{"id":4319,"date":"2016-06-24T15:59:15","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T22:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/?p=4319"},"modified":"2022-01-16T09:12:26","modified_gmt":"2022-01-16T16:12:26","slug":"san-blas-islands-panama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/?p=4319","title":{"rendered":"San Blas Islands, Panama"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Blas Islands or Guna Yala (meaning “land of the Guna”) are made up of 370 odd islands, of which approx. 50 are inhabited and are East of the Panama Canal on the Caribbean side. While part of Panama the local Guna Yala Indians have their own rules and regulations and while we were here were in disagreement with the Central Panama Govt. so Govt. offices were closed indefinitely. In the map below The San Blas Islands or Guna Yala is North East of Panama City.<\/p>\n

\"san-blas-islands-location\"<\/a>
\n\"P1100830\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Guna\u00a0people<\/strong>
\n\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Guna\u00a0are a matriarchal society where the men move into the brides home and where the women pass down their names and basically rule the roost. The Guna’s\u00a0total about 50-60 thousand and are one of the most peaceful nations on earth, where crime is extremely rare, homosexuality is accepted as something perfectly normal, and albinism has one of the planet\u2019s highest rate.<\/p>\n

On many of the smaller islands a caretaker moves onto the island for the Guna Yala community for 3 months to take care of the island, gather the coconuts etc.
\n\"P1100862\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Every day men are out at the reefs fishing or snorkeling for lobster, conch and crab. They also collect the coconuts, which is the Gunas main source of income and is used to trade for products with the Columbian trading boats that come to the San Blas regularly loaded with various goods like gas, clothes, plastic bins, food products, beer and coca-cola.<\/p>\n

\"Fishermen<\/a>

3 Fishermen in an Ulu<\/p><\/div>\n

The Guna people we met were all friendly mainly coming via ulu to sell fish, lobster, fruit & vege and molas.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/a>

the vege boat is well stocked and\u00a0also sells chicken, eggs & beer; no grocery stores out here!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"this<\/a>

this family asked for a couple of jugs of fresh water<\/p><\/div>\n

\"fisherman<\/a>

fisherman picking out some nice sized lobsters for us<\/p><\/div>\n

On some of the islands the Guna have set up restaurant facilities to cater for the tourists & cruisers and in some cases charge you to go on the island or at a few places to anchor out front.<\/p>\n

\"Thatched<\/a>

Thatched home\/ restaurant on Isla Tortuga or BBQ Island<\/p><\/div>\n

Molas<\/strong>
\nMolas are the most important part of the Guna women\u2019s traditional clothing, and since cruisers and tourists started visiting the islands, molas became an important source of income too. They are made by sewing and cutting different layers of colorful cloth and are usually shown in the form of abstract birds, animals or marine fish on both the front and back of the women’s blouse. They are normally made by the women but Venacio, a well known master mola maker, who I’d heard about, came with buckets of molas with his signature finely stitched at the top. He speaks English and held each mola up proudly telling me the story of it. I did end up buying a few, as you do and glad I did as his were the best I saw.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>

Venacio with some molas I bought<\/p><\/div>\n

Anchoring<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"At<\/a>

At Coco Bandero anchored between two islands<\/p><\/div>\n

How can you not go wrong here finding great anchoring places when there’s 300+ islands. In reality the area is not well chartered and a lot of the electronic charts are incorrect but with the help of the Eric Bauhaus guide with charts we were able to find some beautiful islands to stay and enjoy the palm trees, white sand beaches and turquoise waters.<\/p>\n

\"Ogoppiriadup,<\/a>

Ogoppiriadup, East Holandes<\/p><\/div>\n

Most of the cruiser boats are gone and charter boats are about, but not as many as usual, so anchorages are not busy, perfect! In busy season Nov – Apr we were told some anchorages can have about 30 boats! We spent time at:
\nThe East Lemons<\/em><\/strong>: this seems to be a hang out for cruisers and charter boats waiting for their next guests as its close to Carti where it’s easy to collect guests and get to Panama City. We met Denny from Kokomo (http:\/\/www.kokomosailing.com) who took us to some great snorkeling in the area.<\/p>\n

\"East<\/a>

East Lemmons; Volleyball on the beach anyone?<\/p><\/div>\n

\"all<\/a>

all sorts of coral formations near the East Lemmons<\/p><\/div>\n

Holandes<\/em><\/strong>: from the west thru to the east with lots of great spots along the way to stop and anchor. Brett liked the reef off East Holandes for spear fishing opportunities and so we spent a lot of time here.<\/p>\n

\"Swimming<\/a>

Swimming Pool, East Holandes apparently very popular between November & April<\/p><\/div>\n

\"fish<\/a>

fish for dinner, yummy<\/p><\/div>\n

Coco Bandero<\/em><\/strong>: lots of fish life and good snorkeling out at the reef and around the islands. We had spotted rays & turtles right off the boat.
\n\"P1100832\"<\/a>Green Island<\/strong><\/em>: beautiful protected anchorage behind a reef and a good island to walk around.
\n\"P1100855\"<\/a>Naguargandup Cays<\/em><\/strong>: snorkeling on the outer reef had a 20m wall with beautiful bright colored coral. The no-see-ums were a problem here though, as we had no wind so they came along for someone new to munch on. These guys can even get thru your bug screens they are so small!
\n\"DCIM100GOPROGOPR0428.\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Snorkeling<\/strong>
\nThe coral on the reefs in the San Blas was a lot more alive than we have seen for some time and very different at each island. There were some beautiful colors with all sorts of different fish about, even the odd nurse shark lurking. \"DCIM100GOPROGOPR0384.\"<\/a>\"DCIM100GOPROGOPR0409.\"<\/a>\"DCIM100GOPROGOPR0432.\"<\/a>\"DCIM100GOPROGOPR0426.\"<\/a>Brett made sure we didn’t starve by hunting for fish for dinner on the outer reefs.<\/p>\n

\"1<\/a>

1 of a few different reef fish we sampled<\/p><\/div>\n

Finding great spots with the Kayak and snorkeling from the kayak in the area around Green Island.\"P1100850\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At Dog Island the wreck of a cargo ship sunk in the 1950s is now home to lots of fish and coral.
\n\"DCIM100GOPROGOPR0459.\"<\/a>\"DCIM100GOPROGOPR0465.\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Weather<\/strong>
\nWell we arrived in the San Blas in May and stayed through to end of June so technically it’s rainy season. We had days of beautiful clear blue sky and no wind but when systems did come in, typically in the morning, the thunder and lightening was intense. On the whole we were lucky and had great weather for the 6 weeks.<\/p>\n

\"looking<\/a>

looking at a system with a water spout out past the East Holandes<\/p><\/div>\n

We really enjoyed cruising the islands and having a huge crystal clear pool to swim in every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The San Blas Islands or Guna Yala (meaning “land of the Guna”) are made up of 370 odd islands, of which approx. 50 are inhabited and are East of the Panama Canal on the Caribbean side. While part of Panama … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[49,219],"class_list":["post-4319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-panama-august-2013","tag-panama","tag-san-blas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4319"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6213,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4319\/revisions\/6213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.seismicwave.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}