Sailing to San Blas - Caribbean Forgotten Paradise

Long, hot, humid days follow as she heads down into the cauldron in the south west corner of the Caribbean Sea known as Panama. Visions of swamps, mangroves and mosquitoes along with stultifying heat are conjured up to play upon the imagination of her crew. The fine wind holds and our ship bowls along making an extra thirty nautical miles a day due primarily to that union of her shaft and that object of her desire, the shiny new brass feathering propeller. She is surprised and very pleased with the difference it makes and shares this with the captain who now thinks he is so clever! The following wind pushes her along, dragging her own microclimate with her creating a kind of vacuum, so everything above water level is cooking, including the crew! Coleridges’ famous lines from the ‘Ancient Mariner’ float up in the haze:

‘All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody sun at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the moon.

Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship, Upon a painted ocean’ STC - 1799

How to paint a picture with few words? Although a lengthy poem, Coleridge says it all about the Doldrums, in this short passage.

Life on board is moulded into a routine and one day runs into another, smoothly, seamlessly, like a never ending Mobius Strip. The Captain, lounging languidly in the cockpit, shaded by the awning, glances lazily astern and suddenly leaps bolt upright, staring into the water where the fishing lure is swimming some one hundred metres in their wake. He cannot believe his eyes as a huge darker blue shadow angles up toward the lure, gives it a little nip, disdainfully turns, and sinks back into the depths. Several pounding heartbeats later he is able to splutter a shout to the others, who pour out of the companionway to see what all the fuss is about. Seeing nothing and believing the Captain is going delirious, despite his postulations regarding a monster marlin, they retire once more below – poor fellow! However, he knows, as does she, that indeed it was a large billfish of some kind, as its’ gleaming bill had cleared the water whilst it inspected the lure. He put it down to curiosity and added it to his store of knowledge on pelagics.

Brilliant green flash in the last of the suns early evening rays, flinging off rainbow droplets, each a prism of colour, signals a solid strike on the trailing lure. In comes a beautiful 7kg Mahi Mahi. These gorgeous fish, when first out of the water, are a kaleidoscope of brilliant colours, sometimes blue, sometimes green and/or gold – hence the Spanish name for them, ‘Dorade’. She is quickly filleted and placed in the ships refrigerator in preparation for dinner. Sibling crew announces dinner with a couple of strikes on the ships bell and our crew tuck into the ‘catch of the day’ with relish. Served up with straw potatoes, slivered carrot, tomato, red pepper, salad, hot bread and a glass of chilled chardonnay her crew will enthusiastically quaff it all down, relaxing in the cockpit in the last soft glow of the tropical evening, distant pink and rose cumulus stacked to the ceiling – could there be anything more enjoyable? ‘Why do they have to go to those lengths to feed themselves?’ she wonders when all she needs is wind in her sails?

With Cartagena sunk astern and well across the gulf of Darien, she alters course a few degrees to port to intersect with the San Blas archipelago. This little forgotten corner of the globe interests her immensely. Early morning with the sun behind and rolling gently on the moderate swell she approaches the first bunch of islands cautiously. At this point only palm trees are visible. Gradually other landmarks slowly rise out of the sea to reveal more small islands, white beaches and some tiny buildings. Many reefs are also visible, darkly lurking under the surface to catch an unwary visitor. Her crew are being extremely canny because the charting in this area is inaccurate at best, and whilst she knew the way in, she let them practise their conning skills. There were going to be many more situations similar to this, once they entered the Pacific and sailing amongst those South Sea islands. Besides, it made them feel good and gave them bragging rights at the next nautical bar they happened upon. Dropping anchor over her nose in Porvenir, just fifty metres from the Custom house, she comes to rest. That was about the extent of their harbour – a small pond encircled with jagged reefs. However, the ground is good with the anchor holding well. A bump on her starboard side accompanied with a soft ‘halloo’, signals the arrival of several canoes loaded with small and smiling light brown ladies, offering the crew all kinds of clothing items embroidered with the most brilliant coloured native patterns – hours of work gone into each item and selling them for a song. These Mila Indian folk are delightful people, small, smiling and quiet, and still living a traditional life to which stressed out Westerners aspire. Porvenir, the capital is nothing more than a village of straw huts. Dirt roads suffice as there are only two trucks on the whole island. Amongst these tropical hues of greens, blues, browns and golds was the only blot on the landscape. Perched crookedly at the entrance to the one establishment selling anything was a bright and garish red Coca Cola can dispenser! The absence of men struck the crew and it was finally established that they all go off every morning to the mainland to work in the banana plantations.

There being no restaurants or eateries in this capital, the crew retire back on board for a simple dinner and catch up on sleep. As the evening wears on, the off shore wind gradually increases in strength to the point where she is really lunging on her short anchor scope and straining her purchase on the bottom. She signals the captain her distress and he, after interrupting his sleep every thirty minutes and coming up to check, finally emerges, complete with sleeping bag and settles down in the cockpit. From here he can regularly peer over the gunwale to check the short distance to the white water foaming over the jagged teeth of the alarmingly nearby reef. The captains’ imagination continually plays tricks with his night vision, but fortunately the breaking water comes no closer. At this point he is joined by the anxious Anglo crew member to share the watch duty.

Finally falling into a deep mindless sleep for an hour or two, he awakens to a violet dawn. Lifting his woolly head above deck level the captain is amazed at the scene before his eyes. A huge cloud of white butterflies is passing left to right across his vision and heading off to the mainland just visible, emerging from the early morning murk. Shaking his head to clear it he realises it is a large fleet of tiny skiffs, single white sail up – the men of the village spiriting off for their days work – what a wonderful sight, but belying a day of hard toil ahead for them.

Farewell to this little forgotten paradise as she lifts her cqr out of the sand, drops away and carefully picks her reef strewn route out to sea. Sibling crew has the sharpest eyes so she does the conning from the pulpit rail – balanced on the top rail, grasping the furler stay with one hand and the other shading her eyes, she is reminiscent of a ships figurehead guiding our good ship to safety. Gybing onto the plotted southerly course she finds the stiff offshore breeze is just aft of her port beam. With an almost flat sea she leaps forward to an exhilarating eight knots plus and sails like this hour after hour into the gorgeous soft tropical evening. She feels extremely comfortable in this mode with everything on her in concert, and, with full and taut sails up knows she is a handsome boat indeed. The only sounds apart from the wind is the tinkling whisper of her stem knifing through the water, the gentle sigh of it creaming along her sides and the soft gurgle as it exits in miniature whirlpools under her stern. Sounds that she and her crew can become so absorbed in, that time is endless, lulling all into a luxurious torpor.

More practically, she notes that the captain, when in the saloon, regularly hugs the lower end of her deck stepped mast, presses his ear to the moulded aluminium and listens. From this position she understands that he can hear everything that is happening on the ship. The multitude of sounds flowing up and down that metal tube, form a pattern. The flexing of the mast, creaking of the running rigging, steering quadrant chain, rolling furler jumping in its’ shackle and even the watermaker chugging softly aft, can all be heard. Any change or unusual sound immediately alerts him to ascertain what it is, locate the cause and take whatever action is required – ‘He’s coming along’, she muses.

Extract from my ebook ‘Voyage of the Little Ship ‘Tere Moana’ downloadable from my sailboat2adventure website. website for sailors

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