Before you can leave Colombia you have to check out, which is not as simple as it sounds.  At the skippers meeting the “yellow shirts” from World Cruising told us to file a request for Zarpe – essentially a request to clear out – with the marina at least 2 days before departure.  Unlike some other, obviously smarter skippers, who did nothing until the last second, I did as instructed and put down 8 pm on January 21 as the planned departure time on the 19^th as it would get us to San Blas in the morning of the 23rd.   As it turned out in the days after I filed the request, the forecasts got worse and it appeared that 8 pm was the worst time to leave Santa Marta.   Vicious gusts would race down from the mountains after sun down each evening, which would make the docking maneuver very difficult.  The weather files I downloaded on the 20^th also indicated that an 8 pm departure would mean we would encounter gusts of more than 45 knots.  So I decided to change our departure time to the afternoon on the 21st, 1700.  But no, senor, marina staff opined, that’s not possible as immigration already has your request for Zarpe.  Really?  Well, with the help of Leslie from the yellow shirts and after hanging around the marina office for 2 hours, our stamped passports magically appeared and the Zarpe came with it – duly stamped and embued with officiality!  So we left Santa Marta in benign conditions just a bit later.

Leaving Santa Marta

The sail to Kuna Yala (San Blas) was not as bad as threatened by the various weather models.  We saw 37 knots in one gust but mostly it was 25-30 knots all the way, no problem for the experienced Kincsem team.  A double reefed main and the staysail initially, and then a reefed main and the poled out reefed genoa gave us a quick ride to San Blas.   

Local Kuna canoe sailing in over 20 knots and 2 meter seas

The San Blas islands are not very well charted – our normal C-Map charts don’t have sufficient detail to get to most anchorages and are reputed to be inaccurate as well.  So I have a separate tablet PC running the Open CPN program, which enables me to use satellite charts (Google Earth, etc) and most importantly, digitized versions of the charts included in the superb Bauhaus guide to Panama, to chart our course in San Blas.  The courses made on the table can then be uploaded into the Furuno chartplotter so we can follow the waypoints on the helm.  More technology is not always an unconditional plus, however, so I was a bit concerned charting our course into the first San Blas anchorage on the West end of the Coco Bandera island group.   Well, the charting worked flawlessly, Elaine on the bow with the intercom headset gave great instructions how to avoid the reefs and Udo on the forward looking sonar was another safety factor.  So all went well, the anchor went down in a fantastic place right next to a sandy island with towering palm trees on it! 

The Kuna are a very enterprising people.  It didn’t take long after our anchor was down that we were offered fresh lobster from a dug-out canoe full of smiling faces.  We purchased a few for our lunch.

Look at these colors but where are the eyes?

Later another canoe came by from the little island asking us to charge a number of cell phones and a power bank – who could say no?   The next day a large canoe appeared with two 200 liter barrels in it, containing molas, the local fabric designs.  Mola upon mola hit the side deck of Kincsem, making selection very difficult.  Elaine was excited to see that the molas were made by Venancio, a woman who apparently is quite well known for the quality of her designs.   While Elaine and I bought 2 molas each, Guglielmo, at the telephonic direction from his wife bought something like 8 of them! 

Here is Elaine inspecting molas being offered and Guglielmo on the phone with his wife doing the same!

Molas are made from several layers of fabric of different colors

We spent two days at our first island anchorage with only a small number of other sailboats none of which were from the WARC.  On the third day, we moved a couple of miles to another anchorage in the Coco Banderas archipelago where there were several WARC boats anchored.   The entrance was equally tricky and the setting just as spectacular if not more so.   Here another Kuna boat appeared, asking for us to fill their 30 liter water container.  So they don’t have fresh water but have cell phones.   Interesting choice!  And yes, it was one of the guys’ birthday (so he said) and he asked whether we maybe had a “regalo” for him!  A couple of cold beers made him and his mate smile!

Coco Banderas East anchorage

Traditional dugout canoe sailing outside the reef

Snorkeling off the reef in Cayos Holandais

Our last anchorage in the Kuna Yala was called the “swimming pool” in the Holandais Keys, called that way because of the color of the water in full sunlight.  A bit tricky for us to get into the anchorage as it gets shallow very quickly but it was worth it!  Here, we were among many other WARC boats with whom we could chat.  We also had a couple of primitive restaurants to chose from – the food was surprisingly good.  The only problem – if you can call it that - was that they had no ice – the beers and wine were cool but the rum drinks were warm!

At anchor in the Swimming Pool

At the restaurant; we were told there were crocodiles on the island where the restaurant was but we did not see any.

Our swimming pool anchorage ironically was difficult for swimming because a strong current ran through the anchorage.  So after one day we moved to another area in the same area where there was no current.  This enabled us to clean the bottom of Kincsem in preparation for Galapagos.  The Galapagos require a totally clean bottom with no growth or one is sent back out to see to clean the bottom 60 miles from the islands! 

We have a “hooka,” which is a dive compressor with a long hose and a scuba mouthpiece attached which works very well for diving the boat.  I had discovered earlier that the boatyard in Grenada, SIMS, had left one side of the rudder gudgeon (a piece that holds the rudder to the skeg) totally unpainted although I had expressly instructed them to paint it with antifouling.  So there was already some growth.  Unfortunately, I now discovered two additional areas where they had apparently not painted, resulting in strong growth on that area.  I will try to get this fixed in Shelter Bay – i.e. pull the boat and paint the missed areas.  Grrrrrrrr!

These guys watched us for a long time

Not all is good in paradise.   

Our sail to Shelter Bay (a marina in Colon) was uneventful although overnight since WARC had discouraged us from stopping because the stops are supposedly not safe.  Arriving in Colon was interesting given all the ship traffic to and from the canal.  But it seemed no worse than Gibraltar and we made it to the marina under sail without encounters with commercial shipping.

Colon breakwater

So now that we are in Shelter Bay waiting for the canal transit, you may wonder:  is Kincsem ready for the Pacific?  Once we leave Panama for the Galapagos, it will be many thousand miles before we will be back in an area where we can get helpful men to work on issues we cannot tackle ourselves.  We’ve had a few such issues over the last several months but – knock on wood - so far, there is only one minor one that appeared since Rodney Bay:  our chart plotter doesn’t show bearings.  This isn’t much of a problem since we can see all bearings on the laptop down at the chart table and can put, for example, bearings to waypoints on the B&G instruments.  And our missing antifouling paint on Kincsem’s bottom was fixed yesterday with a quick overnight haul at the Shelter Bay Boatyard.  So yes, I think Kincsem is as ready as she can reasonably be expected to be.  Pacific watch out, here we come!!