Snug Harbor to Carti
Pretty bright orange butterflies flitted around the shoreline growth.
Our Kuna bread supplier, Arequin, brought us some fish he'd caught. We'd noticed a line hanging under the boat and Steve asked Arequin if he'd check out the prop for us. He simply took off his shorts and T-shirt, donned his mask and fins and hopped in to look for us. Yep, lots of line wrapped on the propeller. We gave him a knife and he cut it off.
Unfortunately, he just threw most of the line down in the water and only brought up a handful to show us what had been there. Some polypropylene and twine. In the corner, you can see the tip of the Kuna paddle that Steve bought as a souvenir.
Arequin, redressed and enjoying the bubble gum Steve gave him.
We visited an uninhabited island just ahead of our anchorage spot, through a small cut between other islands. It was a little gem of an island, and a nearby resort brought tourists here to snorkel or play on the beach some days. Jason is noting some flowers and butterflies.
Our mostly-green bananas hanging in the cabin to ripen. We bought green plantains and bananas as they ripen quickly.
Forever Young at anchor in Snug Harbor. We sat out several days of high swells in the oceans here.
Steve getting his fishing rod ready to troll the lagoon while Jason and I wandered the island.
Jason walking the beach.
Looking back through the cut to our anchorage.
Karen leaning on a palm.
Karen on the uninhabited tourist island.
We walked across the island in just minutes. Someone had cleared the interior of much of the palm debris and seemed to be cultivating the coconut palms here. In fact, Arequin told us the owner was angry that some tourists had taken coconuts from his island. We assured him we knew better.
Weird growth in the grass. It was the spongy Bermuda-style grass.
The curling breakers on the other side of the island.
Jason walking along the seaward side of the island.
Jason posing on a coconut trunk.
This high heeled thong seemed so out of place here. Washed ashore along with all the other plastic trash from the ocean.
Even this tiny toddler Croc-style shoe floated in a clear puddle of seawater at the shore. It's tough to find matching shoes that wash ashore, but there is no shortage of footwear that comes in on the tides.
Steve landing the dinghy on the island to pick us up.
Huge trees washed ashore on the seaward side of the island.
A noni tree, the 'miracle fruit' that grows just about anywhere.
The white fruit in the middle is a noni fruit. They smell like stinky cheese when they are ripe, but there are claims that it will cure just about any illness or ailment.
A tiny island with some Kuna structures on it.
We visited the inhabited island a couple of miles away. We found Kuna bread and a few veges. They charged us $1 to land the dinghy at the wharf here.
The homes here are typical. We'd probably call it squalor, but these folks are poor and this is the way they live.
Steve cleaning some conch he bought to make conch salad.
Cleaning conch is a tough slimy job. We got the locals to clean our catches from here on.
Jason is cooking breakfast for a change.
He had to stoop over to see the pan on the stove to stir the eggs.
A rarity to see two sails, especially in pretty good shape. This family had a nice canoe for crossing the waters. The women were wrapped in plastic to keep dry.
The dock for Acuadup at Punta Redonda, near the Carti docks. The docks at Carti are the only place where a road comes into the Kuna territory of the San Blas/Guna Yala. They are around the point, but the docks are exposed to strong winds and high swells and crashing waves. This is as close as we could get for a protected anchorage.
One person's full-time duty is to bail the water out of these canoes.
This large canoe is full of mangrove branches that these men have cut from along the shore. They brought them out to the area near where we were anchored and then dumped them overboard.
I'm not sure if they were just dumping illegally-cut mangroves so they wouldn't be seen near the spot where they were cut, or if they might be trying to create a fish habitat underwater? Either way, it could create an anchor fouling experience for a yacht here.
A second boat load of branches were dumped further away. I never found out why they were cutting the mangroves in the first place; unless it was to make a canoe landing for them to gain access to the interior from the sea.
A truckload of plantains to be dumped and then loaded onto canoes to supply the islands nearby.
Jason checking the suspension under the load of fruit.
I bought a bunch for $1. Probably just went into the truck driver's pocket, but we had a good supply now. Once they are ripe, they're delicious sauteed in butter with a sprinkle of cinnamon for breakfast.
Jeanine, Steve, and Jason walking from the landing dock for Acuadup to the Carti docks to check out day trips to the tourist islands offshore.
Jason checking out a mechanic's shed at Carti shoreline.
The tourist boats head off to the tourist islands from here.
Kuna people are short, as evidenced by the size and height of the public phone booth here. This used to be a major airport and ingress site to get to the San Blas. Now the only road to Panama City is controlled by the Kuna and they have begun to prohibit tourists using the road unless they are going to a Kuna resort. Sailboat personnel are no longer being allowed through on the road. They feel the sailboats are stealing customers from the resorts.
The turnoff for the landing dock that we used behind Punta Redonda. It is also known as the Acuadub dock. Several spellings of the name were noted.
A line of leaf cutter ants carry pieces of leaves in a line back to their nest. Many of the pieces they carry are bigger than they are. We'd see this moving line of tiny pieces of green, yellow,and pink vegetation streaming across the path and stoop to watch. They all stayed on the same path, following traffic rules like drivers on a road.
A local comes by in a canoe to sell us fresh lobster.
Lunch still alive.
More conch, but this time we had the seller pull them out of the shells and clean them for us.
They were happy to get the sale and readily cleaned them for us. You must knock a hole in the top to slice the muscle that holds the animal to the shell, then
Grab the claw and pull the animal out. They use their paddles as tables to work on things in the canoe.
This is the conch animal coming out of the shell.
Into the bucket to be cleaned.
The guys paddle away cleaning their hands and boat after the conch and lobster sale.
The shoreline of the island where we anchored for a day. We took in two bags of trash to burn on the shore here. Beautiful water colors over the sandy shore.
The sandy spit is easily spotted with the change in the water color.
Local canoes on the shore.
When we raised the anchor to leave, we brought up a huge hunk of coral on the anchor. Some nearby cruisers saw the predicament and zoomed over in their dinghy to help clear it off for us.
Jason in his typical pose, reading in the V berth on Forever Young.
The fruit net kept in the salon. A fellow cruiser, a single-hander woman gave me the net when I went to get books from her.
Jeanine saying goodbye after her 11-day stay on the boat. Their ride was late and they wanted to be sure to catch transport back to Panama City for her flight back.
Jason had agreed to take them to the dock as their pre-arranged ride hadn't yet shown up. As soon as they pushed off, though, it came zooming around the point so they got a different ride in.
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