San Blas

Postcard from Portobelo, Panama

- Ann Leave a comment

image copied from http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/captain-morgan-549521

Portobelo, Panama, is the unofficial capital of the Costa Abajo, that stretch of Panama’s Caribbean Coast that runs west from Kuna Yala/San Blas.  Behind the narrowish coastal plain there are big hills/small mountains (the tallest, Cerro Carti, is 748 meters).

The bay is nice and big, deep in the middle, shallow around the edges. Although open to the west, from whence can come some powerful rockin’and rollin’ when the tradewinds are in abeyance, it’s a pretty good harbor most of the time. The land is still quite wooded, but more and more now cleared in the service of cattle (McDonald’s, we hear you!) and small agriculture (spindly corn, bananas, tubers like yuca). A couple rivers come in at the east end, which make for nice dinghy excursions through the cattle bottoms.


 To someone coming the 40 miles from the San Blas islands Portobelo feels like a big, even modern, place (5 Chinese grocery stores! buses to Colon! 3000 people! maybe). Also on our ‘haven’t seen that for a while’ list are wheeled vehicles larger than baby strollers, such as taxis, pickups, and dump trucks. There’s even a front-end loader in town, for moving the trash pile. Different body types, not just the small-framed Kuna people, but Anglos and Africans and lots of blended. The sound of howler monkeys is back with us (really makes me wonder why they’re never heard in the mainland areas of Kuna Yala) in an early morning duet with the screech of bus brakes (Bluebird ex-schoolbuses, splendidly painted and speaker-powered).


The buses have their own distinctions – and you’ll learn quickly which ones have the biggest speakers, and the hard-to-open windows, but you’ll get in anyway. Colon is an hour and a half away, and Panama City another hour or so, depending on traffic!
The Chinese groceries have distinct personalities too, and are full of surprises, but often short of fresh fruit and veg. For your nutritional needs, you listen for the loudspeakers screeching something from the top of a pickup-truck. If you’re quick you can usually find the truck somewhere in town, or wait around until he comes back a couple hours later from ‘the end of the road’ at Isla Grande/La Guiara.

The Portobelo of today is a funkily pleasant place that makes me think of all the complementary forces in the universe, feng shui and the ebb and flow of styles, fortunes, cultures partly in ascendance, partly in decline, like all of us. There are good things here, and friendly people, and some puzzles too.

What put Portobelo on the list of World Heritage sites is its history. The Spanish conquistadors began to use Portobelo as their major Caribbean loading place for the riches they were removing from South America. Gold and silver and others items valued by the Spanish were transported overland through the jungle to the Caribbean and loaded into convoys for shipment to Spain.  Nuestra Senora de Atocha, the wrecked treasure ship that is the foundation of Mel Fisher’s Treasure Museum in Key West, sailed from here.

Nuestra Senora de Atocha, courtesy of   theamericano.com

“PORTOBELO ON THE SPANISH MAIN   “The city was also victim of one of Captain Henry Morgan’s notorious adventures. In 1668, Morgan led a fleet of privateers and 450 men against Portobelo, which, in spite of its good fortifications, he captured and plundered for 14 days, stripping it of nearly all its wealth. This daring endeavour, although successful, also proved particularly brutal as it involved rape, torture, and murder on a grand scale.” from Wikipedia, and more in The Sack of Panama by Peter Earle.

We were anchored in the harbor on the 344th anniversary of this attack, during inclement weather, and it was interesting to go ashore with ‘new eyes’ after reading this.

Then, also according to Wikipedia, after another humiliation by the British under Admiral Edward Vernon, (in the War of Jenkins’ Ear), the Spanish redesigned the defenses. Vernon took a big loss in Cartagena, but the world was changing. The Spanish finally learned to make their fleets smaller; then ships more regularly sailed to western South America via Cape Horn. So the forts whose ruins decorate Portobelo today never were used as forts; they became quarries supplying stone for early Panama Canal construction. Also, mustn’t forget to mention that Sir Francis Drake died of dysentery and was buried at sea in a lead-coffin not too far away. Maybe someone will be finding that someday soon.

