before getting more sleep, but it was another good reason to move on.
The next day we moved to a bay on the mainland below Punta San Blas. Nobody bothered us at all! A few ulus came each day to fish or go into the forest, but that was all. We got some nice fish and a crab in the few days we were there, before finally deciding it was time to head for Colon.
Checking out in Porvenir was interesting, as we had to pay more dollars to leave, which we didn’t have! I had to ask another boat, and offer some coffee in exchange! We also met Antares, the Dutch boat with the baby, briefly, they were staying in the San Blas a little longer. They also gave us news of our friends Tony and Linda, who had made it to San Blas also, but had been delayed helping out a guy whose boat had run aground on a reef and then sunk. It is terrible to lose a boat that way, and most of what is on board, although there were a few circumstances which led up to the disaster which could have been handled better. One of which is an GPS anchor alarm, which we use all the time, it has warned us several times when we have dragged. It is amazing how few boats use such an alarm although almost anyone with GPS installed has an alarm available. Some say they do not wake up to the alarm, I find this incredible, although Nigel is the same. It is usually me who wakes.
We left Porvenir early in the morning and got our sails up as we were leaving the reefs.