another beautiful anchorage

i'm still too fat

lots of beaches like this

typical island anchorage

Vegies to the boat

typical village

Marian shopping

The Kunas are short

marian getting her beads

Hello All,

We are at present in Colon Panama and getting ready to cross the Panama Canal on Friday and Saturday as it takes an overnight anchoring in Gatun lake.

We have not been able to post a blog for a long time as we spent over a month in the San Blas island on the Caribbean coast of Panama. The life of the Kuna's is very simple as they live in bamboo houses with thatched roofs and dirt floors. They have no electricity and few modern conveniences but live a very happy life which consists of harvesting coconuts and growing fruits. We have never seen so many coconut trees with beautiful white sand beaches. The society is matriarchal and the women have all the power. The men work fishing and harvesting and the women work at making molas which are intricate stitched clothing. We would buy crayfish and crabs from the fisherman as well in many anchorages a dugout would come by, called an ula, with fresh vegies etc.Marian did buy a few molas which are very beautiful.

The islands of the San Blas or Kuna Yala, are about a hundred miles long and when we left we stopped at Porto Bello which is where the Spanish treasure fleets left for Spain. We were surprised by the noise of cars as we had not seen a motorized vehicle for over a month. Not many places on the planet where you can say that. The next stop was Colon and the Shelter Bay Marina where we are at present. On Monday and Tuesday we acted as line handlers on Sea Mist and went through the Canal. It was a wonderful experience and look forward to doing it on Kilkea Friday and Saturday. There are a lot of boats in Panama right now waiting for favorable winds to head to the Galapagos Islands. This is an El Nino year so the weather patterns seem to be a little screwed up. We do not know how long we will have to wait in Panama City to get the right weather patterns but it may be awhile.

Anyway this is just a short recap of where we are and will try to add much more when I have time on the Pacific side.