These days we are learning about the differences from offshore to inshore cruising. As you can see on the satellite track, we have been sailing by day and on anchor by night, working our way northwest along the Panamanian coastline. It is a different feel then the long haul sailing we did from Jamaica to Colombia and then from the east coast of Colombia across the mouth of Uraba Bay to Sapzurro on the west side of Colombia, which took us a day and a half non stop.
First of all, and most annoyingly for the Captain, "cruising" here at this time of year means motor sailing, actually mostly just motoring with the mainsail out to stop us from rolling too much in the swell! The winds have been light to nonexistent during the first part of the day, when we've been traveling, picking up to 3 to 5 knots in the early afternoon, just as we are ready to put the sail away and drop anchor. We would leave later, except because we are inshore there are lots of reefs and shoals to avoid, which are almost impossible to see when facing into the late afternoon sun. And so we motor.
Traveling inshore we also have to make decisions about whether to stay inside the little islands and travel close to shore or go outside the islands and get caught in choppy swells. We've now done both and in both places we have to pay attention to the breakers, where the waves crest over the shallows and reefs. It is a spectacular sight from afar, but up close it usually means we are more focused on the navigation to get us out of there!
But the anchor has been up and down in several interesting places along the coast, in spite of the navigational challenges. We anchored off the Kuna village of Ustupu several nights ago, which is the largest village in the Kuna Yala with a population of a couple thousand. It's on a fairly densely packed island, and most of the buildings are thatched huts, although there were a few two-story concrete buildings, including a church painted orange and yellow. We came ashore to buy provisions and saw some of what we expected - locals dressed in their native style, which for the women means shortish skirts with a blouse on top and what looks like piles of beaded bracelets in red and yellow around their calves, with a headscarf draped loosely. We also saw the more unexpected - three teenagers using netbooks to access the internet via wifi in the town square, and snickers candy bars in the shop (they have to keep them in the fridge because it is too hot here) - yes, we bought two.
We had difficulty finding any produce in the stores because the locals grow their own and wouldn't necessarily need to buy it, but we investigated the steamer on the dock and they had brought in tomatoes, carrots, potatoes and onions, things that you would have difficulty growing here. The ship also had the most enormous pile of plantain in the back half - think of an area 20 feet by 10 feet, piled four feet high with plantain. We're not sure if they were buying or selling, but it was a lot of green bananas! While we were on the ship we asked about limes, another common local item, and so someone went off to their house to get us some, probably from his tree. When he came back, we asked what the price was for the bag of about 15 limes and it turns out all he wanted was 50 cents. We gave him a dollar and you shouda seen the smile we got - ear to ear.
At many of our stops, we've had men in dugout canoes come up to the boat to sell us items. We've had fish, lobster, pineapple and mangos. There have also been several wanting to sell us crab, but we weren't sure what to do with them so we had to turn them down. (If you have good crab recipes, email me, and include how to kill, clean and cook it.)
Unfortunately, we haven't been able to swim at the places we've most recently stayed. Reasons include:
1) Very close proximity to the town, which has outhouses that hang off shore and so the floaties in the water reallly are floaters;
2) Gross yellow scum, a pile of which we saw further out to sea as we were motoring and then a thin line of which passed through our anchorage, probably the contents of a trading ship's bilge; and
3) Crocodiles! This afternoon, while sitting on the front of the boat after we'd anchored, I notice a "log" about 6 feet long that was moving perpendicular to the current at a steady pace. I yelled for the Captain to bring the binoculars, and sure enough, my log had a snout and a tail. He disappeared into the mangroves, but there was no carefree jumping of the boat to swim today - maybe off the beach tomorrow...
