20130506-0601 Cruising Coast of Colombia, to Panama - San Blas Islands and Bocas del Toros

How many times can we say that people we meet all over the world are generally kind, friendly, and warm. Apparently, not enough. In every new harbor we cruise to and every village or town we visit, we are warmly approached and we are again pleasantly surprised. Whether they are other cruisers, tourists or locals, they have a story to tell, and in return we share ours.

After our goodbyes to those we met, we departed Santa Marta, Colombia the first week in May. Knowing that the rainy season was soon to arrive, the sooner we left, the better.

Mostly we voyaged every day.... long day sails from one desirable anchorage to another including Puenta Hermosa, Isla Grande, Isla Rosario, Puerto Feurto and Olbaldio, Mono Island, Rio Diablo, and many of the Islands of San Blas, over to Bocas del Toros.

Having been to a handful of the anchorages before, we tried to see some new spots, intermittently taking a day or two out from voyaging to see 3rd world Colombian villages, the Kuna Indians of San Blas, several snorkeling sites off pristine inhabited islands, and over to our final destination of Red Frog Beach Marina-Bocas del Toros.

Along our way, the waves were quite calm, with some rain, lots of cloudy days, and as history repeats itself, the winds were light and right on our nose. We were able to get some speed from just our Genny, but the normal pace was about 8 knots, with one engine. In calm weather, we sailed one overnight voyage from the last feasible anchorage in Colombia to Panama to gain some distance, as the coastline offered little if any protective anchorages.

Mark kept busy reading many books, and plotting our course and anchorages, due to undeveloped and unreliable charts available for these areas. I kept watch most of the time, and started another crochet project... keeps me out of trouble Mark says. We both caught some intestinal bug, which kept us busy as well - as you might imagine.

Only one possible major mishap. In the middle of the night, on anchor off a desolate unprotected anchorage, the winds kicked up. Mark awoke after hearing a loud chain sound, felt we were moving, with no help from us. The windless had a mind of its own and began to raise our anchor on the starboard side. He scurried up to see what was going on, until the circuit breaker stopped the movement. He put our anchor alarm on for the rest of the night, since we had a second anchor on the port side set as well. In the morning - we noticed our bridle lines had snapped from all the force of the anchor chain raising. Another fix to do, but was successful - a windless electrical repair and bridle lines retied.

Well, it was the first time we had had a pet on board. On our arrival to the first waypoint in Panama - Obaldio - it was a fairly long process to get checked into the Port of Authority, Immigrations, and Customs. So tired from the voyaging day to day, we were required to visit multiple facilities, and make many trips to the copier to get many copies of our passports and other documents. The officials were quite friendly and even humorous about our trips back and forth to meet their requirements.

We were then shuttled by their boat with 6 soldiers in camo outfits armed with AK-47 machine guns, and a drug sniffing dog, and all boarded aVida. So, it was mandatory to get aVida scoured not only by their armed guards searching every cubby hole and floorboard, but also by their search dog sniffing every cabin. We guessed these people take anyone arriving from Colombia very serious, due to the prevailing big drug problems there. Even though the dog was well behaved, he took the liberty to roll around one of our aft cabins. Probably it was the best bunk he ever snuggled in for quite some time. As expected, they found nothing illegal, and aVida received lots of compliments, as usual.

We arrived in Red Frog Beach Marina, Bocas del Toros, Panama - our final destination - very natural and scenic, but about a 15 minute dinghy ride to get to the inhabited and more lively Bocas Town. Red Frog Beach lies on an island in Bocas area called Bastimentos - beautiful beaches, private villas, two restaurants uninhabited for the most part, and really not much else, all set in a steamy tropical rainforest. We walked the desolate area, and quickly decided this was not a place to park aVida and ourselves for months to come. We checked out the next day after investigating availability at the more popular Bocas Marina- which is a short water taxi or dingy ride over to the lively Bocas town, and a much more colorful marina with many yachties, yet still natural.

We relocated the following day, with a very tight maneuver into Bocas Marina, right next to an artsy bar/resto called Bocas Cantina, run by a very friendly and young Canadian couple, new to sailing, but chillin and working there to save funds for their unforeseen future.

What a pleasant surprise! Our dock was situated adjacent to Javelin, sister ship to AVID, and owned by Chris White the designer of these cats. Unfortunately, we missed seeing Chris by just a few days, as he left Bocas to travel to Alwoplast, the boat builder in Chile, then to Europe, then back to USA for a while. The other sailors teased us on that day of our arrival; they were having a "cat attack", seeing two sister boats docked right next to each other. If we're lucky, perhaps we'll get to see Chris when he returns to his boat safe here in Bocas, in the coming months.

So, for the rest of May to mid June, we'll first get some boat maintenance done, trip planning, AVID work issues, etc. Unfortunately, Mark pulled his back muscles and maybe cracked a rib, so he has some healing to do before we can scuba dive, or even snorkel.

We're planning a 6 week trip back to Europe June 18-Aug 3, because the summers here in Bocas can be quite hot, humid, rainy, and buggy, as we're experiencing already. The plan is to fly to southern Spain to spend time in Tarifa with sailing friends Dani and Bernard, drive the coast of Portugal up to Basque country, northern Spain, and then to the northwestern/northern parts of France to Brittany and Normandy. Lots of work to plan, but we've locked it down in just several days already. When we return to aVida and Bocas in August, we'll see how Panama weather is behaving to explore the other islands of Bocas, and meet more friendly warm people, of course.