Civilization
14 June 2015 | Nargana
Mark
Sunday morning we proceeded to pick up all three anchors. The weather cooperated nicely as we were hanging from our primary. First wee undid the Fortress and i went and pulled it up with the dink. It was pretty well dug in, but an inflatable dink had tremendous buoyancy. Take a good strain on the chain and wait for a wave or two to break it free. Load the anchor and then the chain and then the rode into dink as I return to Always. Then hand up the bitter end to Bryan who tied it off and loaded the rode, the chain, and finally the anchor into the locker so it would be already to deploy in the future. Unfortunately Bryan dropped the anchor on his toe and nearly tore off his big toenail. OUCH! Repeat with the Bruce. (except for the toe part) While we were doing this, Deb picked up the extra 300' of chain we had dumped to empty and clean that locker. Finally we were ready to leave. I took the helm, we weighed the remaining primary anchor and carefully motored out the cut into the open. No problems. Next stop Tigre (~ 1 hr.) I remembered that getting in to anchor at Tigre was a bit tricky. I made it around the point of reef without problem, then almost got caught by the rapidly shoaling area inside the anchorage. I spotted it in time as depth meter went from 50' to 8' and we turned and successfully anchored between that shoal and the shore. It was not the best spot to anchor, but we would only be here a few hours. I stayed on the boat "just to be safe" while Deb took Bryan and Jana in to see Tigre. They bought molas and a phone card and got to see the town which is a quite traditional Kuna (now Guna) village. Then we were off to Nargana. Nargana, connected by a foot bridge to Corizon de Jesus, is one of the LEAST traditional Guna villages. Most houses are concrete instead of thatch, beer abd wine can be bought anywhere, and very few dress in traditional ways. After anchoring, we found a little restaurant for lunch (follow the load music). It was traditional Guna - fish (or conch), rice and lentils. Quite good. Being Sunday, most other things were closed, but we crossed the foot bridge and saw that on Corizon de Jesus they were just completing the third day of a festival. On the stage was this huge construction. It was sort of a blob (maybe heart shaped?) with six arms that undulated out from it. In the center was a very decorated heart Flanking this construction were the pictures of four (?) beauty queens (?). There was a plastic chair decorated with glitter and ribbons which we presume was the throne of the winner. Oh, and walls of amplifiers. In the evening we heard the amplifiers! Lawrence Welk on crack. Of course the restaurant still had its music going too so it was stereo (but different tunes). The there were fireworks. A sky rocket with three flash/bangs. Then another, then another, then nothing. Three rockets? That was it? Well, no. Twenty minutes later they did three more. And later yet another three. At sometime long after we went to bed (?midnight?) they did five or six in a row and were done. Strange display - nothing but flash/bangs and all spread out. At least the music stopped and we could sleep. Today, up the Rio Diablo.