09° 35.50N 78°52.50 W
Guna Yala (San Blas Archipelago, Panama)
Chichime Cays
February 24, 2017

5.30 A new day is breaking, the horizon towards the east is like a symphony of changing colors purple, pink, orange. The birds of Uchutupu Pipigua and Uchtupu Dummat, the two tiny Chichime cays, where we are anchored with Filizi, are singing a melodic welcome to God Sun.
The sun rises behind the palm trees of Dummat, the clear, cloudless sky turns deep blue, deep blue and gold. One more perfect day is dawning in Guna Yala, with a glorious sunshine, no rain and just a sweet, soft breeze, strong enough to sail us around.

-“Kalimera, good morning Paradise”, I say out loud and I prepare two cups of strong Greek coffee for me and my captain. We arrived in Chichime yesterday, on our way back from Linton, an obligatory – sort of speak – journey to Panama that took three days.
I prefered staying in Guna Yala, and sail around the wonderful anchorages of Hollandes (Maocui Caimou) and Coco Bandero.
Captain Yorgos on the other hand insisted  to get our paperwork done and going to Linton was the only way to do it.

We started from Hollandes at sunrise, saluted our friends Debbie & Reggie from sy Runner motored out of the reefs and sailed 60 NM west, with a nice, easterly breeze.
Αbout 5pm, as the sun was rolling low on the horizon, we approached the entrance of Linton bay. I climbed the mast steps up to the first spreader, from where I can see  perfectly clear rocks, reefs or shoals and help captain Yorgos navigate safely.
The bay is well protected, and there are many boats, some on anchor and some on buoys – the ones closer to the floating pontoons of Linton Marina.
We droped our anchor and when we switched the engine off, I perceived the sounds coming from ashore: birds, parots, monkeys, frogs, a multitude of strange animal voices combined, making the hair on my neck rise.
-“The Song of the Jungle” I whisper to Yorgos ear! Then, we hear the characteristic sound of exhaling, turn our heads and see a couple of dolphins swiming lazily beside Filizi.
A flock of white birds flies low above the sea, the tips of their wings barely touching the water. Their bodies mirror on the calm water surface, like a mist of white butterflies. The sun sets and within fifteen minutes it’s total darkness around. Minutes are pasing and most of the jungle creatures go to sleep. We eat an early dinner – early with the Greek criteria – and are ready to go to bed when we see a flashlight moving strangely ashore. A dark figure moves, the flashlight illuminates Filizi for a second and then it’s out. Strange.
-“Who’s there?” Yorgos asks the rhetoric question
-“A fisherman, maybe?” I answer with a hypothetical question. We read that Colon  is a dangerous city but, out I here in the country side, I believe we are relatively safe.
…
Early on the next day we inflate our tender and go to the marina dinky dock. The “Linton Marina” is nothing much, a few floating pontoons, a gas station, a shipping container office, a two story building under construction and some yachts on the dry. The workers on the building salute us

-“Buenas”
-“Buenos dias! Por favor, donde es la oficina?” where is the office, I ask and they point to the shipping container. It’s a very hot day and I welcome the wave of cool air, as we open the door and enter. The manager of the marina is very polite, he offers to assist us if we need help and shows us another shipping container office, further away. The sign says it all: AUTORIDAD MARITIMA DE PANAMA
-“Look where Filizi brought us!”I say feeling a little sentimental.
Yorgos smiles and then looks at me in the eyes and says very seriously

-“Don’t talk , if they don’t ask you.OK?”
-“Aye aye captain!” . He’s always very serious with the authorities,  and I understand it. As for me, I grew up with a different perspective: one smile can do miracles…
After thirty minutes, ten different stamps and quite a few US dollars, we had a Cruising Permit in our hands, valid for twelve months. The next step was  to visit the Immigration Office in Portobello.  The next bus was after two hours and so we called a taxi snd we comfortly enjoyed a 20 minute drive through a beautiful landscape.
Yesterday, we read in Eric Bauhaus’s Panama Cruising `Guide, that Portobello was discovered by Christofer Colombus in his 4th trip, and it had been one of the main ports for the transfer of the South and Central American riches to Seville. At some point the city was destroyed by the  legendary pirate & privateer  Sir (!) Henry Morgan , as did Panama city some years later Nowdays, on the ruins of the old forts lies a small village, where pilgrims from all over South America come to worship the Black Christ of Portobello, a wooden statue of Jesus of Nazareth in the Church of Saint Philippe to which many miracles are attributed.