Today the Customs House, once reputedly so full that silver ingots were stored outside on the street, has a museum on the ground floor, and an evolutionary ‘garden’ on the roof. Plus, those are supposed to be the scars of British attack on the wall.
PHOTO TREASURE HOUSE ROOF

The forts have restored areas, reader boards and visitors who dutifully wander through.

PHOTO FORT WITH COWS
The hills are steep and all I can think as I myself trudge about, redoubt to lookout, is how dreadful it must have been to be the slave, conscript or flunky on any of these projects. Charged with clearing jungle, digging, shaping and moving stones, humping stuff up the slope, no matter the heat, humidity, insects, disease, nutritional deficiency – and for what? Such big ‘public works’ for so little ‘public.’ In hindsight it looks pointless and even at the time, it must have been difficult to muster enthusiasm, unless it was whipped in.
So Portobelo’s other big attraction is its church, Iglesia de San Felipe, whose interior features the Black Christ of Portobelo. The history of the life-sized image of Jesus carrying the Cross is shrouded in the mists of time, and imagination – carved in Spain? Washed ashore in Portobelo?  But there are so many stories of miracles associated with the Black Christ that tens of thousands of pilgrims visit the Church (the new building, eventually completed in 1945) every October 21, some crawling on hands and knees. Reportedly, their number includes penitent rapists, muggers and thieves, the Black Christ being the patron saint of criminals, this according to http://www.coloncity.com/blackchrist.html.
PHOTO FAMILY AT BLACK CHRIST ALTAR


Nowadays Portobelo is where many backpackers come to find a ride to Cartagena by sea –  as traffic can’t get through the Darien peninsula by road. It’s where a wide variety of craft come to make a bit of money on that trade, some excellent and some downright dangerous. It’s the first ‘big’ place people come to after cruising the San Blas, heading for the Canal, or for time away in Shelter Bay or Bocas del Toro. I’ll bet Captain Jack’s Canopy Bar, restaurant, hostel and gathering place up the hill sells a lot of hamburgers to long-deprived carnivorous cruisers.

Maybe something in the air from all those centuries of soldiers of fortune has provided leavening for new generations of their descendants. Portobelo has more than the usual number of gnarly single-handers and boats which may never leave here – a regular little community of them in fact. One fellow got his boat to rest high and dry on a reef, on purpose. He’s always pointed out of the harbor, but never going.  Here’s my favorite: Absolute Absolution, a 53′ catamaran built via creative recycling of scavenged materials by someone not a naval architect. A mast on each hull. We’re all individuals out here, and there too. I need to find a better picture when I have access to my ‘stacks’, but you’ll perhaps get the idea. 


“This is a “Fourth Way” project which will change its direction and details many times along the way.”
http://www.floatingneutrinos.com/Buoyant%20Neutrinos/background.htm#Photo%20Gallery. This website is pretty dense.

Unfortunately, the most famous Floating Neutrino died not too long ago – here’s his obituary from -yes -the Wall Street Journal – worth the read, IMO.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013604576104412565095674.html
 

Another thing that can be said about Portobelo is that it rains a lot here. Rust, mildew, damp, facts of life. Some of the ruined houses were knocked over in landslides last year.  There are also an inordinate number of Black Vultures in town. They congregate on the roof of the cathedral, on the cemetery walls, on the trash pile (of course). Not the most charismatic of birds, but there are others!


Now, I think I’ve said enough about Portobelo. If you want to know more, you’ll just have to visit for yourself.

More photos here:
http://galivant.smugmug.com/Panama/Portobelo/24556216_D448fp#!i=2005529624&k=GpfnrKz
Books about history:
David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag
Earle, Peter.The Sack of Panama New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981.

We’re watching you!


Into the Remote Islas

- Ann 2 Comments

We haven’t seen another cruising boat for weeks, now that we’ve moved east and south in the San Blas, towards (but not approaching, since our Panama papers don’t expire for a while) the Colombian border. We’re visiting some places we missed when we came north and west from Colombia last year, like Ustupu, Ailigandi, Achutupu and Playon Chico.




It’s been a pleasant surprise. The people we’re able to deal with are friendly and happy to talk, or they politely just leave us be. The children are full of ‘holas‘ , waves and smiles. Even naked little babies wave. The confident among them ask our names. Ana, I say, y Douglas -“Doo-glas” is how it comes out here. When the kids give back a name, they don’t leave any part out;  we’re amusing to them as we tangle our tongues. Hey – we’re here to entertain!


