Ok we are still in Colon trying to find all the crap we need to haul out with. Everybody just said sofar good luck.
Karen and I are on Nagana or better known as Diablo village because of the Rio Diablo.
We where at a bunch more islands but if you have been to one uninhabited island you have pretty much seen them all. i'll post some more photos in a few days but all this conn. will allow is 2 at a time.
See Y'all Down the Road
Mike & Karen

OK, we left off leaving Ustopu for undisclosed islands and here we are in Tupile ( Too- Pee-Lee),we overnighted in Mono Island but there was nothing there so we moved on that AM. Tupile is a major market area for the Kunas and they bring there trade goods here for staples they can't grow on there own islands. Things like Spam and real heathy thing like cokes and candy.
The Kunas main tranportation is a dugout canoe and oars, some are more into using the wind that blows here at 17 to 25 knots every day as you can see from the photo.
We did a little shopping here and I found $ 14.50 a case beer and a bread that the Kunas bake thats ok but doesn't beat sliced bread at all. We met the young man that I played pool with in Ustupo and he carried us form store to store until Karen had everything on her list. I had to slow the boy down a couple of times because he liked to run and Karen & I are way to advanced to keep up with the young.
I watched the man from the boat work on the new dugout and the only tool he was using was a hatchet. That's all they use from stat to finish. This one looks like a 2 or 3 man canoe but they get bigger trees and dig one out that will be 5 ft of beam and 25 to 30 ft. long, raise the sides with hand cut 2 by 6 or 8 in. boards and slap a hand steered 85 or 90 HP. Yamaha and you have there version of a ferry and put 10 to 20 people in it to go from one island to the next.
Well that's about all for today Karen & I are going to sail to Colon today so I can Haul the boat out and do some repairs but I'll finish the San Blas Island while there and maybe catch up to the present.
See Y'all Down the Road
Mike & Karen

OK, just a couple of photos to show y'all two diff. villages, as you can see if you have seen 1 Kuna village you have seen them all,so no more photos of the villages.

Where did I leave off, I think it was Isla de Pinos. We left Pinos ond skipped on up toUstupu( S- Stew- Poo) where we met a few people and walked the village. This was a larger village with real restaurants and cold beer, the first cold beer on any island. I played a game of pool with a young Kuna and ofcourse let him win. We bought a few stables for the boat,(not much of grocery stores on these islands) and left the next day.

After missing all the reefs and skinney water we made another 5 or 6 miles, thats about as far as you travle in a day, to the next island. Now since I'm going to draw this out you won't find out for a day or two what that one is called.

See Y'all Down the Road

Mike & Karen

Hey Y'all

I'm going to start by saying it's been awhile since I had an internet conn. and this one is kind of slow. I'll just let you know what we have been doing. We left Santa Marta Feb. 9 and sailed for 2 days along the coast of Colombia arriving at a little bay on the Panama coast called ( Punta Perme).

The first couple of hours there we were visited by several Kuna Indians in dug out canoes wanting to sell us Molas and trinkets. We managed not to buy any at that moment but as you know things change. Next to visit us was 2 Kuna ladies in full Kuna dress and handed me a piece of paper with $ 10.00 on it. It seems you pay 10 to 15 dollars at each island for anchoring. We stayed there for a couple of days and started heading up island.

There is something y'all should know, there is no night sailing in the San Blas,daylight only. This is due to no charts of the area. My electronic chart plotter has blue areas and brown areas on it and thats all. When you are anchored at an island it may show you on the island are on the next island. This is not fun with all the reefs that are here. You look out at what you think should be open sea and all you see is breaking reef line everywhere.

Well the next island to visit was Isla de Pinos, a large bump in the road about 2 miles long and 1 mile wide with a small mountain in the middle. This is our first look at a Kuna village, we will see plenty more before we get out of here. Well because of the guide book we had to climb to the top of the little mountain because of the breath taking view. Nobody thought to tell karen that the guide book was published 12 years ago, you guessed it the breath taking view was all grown over with trees and scrub brush. The Kunas can care less about the view. Oh well we had a nice 3 hour climb anyway.

One of the Kunas came out to the boat telling us of his restarant that he had so we went in for lunch. Now this is a joke, here we are in a pole and grass hut with a dirt floor with the whole family eating at there table. I will admit that the food was good,but that's because it was coconut smoked fish, just because it was a Parot fish off the reef didn't mean anything.

I have uploaded 2 photos up top because I can't get the damn things to load where I want them, but as you see the village is rather primative and the restarant owner is short as are all of these indians. Ok thats enought for to day as I have a couple hundred e-mails to go through. I'll go to the next little island in a day are two with a couple more photos.

See Y'all Down the Road

Mike & Karen