02/27/2010, Panama- Chichime to Isla Linton
Anchor up at 7:30 am moving out of the San Blas islands, we could have easily spent more time here but we're of the mind set that there's still a lot out there to see so we'll keep moving at a reasonable speed. A 8.8 earhquake rocked Chile and could cause a tsunami in the Pacific where we have many friends so we're keeping the faith that all are safe. It was a great sailing day we never saw our speed over ground go below 7 mph and was usually around 9. While we were in Mexico we kept hearing folks asking where the boat "Lost Elvis" was at but we never did get a chance to meet them. Today they were passaging from the San Blas to Isla Linton with us so we made radio contact and joined in with them and our friends on Effie for dinner at a french rerstaurant, amazing world.
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02/25/2010, Panama- Chichime
John was busy all day on the boat and I was wanting to have some alone time so I kayaked around the islands most of the day. The kayak is a great way to check out the shallow reefs areas because it only draws 6". The water here is crystal clear with more than 40 feet visibility so it's like looking into an aquarium. I saw fields of brain coral with heads around eight feet across, truly amazing. John had been asking the ulu fishermen for octopus the last few days and today his ship came in, so pasta with red sauce and octopus for dinner....yum yum it's one of our favorites.
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02/24/2010, Chichime Cays, San Blas Islands, Panama
Or was it Mamardup? Anyway, we spent the last few days anchored in Gunboat with Joan and Ted (Panchita) and decided to go to the Chicha Ceremony on Rio Sidra - two islands Urgandi and Mamardup that the Indians filled in the water between them, so now they are one long island, but still with two chiefs. We picked up a Kuna named Idelfonso Restreppo on nearby Mormake Tupu to be our guide for the afternoon. Ted has a forty horsepower engine on his dinghy so we got there in record time and tied up to the village dock. Idelfonso explained to us that the Cicha Ceremony is held for many purposes, usually about 15 or so times a year. It consists of several days of preperation, mostly squeezing the juice from sugar cane and fermenting it into Chicha, which as near as I could figure out is like a wine, but fairly potent. Then, this is followed by four days of drinking the Chicha. Everyone gets all dressed uo in the traditional clothes, women in mola blouses and beaded leggings (and of course the transvestite men, too), and the important village men all wear pink shirts and black fedora hats!! There was a special hut built for this festival, which was the puberty rites for two girls, combined with a celebration of the Kuna Revolution anniversary. The puberty rite consists of a haircut - the girls wear long hair, the women short. Anyway, all the indians walk around with calabash gourd bowls, filled with Cicha, single file through the village, and get stinking drunk - not disorderly at all, they just walk around single file, drink, and smile a lot. The women smoke pipes, too!! There is dancing and singing, but only when the mood strikes, according to Idelfonso. All in all pretty bizarre.
Last night the wind swung around the the southwest, which is almost unheard of this time of year, so the Gunboat anchorage got pretty choppy, and it was time for a change of scenery anyway. So, we boogied over to Porvenir and visited the Port Captain - Ismael - who issued us a Zarpe to travel to Colon. You have to notify the port captain and get a permission slip to go anywhere in central america. Eight dollars and forty cents poorer, we started the trip to Colon - 75 miles to the west - by immediately heading six miles east to Chichime, which has some great snorkeling. We plan to leave for Colon once the wind returns to normal.
Anyway, right now I am waiting for the three indians that wanted to sell me a big eel to come back with some octopus, which they did not have - only eel, crabs, and lobster. We will see if they do it or not, if they do, yummy dinner, if not, tuna noodle cassarole!! Such is life.
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02/24/2010, Panama- Gunboat to Porvenir
Time to go back to the Port Captain's office for our exit zarpe, paperwork allowing us to go to our next destination port. We're a little melancholy about leaving the San Blas, as is typical it seems with most things in life, our experience here has in some ways been more than what we expected and in some ways less. It is so far the most beautiful group of islands we have seen and hope to spend more time here in the future probably further east in the less traveled areas. Moved to the next island east, Chichime, after our paperwork was finished to spend a couple of nights till the seas and wind calmed down and we could exit the area in better weather.
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02/23/2010, Panama- Rio Sidra Chicha Festival
Mola maker Lisa's brother came by yesterday and we arranged to go with him today along with Panchita to a chacha festival on nearby Isla Rio Sidra. A chacha festival is a party occasion where the Indians ferment a pressed sugarcane based drink and celebrate, girls coming of age, marriages or near as we could tell just about anything. So we walked around town and basically observed a street party, it was afternoon not evening so there was no dancing yet. But it was interesting to see the usually reserved Kuna women drinking and smoking all dressed in their best traditional clothing. Took some pictures of the kids because they'll pose for a piece of candy while the women all want a $1 for each photo, Joan tried to get them in the background while pretending to shoot pics of our group, tricky.
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