The village houses are densely packed together on islands not too far from the mainland. Most  are palm-frond roofed, and walled, fenced and gated with laced-together bamboo cane. They remind me of a long-haired, huddled herd of llamas or yaks. There will be a few houses with metal roofs, with block, or even wood-sided walls, sometimes, for a lucky few, two-stories. 


The streets are almost always dirt  and often more path than boulevard and we’ve seen them raked daily by a  squadron of women and children. The smell is of cooking fires, fueled by husks of coconuts. Almost every house on the waterfront has an outhouse over the sea. The schools are concrete with breeze-block ‘windows,’ all painted yellow above blue. We notice the differences between islands: solar panels, TV antennas, satellite dishes have come to a few islands, public water taps, tiendas and panaderias, libraries, churches and their denominations, but we don’t know enough to come to conclusions.

PHOTO TIENDA USTUPU

We always come ashore with a mission, or maybe it’s just an excuse to wander around – let’s find some eggs, or cooking oil, see if there’s bread. I wish there were cafes or bars – they’re good places to chat people up, but generally the best we can do is buy a juice or soda, then park ourselves as bait on a bench out front of the tienda. Wander too far down into some alleys and you’ll end up in someone’s house, feeling a little awkward, not to mention banging your head on some low-slung roofs. Lost in a little-alley-maze in Mamitupu, we found ourselves modeling speech to a pair of young parakeets,  ‘merkey, merkey’ which turns out to be what the Kuna call Americans.
In Ailigandi there was a museum; sadly for me the proprietor, Sr. Roy, was in Panama City. I’d love to meet him. It would take much ambition, not to mention talent, to create all the things he has made and exhibited here. I gather his goal is to make Kuna oral-tradition stories available to Kuna outside the congreso/meeting halls.
Spring – I love it anywhere and everywhere. The isobar squeeze that brought heavy winds and big seas to the entire coast thru much of February and March has vanished, and we’re left with modest seas and amiable breezes, and, most of the time, good light for locating the shoals which pock-mark all these waters. The rainy season may start in a month or two, but for now, it’s a pleasant blend of balmy temps and light breezes. The problems will now arise when the wind fails to tame the insect clouds of no-see-ums waiting in the wings.








The Kunas are taking advantage of the lull before the rainy season to clear the forest for agriculture. It’s perfect weather for slash and burn, and plumes of smoke rise all along this part of the  coast. We were much less aware of this phenomenon in the area closer to Porvenir favored by most of the yachts.


We bought mangos from this gent near Ustupu, largest settlement in the San Blas. When I asked if I could take of photo of him and his dog he struck this pose, then asked if I would be putting in on Facebook! And seemed disappointed when I said no. I’d be appreciative if someone could tell me what the hand-shape is meant to be communicating. UPDATE: Thanks for letting me know: this is I Love You, ILY, in American Sign Language. Now I’d like to know how it came to be the thing to ‘say’ while posing for pictures! ILY is way nicer than a gang thing, which was my first guess.
I think the further eastern sections of Kuna Yala are definitely more agricultural. Every ulu which passes by has green mangos, green bananas, plantains, limon, yuca, avocados, coconuts. I’ve often said that we do most of our eating out of self-defense, when it all comes ripe at once. I’ve been eating so many mangoes that I seem to have scraped the inside of my mouth trying to get the last of the juice from those scratchy seeds.
I gather the newly-cleared fields will be planted with corn, or bananas or plantains, maybe yuca, all for local consumption (not for sale or shipping to the city). The soil, or the steepness, or the heat, or something, will not permit crops like tomatoes or squash. I’ve yet to see more than a handful of gardens with that kind of produce. The fields will be abandoned in about 4 years, and a new one burned to replace it. It makes me sad to see this, actually. Even the Kuna, who in some ways still have a tightly controlled society, have not managed to avoid the ‘tragedy of the commons’, wherein they are free to use community resources like land and seafood, and will do so until they’re gone. There seem to be more people to support, and less knowledge of the traditional ways. I think the Kuna people finds themselves in an awkward place, straddling conflicts between their old way of life and a new one ever more firmly established. I want to say to them “are you sure you want all this city stuff and that individualized way of life? It’s not worth it! Turn back!”  Considering the ethically conflicted culture I represent, however, I’m not really in a position to comment. And of course, it’s complicated.