The driver left us just outside the Customs’ old building and through the open door we enter in the ground floor. The room is big and looks empty, with just two worn out desks in the middle and two chairs. Latin dance music comes from a giga stereo system with the red and green flashing lights. In the first desk, sits a black female officer, wearing a black uniform with golden details. She does not speak english so I am trying to translate. We give her our passports and the Zarpe dpcument from Colombia. Then she starts saying something in spanish, looking serious and annoyed. It took me some time until I understood: she said she could not procceed with our Clearance, until we give her a crew list stamped from Colombia authorities: “Lista Tripulationes”! I give my best, to explain that the “agent” in Marina Santa Marta did not tell us about this document and when I propose to make a phone call to Santa Marta she starts getting softer. She hands us two papers and tells us to copy and sigh a statment that “the Colombian authorities failed to provide us with a crew list”. As soon as our passports were ready, we said “grazias” and hurried outside. That was close…
We are hungry for food and desperate for wifi. It’s been ten days without an internet connection. There’s a nice tienda on the corner and there are two foreigners with tablets sitting at the tables. That’s our place! A pretty panamanian girl serves us coffee and one of the most delicious vegatarian sandwiches I ever had. Its price : 3 $…

When we finished with the internet we went to one of the mini markets, all owned by chinese people as we found out, where we bought local mobile network sim cards for our smarthphones and a few provisions.
Afterwards, we walked past the colorfull, small houses of the village towards the seafront. Out on the street, in the shade of the building of the museum, a bunch of barefoot kids play cricket passionately.
When we reach the ruins of the old fort we ask a tall man in uniform, if we may enter. He asks where we come from and when we answer “de Crecia” he says:
– “One of my colleagues, architect  and best friend, visited Athens some years ago and he sent me a message from the Acropolis saying “My eyes fill with tears  by the perfection of the Parthenon”. Visiting Athens, is one of my greatest dreams”
Rodolfo, the name of the architect was very kind to us. Being himself responsible for the restoration of the old fort, he gave us an expert guided tour, mostly in Spanish.

When he left us, we entered the Church of Saint Philippe to see the statue of Black Christ. Looking at my watch I realized how late it was. I tell Yorgos and we started running towards the bus stop to catch the bus Colon-Guaira.
Seeing us running, the chinese people from the mini market, they cried to us
-“ El autobus se ido!”, the bus has left!
Yorgos run behind me, blaming me for missing the bus – beside his favourite  moto is “The greatest thing about marriage is that you have somebody else to blame for your mistakes”
Fortunately, when we arrived at the bus stop, the foreigners waiting there, all of which “yachties, told us that the bus hadn’t come yet. So, the chinese were wrong.  As one would expect, in a Latin American country, it arrived 20 minutes late and  already  packed
The bus, a colorful, old american school bus arrived with the door already open and latin music playing lowd on the radio. We hurried up inside, squeezing in with the rest of the passengers, but we couldn’t help but move to the beat. With two people hanging half outside the door, the bus starts moving. The majority of the passengers are local people and most of them seem asleep, not minding the  music. To my right, a young woman with large golden earings is bottle feeding her baby and to my left, an old couple are trying to cope with two restless grand children on their laps. It wasn’t easy standing up, with a heavy backpack on one shoulder (full of fresh milk cartons for my milk-loving girfriend Vasso), having the bags and boxes of the old couple, under my feet, as the bus drove fast through the winding road.
The moment we all fell on eachother, as the driver breaked to avoid collision with two bulls (!) running in the middle of the road, I couldn’t hold my laughter.
When we arrived to Linton marina, I was very happy to stretch my body. That ride was an experience on its own…

Before going back we stopped at the marina gas station an filled two jerry cans with gasoline for the ourboard. On our second night in Linton bay we had a guest. A small bird spent the night under our solar panels

The next day we started from Linton to go back east to Guna Yala (San Blas). This journey is usually unpleasant against the swell and the northeasterly prevailing wind but we had a favourable weather window -a dead calm in this case- so we motor-sailed most of the way. We were on the way, when Yorgos suddenly turned the engine off.
-“Look!” he said. It’s a leatherback turtle. That was close, we almost hit it” . The huge creature submerged in the water and some minutes later reapeared, opening it’s mouth to breath. After, repeating this two more times, swimming very close to Filizi, the turtle swam away.
-“She looked lonely” I said
-“She looked ill” Yorgos said.

