San Blas Adventures

Our adventures continue in the Guna Yala territory of Panama! After celebrating Christmas and New Years, we have continued exploring the various islands and reefs in San Blas. We typically enjoy one or two days in a particular anchorage, before moving on to a new location. The distance between anchorages can be from 1 to 4 hours of travel. One of the joys of sailing here is that the outer islands bare the brunt of the ocean swell, leaving the gulf of San Blas largely unaffected. This provides for exceptional sailing, with great winds and minimal waves or swell.

On January 5 we had the opportunity to try out a new sail for SONG, a genacker. This is flown as a light headsail, providing excellent reaching and downwind performance in light to medium winds. The video shows the sail peforming excellently - we recorded 5 knots of boat speed, with only 7 knots of apparent wind. We look forward to using this on our Pacific Ocean passage where we expect conditions will allow us to take advantage of this new sail.

Sailing the new Genacker on SONG

Much of our time amongst the islands and reefs of San Blas has been framed with the backdrop of the mountains of mainland Panama, so we decided it was time for an excursion into the jungle. With one of the Indigenous Guna as our guide, we boated three miles up the Rio Azucar, and then hiked for an hour to a scenic waterfall. Along the way we spotted and identified many of the native birds and plants. The refreshing swim in the waterfalls was a moment to be remembered!

Hiking to a waterfall on the mainland

Hiking with Rolfo, our local guide.

Geoffroy's Tamarin

While the mainland in this region is largely uninhabited, it is regularly used by the Guna for cultivating crops and gardens, and harvesting resources to bring back to their island communities. Large trees are cut and shaped into Ulus, their small dugout canoes. Bamboo grows natively, and is an imporant building material for homes and shelters. And interspersed along the trails are many tracts of managed plots for growing and harvesting coconuts, plantains, and other small crops.

One of several river crossings

Red-Throated Caracara

As our time here in San Blas is coming to an end, we are grateful for the opportunity to experience these aspects of local life. Soon we will head to Colón, Panama, for some boat maintenance and preparations for the canal transit. Stay tuned!

The SONG crew.