Speaking of agriculture, the Colombian freight boats, like the Caracol, run through here regularly. Here’s a ‘crop’ of coconuts bound for Cartagena. Each one of the 15,000 nuts (they’re actually seeds, I believe) aboard brought thirty cents to its seller, said the man whose legs you see. Coconuts are  prime source of income throughout the San Blas. As the Bauhaus Cruising Guide  to Panama is quick to inform, every coconut has an owner, and it is not the cruiser who finds it on the beach!


My sea-going nephew K learned at an early age that the best small-boat cargo is a waterproof one. Coconuts are waterproof, but they need shade lest they crack open, and they’re heavy. These are destined for ‘food’ in Colombia, and fetch I think about 800 pesos apiece there, not quite doubling in value en route.

Especially in these somewhat more traditional villages, there is a charge for anchoring, or for using the town dock, and it’s not just a way to profit from the yachts, of which there are precious few at this end of the province. The trading boats pay it, even Kuna visitors pay fees. It can seem a bit steep if you’re just staying the night, (how quickly we forget the $20/night moorings in the British Virgin Islands) but the fee is good for a month, or as long as you stay, depending. Anyone coming to collect it will have a receipt book and a well-worn letter of authorization like this one. 


One village, Caledonia, had a nicely typed explication, in English, of basic visitor etiquette: wear modest attire ashore, don’t take photos or make drawings without permission or without paying, don’t stay after dark, don’t do painting, boat work or otherwise pollute the harbor, no SCUBA diving, and, ‘no lolly-scrambles’ which I took to mean don’t throw candy to the children, or coins to encourage them to dive in the water.
We’ve tried to live by all these rules. The one that is hardest for me is about the photos- there are such stories to be told in images here.  I actually share some of Doug’s aversion to the often rude spectacle of ‘a tourist sticking a camera in someone’s face’ but I’d love to have a lens in the flower of my lapel, say, with a remote wire. Some people, women especially, don’t want to be photographed. Some few want to be paid the dollar they’ve seem postcards with their image selling for in Panama City. So, I ask permission first, (sometimes I sneak), or I don’t shoot at all around here. Those cane-slatted house walls are full of  friendly hellos, but also of surprising numbers of invisible eyes. I may be ‘merkey’ but I don’t want to be ugly!

There’s more about Señor Roy’s museum here:
http://titoherrera.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/el-museo-de-roy/
and some interesting reading from a 2002 San Ignacio de Tupile Peace Corps volunteer’s letters home here:
http://mmorrison13.wordpress.com/2008/03/30/panama-update-4-surviving-the-first-2-months-february-13-2002/

Taking It Slow in the San Blas Islands of Panama

- Ann 1 Comment




The wind has been blowing mightily here in the San Blas islands of Panama,  reminiscent of the Christmas winds in the Eastern Caribbean. It’s not  as dire as the blizzards of northern winter but it does encourage hibernation. Sleeping under the fore-hatch, it’s a choice between the howl of 18 or 20 knots through a small crack, or the atmospheric pressure pouring on the skin through a large one.

“Atlantic ridge causing strong isobar squeeze in the central Caribbean and off the traditionally windy corner of Colombia”: these conditions also bring big seas to Panama. Recent weather reports from Chris Parker have used words like ‘humongus’, ‘immense’, ‘ludicrous’; referring to 15′ seas at 9 second intervals, certainly not something you’d want to beat into in 20 knots + on your way to Cartagena, and pretty uncomfortable coming the other way too.

KitesurferKITESURFER



The outer anchorages are full of current; it’s like trying to swim up the stream of a faucet. Many spots are too churned up for snorkeling (not to mention the occasional Portuguese-man-of-war stinging jellyfish and other creatures blowing through). Only the kite surfers, of whom there are a growing number, are really getting exercised.
Iguana swimming
IGUANA: He must have fallen out of a tree somewhere – sure was happy to clamber into our dinghy, where he curled up in the shade under the seat until he was delivered ashore. I’m glad I knew he was there before I hopped in!

