is not in control of the boat. He just tells you what you should do in order to keep from breaking your boat.
After we got diesel on Wednesday, Melinda and I took off for the San Blas islands. We sailed! We were doing 10 and 11 knots for a
while. Around sunset, the wind gradually died. So we motored.
At one point, just after dark, I rounded a corner and the GPS showed us going the opposite direction of the compass, at double our
forward speed through the water. I decided right away that a 20-knot current is not very common a few miles offshore in the ocean,
so I reset all the electronics and it went back to normal. It was a little disconcerting, though.
We went through a thundershower around 11:00 pm. There was some lightning and a lot of rain, but the wind never got over 20 knots.
There was no moon, and it was cloudy with no towns around, so it was completely dark outside. You couldn't see the horizon.
Around 2:00 or so we got to the place where I planned to anchor. Melinda was asleep. I saw another boat's mooring light. I got out
the spotlight, and noticed some sprinkles. By the time I had gone the last mile to the anchor spot, it was pouring down rain,
complete with lots of lightning and thunder.
I shined the spotlight ahead, and noticed something white in the water. So I turned to avoid it. It turned out to be a lot bigger
than I thought -- it was a sailboat. Without its anchor light on. Of course, the probably didn't expect some idiot to come in at
2:00 am and try to anchor in a thunderstorm.
The anchorage area was pretty small, and the GPS map was not overly accurate, and I had a hard time judging the distance of the
unlit boat, and I could hear loud breakers on the other side of the reef (over the sound of the storm). So I decided to move down
the shoreline a little.
The water was over 100 feet deep just a little distance from land, and there was a small strip of 15-30 foot water suitable for
anchoring. I decided to let the wind blow me back into this strip. I looked down, and all of a sudden I was in 3 feet of water
(under the bottom of the boat). So I took off real fast. That was pretty scary, with the thunder and lightning and breakers and not
being able to see the shoreline and etc.
So I took off and drove another mile or two, found a 30-foot deep "island" in the middle of 150-foot water, and anchored there more
than a half mile from shore. I turned my mooring light on in case some idiot decided to anchor in the middle of the night. The rain
stopped just a few minutes after we anchored.
The next day Melinda and I went scuba diving around the boat. It was really nice. But I had dropped the anchor in a bed or coral, a
big no-no. So I moved the anchor chain and the anchor around a little bit so Melinda wouldn't hurt me for hurting the coral. I
scraped on my foot, which puffed up really nice. The coral hurt me worse than I hurt it.
The Kunas are the Indians (or indigenous people or native Americans or first nation) who live on the San Blas islands. In the early
1900s, Panama became independent from Colombia. The Kunas did not like the new Panamanian governor, so they killed him and his
staff. Panama was on the way for some big-time retaliation, but a US Navy boat intervened. The Kunas were given the San Blas islands
as an autonomous region of Panama. They more or less govern themselves.
Today the Kunas are just a little less advanced that people in Arkansas. They have no electricity or motor vehicles (including motor
boats). They live by the old Kuna laws. Or maybe that makes them more advanced, I'm not sure.
Women own property and choose husbands. They follow the old religion with multiple gods. They speak their native language. But the
young people we met speak Spanish and a little English, and they can read and write. They go to school some, but I don't know how
much.
The Kunas make molas and sell them. A mola is made of a few sheets of colored cloth, sewn into designs. They are and made, and sell
for $5 to $30.
After scuba diving, we took off in the boat for the eastern Hollande Cays. That's part of the San Blas islands. An older guy in a
dugout canoe came up to the boat to charge us a $5 tax for visiting. That was OK with me, because they don't have much money there.
He invited us over to his island, about 1/2 mile away. Melinda and I kayaked over a little while later. It looked like about 10 or
12 people lived on the island in a few huts. Most of the huts had thatched roofs, but one had a tin roof. That one may have been for
storage.
Melinda bought some molas. Two boys tried out our kayaks while Melinda and I were touring the island. I took some pictures. I had
read that you're not supposed to take pictures of the Kunas, but I asked and they didn't mind. I printed them off and gave them
copies the next day.
Melinda and I took about a 3-mile kayak trip around some islands and to the main barrier reef. It was really neat -- big waves were
breaking on one side, and on the other side it was perfectly calm. The reef is about 150 feet wide, and you can walk on it. The
water is really clear (on the calm side). We could see all kinds of plants and animals in the water, except there were no cows.
A little while later, six people from that island came up to the boat in a dugout. We tried to be very sensitive about their
traditional values. We took pictures, printed them, and watched a Star Wars movie in Spanish. I thought the older lady (the island's
matriarch?) might be a little conservative and not allow the movie, but she liked it as much as anybody. The kids were joking about
that.
The two older ladies were in traditional dress, but the youngsters (ages 4 to 20) were wearing regular shorts and shirts. They were
all pretty nice.
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