By early afternoon we were close to Chichime cays and decided to stop for the night. As we came closer, we were overwhelmed to see two ship wrecks side by side, lying on the northern reef of Uchutupu Pipigua: a sailboat leaning to one side and a big passenger ship about 200 meters away, two vessels wrecked, destroyed, pride and joy of their owners once upon a time, are now a terrible spectacle, bringing frightful thoughts to yachtsmen.Strangely, as I hate looking at them, at the same time I can’t take my eyes off of them…

As the Chichime cays are surounded by reefs and shoals I climbed again up the mast and sat on the first spreader, to help my captain navigate safely through the passage. As we neared, a dolphin came to play with our bow.

There are ten more yachts in the Chichime anchorage, two of them with Italian flag, two with Spanish and one with Turkish! Yesterday when we arrived, the Italians greeted us crying out loud in the classic lowd Italian way:
-“Kalimera, Kalispera, Kalinikta” (good morning , good evening, good night)

We are desperate for a swim and after anchoring we wear our masks and snorkels and swim ashore. The water is warm, must be abour 27°C and very transparent.
We follow the shoals to our right, always admiring the underwater landscape, explore one more ship wreck , the corals and their lovely, colourful inhabitants. Swimming further on the reef, just 5 meters deep,  we see the  wreck of a sailboat with  a big hole under her keel. How dangerous these waters are! We shim ashore to the idylic sandy island with the tall palm trees. By the beach, there are four huts looking kind of modern
Two french men are swinging on hammocs hunging from the palm trees. We come close and say hello. We talk about this and that and at some point one of them said:
– “We rented these huts from Air B&B for 65 $ per night including three meals.
I wouldn’t have thought that the Gunas use the internet this way.
-“It sounds expensive for a hut without bathroom” I say
-“ Well, it’s fine I think” the man said, “we had a great breakfast with bread and fresh fruit, lunch was a big fresh fish, the catch of the day and we’ll have lobster for dinner. You can see our dinner is still swimming in that bamboo sea trap!” he says, pointing to the sea.
We wish them a pleasant stay and walk on the small island. A tranditional wooden boat on the beach with a big the Guna flag is tied on the beach. The flag is yellow with two red stripes and a swastika cross in the middle. It is difficult to imagine  how  the swastika, a symbol of   a terrible time  for mankind was in   ancient times symbol of good fortune..

Uchutupu Dumat is very small, it would may take 15 minutes to walk all around it. The island is green, crowned with high palm trees and exotic plants. In the middle there is a bamboo construction that serves as restaurant and bar. Two guna women wearing Molas are selling hand crafted molas and wini. Barefood children run around, playing. The sun is setting. We must swim back to Filizi. We take another path to the beach and as we walk in this beautiful, natural, exotic garden we can’t help but be sory to see that there’s garbage everywhere.
Everywhere! Coca cola and beer cans, potato chips empty packs, plastic water bottles, a terrible sight. We reach the beach where the natives huts are. One Guna woman is lying of a hamoc outside the hut, wearing the traditional clothes, a molas molas and bead bracelets, wini, on her hands and legs. Two small children play on the sand and two men are inside a smaller hut, When the children see us coming they hide behind another woman, laughing shyly. We come closer and I ask to buy a coconut to drink.
The woman goes to a huge pile of coconuts behind her hut an searches for one. When I lift the Go Pro to take a picture, she immediately hides inside her house.
February 25
06.15 We prepare Filizi for departure. Today we set sail for the island of Nargana as tomorrow morning we are meeting our Greek friend Vasso, who is coming from London for her annual visit to Filizi.
Her transportation from Panama City to San Blas will not be easy and it I’m worried how and where we will finally meet tomorrow.
Because tomorrow is a very special day for Guna Yala. In the small Isla Tigre there’s a celebration for the  Guna revolution against Panamain 1925.
And Filizi want’s to be there!