The air near those crashing outer reefs is full of salt spray, which means the inside of the boat gradually gets that way too. The up-side is that the wind generator has no trouble keeping the batteries topped up; fortunate for us because it’s also been overcast  for days, 20 and counting. The gray sky carpet inhibits the solar panels,  snorkeling, and a small part of the spirit.
The sailing, however,  is fantastic, at least in the flat water behind the reefs.  We even had a close little ‘race’ the other day – race being defined as two boats going in the same direction. Each boat had excuses ready in case of loss; luckily we weren’t the ones who had to use them!

PHOTO GALIVANT
The cruising fleet, now numbering about 120 vessels in the more populated western San Blas, flows and ebbs between anchorages in random rolling clusters. It’s interesting to watch how the proximity of a cell tower, the route of the veggie boat,  the chance of no-see-ums near the mangroves, and social events like birthday parties, determine where and when and with who(m?) the fleet disperses. 

More about the overcast skies. We’re used to clouds over the mainland mountains, and a certain haze which can make the mountains difficult to see even from islands only a couple miles out. But it’s been a long time between bursts of sunshine. Some people believe the wind has spread the moisture from the mountain clouds more out to sea. Others mention the cosmic radiation associated with a current uptick in solar flares as contributing to low-level cloudiness. Or it might be ‘normal’ like warm weather in March up north is ‘normal’ sometimes. It’s easy to be skeptical about these hypotheses, but it sure is cloudy, harder to read the water and I miss the lovely colors of the sunlit sea.

SAILING ULU: there’s a wall of mountains not three miles behind us, barely visible.


And, recent solar activity has in fact disrupted several GPS receivers and chart plotters. If it keeps up, we’ll all be lost, since, in this land of reef, shoal and surprising bottom contours, everyone relies on waypoints and tracks from previous visits, and tries to travel to a new place when the visibility is fine.
The ‘rainy day’ feel of things is not unwelcome. We’ve been chasing down inside projects, including some pesky plumbing problems, varnishing, and general installations, repairs and maintenance. Spring cleaning,bread-baking, hand-laundry, all that domestic stuff which takes time, and a dash of Zen. Repacking lockers, curating our collections of stuff. Much of what I try to get rid of, Doug snatches back, and vice versa, so progress is erratic.
Reading. It’s hard to believe, but in these Kindle days, some people are adamant about getting real books OFF their boat.  With a Kindle ‘shelf’ full of books I actually selected for myself, my own reading habits have changed. Feeling book-rich, I’ve become more of a nibbler than a savorer, and less of a hoarder. I’d still rather read a real book, admire the cover and fold down the corners. But books I want to read indubitably come my way more readily on the Kindle. Modern times, mon.
This dry season is what the Panamanians consider summer, but it has had a hearth-focused feel of winter to me. In any event, balmy spring will soon be upon us, and new life. I’m ready!

Murder and Mayhem

- Ann 2 Comments

As you look over the rail, or out the port, at your new neighbor in our floating cruising community, you don’t expect to find a murderer, if in fact you would recognize said character, even with binoculars. The most ‘violence’ I’ve seen in my vicinity, ever, is a heated discussion about anchoring, or with a recalcitrant outboard motor.
But there were two murders in this very cruising fleet in the San Blas last year, and two associated boat thefts. The cases have not yet come to trial, but it appears that one Javier Martin, a Spaniard who ran a boat for backpackers that went on the reef early one morning, got his next boat by murdering its owner. Then an American, Don North, went missing. Eventually Javier Martin was arrested on his way out of Panama with North’s money and passport. North’s body has never been found, but there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence.
Now this episode is being ‘television-ized’ and will be shown on the CBS program 48 Hours, airing February 4 2012 under a title of something like “Dark Side of Paradise”. All my information is fourth-hand or worse and certainly not to be relied upon, but I think there may also be coverage of some other spooky stuff that went on up in Bocas del Toro, Panama involving a character dubbed “Wild Bill”.
Add to this a tale overheard recently about a man whose wife was encouraged to convert her money into precious metal, kept on the boat, and then to take a short trip home, during which time he made plans to sail off with someone else, well, you gotta wonder, what else is going on out here?
Also, it will be fun to watch the race, as cruisers try to get a copy of the program, via various cobbled together bits of technological capabilities (not including adequate internet), or mail drop, or visiting guest. “We should have it by March”, I heard this morning. Well, there’s no rush.
Update  to say that Don Winner of the Panama Guide, panama_guide.com, is the man with most of the information available. We also recently  April 2012 met a friend in the San Blas who was looking for Don North´´s body, the confirmed presence of which would aid prosecution. Finding it seems a longer and longer shot, though.

