Snug Harbor, San Blas Islands

Thursday, February 14, 2002

009-19.800 N
078-15.600 W

Ahoy from Snug Harbor which is part of the San Blas Islands in Panama. We arrived on Feb 12 after a 24 hour sail from Colombia. What started out as a 160 nm motor trip turned into a great sailing trip with 15-22 kts on the beam. Ken, from Stormy Petrel, always under estimates how fast he sails and keeps pushing forward the time that he's going to leave. The biggest problem with that is getting in too early when you need to eyeball the reefs. Stormy left a good 1.5 hours before BlueJacket (which he's renamed BlueStreak), but BlueJacket passed SP about 12 hours later even with a reef in the main. The seas were a solid 6-10', but had fairly long periods. We arrived together at about 9:30 and anchored in 45 feet of very calm water.

Other boaters have described the San Blas Islands "as the closest to the South Pacific you can get without actually going through the canal". This island chain, which stretches for about 70 miles, consists of small palm tree islands surrounded by lots of shallow reefs. The reefs do a great job of knocking down the seas, but there's constant salt spray in the air which coats everything.

As soon as we dropped anchored the Kuna Indians were out in their dugouts and ready to sell their local catch of the day. The Kuna Yala, are a almost autonomous nation of indigenous Indians that inhabit the San Blas archipelago. The first visitor was a man and his son selling octopus. No takers there. Then came the floating coconut, fish, etc sailsmen (haha). The traveling sahila "chief" came out to collect the $6.00 US permit fee for the village and invited us to his home for a visit. The guide books tells you that you need the sahlia's permission to anchor, tour the island etc, all which requires a fee of about $6 per boat.

After some sleep a German boat came over with a story about how they had a fuel host stolen and how there was going to be a meeting in the town to discuss this. This sounded very interesting so we ventured into thevillage of Playon Chico. We wondered around till we found the meeting house called the "congresso" (sp?) to meet with the chiefs. It was a large thatch roof building with a dirt floor and 3 hammocks in the middle surrounded by wooden benches. The hammocks were for the chiefs who just laid there sprawled out and did not move. The chiefs had an intermediary between the Germans and themselves in order to hear the complaint. They vowed to search hut to hut for the missing fuel line and amazingly they found it 2 days later. The Germans had to go in to the back where it was locked up in the safe in order to obtain it!

The village itself comprises of hundreds of bamboo huts with thatched roofs There are a few concrete structures, but mostly bamboo. There's a generator and crude wiring to some of the huts, but I haven't seen it turned on in 3 days. The women mostly wear "molas" which are intricately sewn cloth patterns which are beautiful and sold worldwide. Competition to sell them in the village is intense. They also wear colorful leggings which are sewn on. You'll see some women walking around with red painted faces, which wards off evil spirits.

Everywhere we walked we were surrounded by children holding our hands and saying "hola" (hello). They never let go of your hand, and if they do, someone else will quickly grab it. The digital cameras were huge hits with the kids as they could see their picture immediately. Interestingly enough the adults don't want their pictures taken. Nutrition must be poor as you could see some children with distended stomachs. The average height of an adult is less than 5 feet. They have a large common area where they play basketball and volleyball, but I doubt they'd do well in international competition!

The "traveling sahila" caught up with us and brought us to a couple local stores to buy onions. One Kuna had a garden with tomatoes and cucumbers for sale. We also bought bread from a local women for .10/loaf, which was more like to a large bread stick, but still very good. A Colombian trading vessel was at the dock selling soda, flour and cement. What a combination!

The snorkeling here just OK as the water is somewhat cloudy from river runoff. Also they've massively overfished the area. They do have some HUGE crabs which are delicious! All in all a wonderful place.

Log ID: 167