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February 05, 2008
Coco Bandero Cays to Lemmon Cays, Islas de San Blas, Panama
We enjoyed a beautiful beam reach in 10 knots of wind in very light seas to arrive at the Eastern Lemmon Cays. We went exploring in the dinghy and discovered a tiny little island with a dock and two Kuna families. Closest to the dock, we met Lydia, who was selling molas. We overheard a couple of other cruisers asking about “pan”, or bread. “Manana” was what I got. I walked up to the little home and poked my head in the window. There was a young man inside, and I asked him in Spanish when he expected to have bread again. Around noon tomorrow, is what he replied.
Shortly after we had returned to the boat, Justino came by asking if we needed him to do any work. He was paddling his surfboard, the nose of which appeared to have snapped off (or been eaten by a shark, I thought?). He had made his paddle out of a fallen palm tree. He had been learning English from the cruisers, who had helped him put together a brochure explaining his services. He was putting his children through school on the mainland and needed the money. Mike and Judy hired him to polish the stainless steel, which he said he would do for $10 plus lunch. It turned out that Justino lived on the same island as the bread maker.
We woke up the next morning facing south in very shallow water. The winds blow consistently at this time of year from the northeast, which was the way we were facing last night. In our turn, we had moved over a series of coral heads. I threw on my snorkel gear to determine that no damage had done by the boat.
Justino showed up mid-morning and set quickly to work to polish the stainless steel. We went to Dog Island in the dinghy to snorkel on a wreck. As we pulled up to the beach, we spotted a sign that said we must pay $6 per person to use the beach. We weren’t here to use the beach, so we pushed off and dropped the anchor 30 or so feet from the beach and started to put on our gear. Within seconds, a guy came swimming out to us yelling something and frantically waving his hands. On his return to the beach, he waved at us to get out of there. We were apparently not welcome.
We returned to the boat and decided to snorkel the reef just off the side of the boat. It was beautiful. Afterward, Mike and I went to Justino’s island to get some bread. As we were getting ready, we heard a horn. Justino said it was the bread baker announcing that the bread was ready. When we arrived at the little island, an ulu had arrived with a load of bananas. The women were busy loading them into burlap sacks. Mike and I offered to help carry them, and after several very heavy loads, we were paid 2 bananas for our hard labour. The women were very grateful for our help.
We returned to the boat with six loaves of bread and 6 additional bananas, for which we paid $1.20.
Posted by dave at February 5, 2008 02:44 PM