The Swimming Pool anchorage, San Blas, Panama

- Ann 3 Comments

Ever since we’ve been within radio range of the Southwest Caribbean, we’ve been hearing about the Swimming Pool. It’s one of the best known anchorages in all of the San Blas islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama, the kind of place where people stay for months, even years. The careful radio listener will also hear about the Hot Tub, Bug Island, Green Island, and more, but good luck finding out where any of these places are, because these are the cognoscenti cruiser names, not the Kuna names that appear on the chart.

The Swimming Pool turns out to be in the Eastern Holandes, beyond Quinquindup and north of Banedup (aka Bug Island). The Hot Tub is south of Ukupsuit and Kalugirdup- you can see whyfor the nicknames, but it’s nice to know the real ones as well. The Holandes Cays make a convenient landfall, and to quote our number one source, Eric Bauhaus’s The Panama Cruising Guide: ‘since they are the islands furthest from the mainland, the waters are clear nearly year round. Their natural beauty and easy navigation have made the Holandes Cays a popular destination…a very scenic area of calm, translucent waters and towering coconut palms”. This anchorage is behind an extensive barrier reef as well as the islands, so the wind generator is in its element, whirling day and night to power the watermaker to refill our tanks with non-chlorinated product.

We were so slowed down by current on our 180+-mile passage from Cartagena this week that we had to hang out offshore an extra night, the dark one where the last of the old moon and the start of the new pass their baton under the bright eye of the sun.

The pretty pink tracks on our electronic charts might have been sufficient, even after dark, to get us into the anchorage we had entered several times before. But the story of a boat on the reef at Sail Rock near Porvenir as of Christmas Eve reminded us yet again of how fast things can go wrong. What exactly worries you about this, I asked Doug. He answered – the same thing that worries you, the reefs all around, the dark. Not much more to say, so we hove-to twenty miles away and kept the kitchen timer working all night, admiring the stars and the clouds, and not too far off, some kind of schooner cruise ship all lit up, heading slowly east.

Much of the Pool area is 12 or 15 feet of flat clear white sand, so the namer did a good job. I’ve swum around this Pool before, but when I jumped in the other day during a period of stronger trade winds there was such a current I had a hard time staying in one place, much less progressing. There’s a lot of salt spray on the boat too; the Pool is a nicer place when the wind dies down a touch.

I’d say we’re at the height of the boating season here in the San Blas. The Saturday Jan 28 2012 Panama Connection radio net boat count revealed 128 boats anchored in the western San Blas area this week. Some anchorages had two or three, others had fifteen or twenty, and there were probably 10 or 12 anchorages mentioned.

The present attraction at the Swimming Pool is the presence of Mark on Melody. He makes regular runs to Panama in his 40-foot sloop, carrying backpackers, and also carrying groceries, including frozen stuff, batteries, parts and other cruiser supplies. Some of these he stores on another sloop which he leaves anchored in the PooI, waiting for a buyer.

Send him a list, double-spaced, capital letters of what you’re looking for, and he’ll shop for it in Panama City and bring it back to the Pool for cost plus thirty percent. His main, but not his only, source is PriceMart, where he can be seen with a line of shopping carts, a section of each devoted to one particular customer. When he gets back to the Pool and starts to unload, he calls you on the VHF for you to come pick up. It’s quite a service, and next time, if there is one,  I hope I can speak from personal experience of it, instead of just being an envious voyeur. Doug knows about the Peanut M&Ms, so watch out!

PHOTO MELODY, DELIVERINGimage

Or, maybe no photos – trouble uploading. We’re back in the land of very few and far away cell towers and very slow service even at 3AM, so forget that panorama video too. But we’re here, and happy about it.

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