We tried to sail, but the wind is so light and the seas so large, that the sails were just flogging as we rolled. So we took in the genoa and sheeted the main in tight on the centerline, and motored on. We were able to sail for a couple of miles when our course took us behind a reef and the seas were flat.
Looking at the GRIB files for the next week, I don't think we'll be doing much sailing (light and variable wind, and not much behind-the-reef on the rest of the trip SE to the border).
We dinghied into the village late yesterday to look around and try to find some groceries. The building ashore that looks like a school, turns out to be the hospital, which at this time has no patients, according to our guide. We were met at the dock by Duke (pronounced doo-kay), the local outboard motor mechanic, who offered to show us around. We told him we were looking for meat, vegetables, and potato chips. For the meat, he took us to a local Kuna restaurant, where we bought two more 'chicken
entero' for $6.75 each. They assured us they were alive this morning. Then to three different 'tiendas'. All had all the basics... flour, rice, canned sardines, powdered milk, etc. But no veggies and no potato chips. We were able to buy some bananas and plantains and great home made Kuna bread.
There are a few concrete structures on the island, but most are the typical wood stake and thatched roof huts. Duke told us that the generator runs between 6pm and 10pm, and even then, we only saw one or two lights on the island, other than the hospital complex. The hospital also had a big water pipe coming in from the mainland, to a big black plastic water storage tank. I don't think that the town has any plumbing, even the restaurant was using a 5-gal bucket of water for its water supply (this
is typical).
About halfway through the tour of the village, we were joined by a couple of small girls. They were very friendly and smiled up at us saying "'Mericans". Before I knew it, two of them had slipped their small hands in mine, and they insisted on holding my hand as we walked thru the town. It was pretty cute. They were at the toothless age, about 5 years old or so. Dave went off with the guide to pick up the chickens we had bought, and the girls and I played the game of 'what do you call that in
English'. They laughed at my Spanish and I laughed at their attempts to pronounce the unfamiliar English words.
We also played the game of 'take my picture'. I ended up with 4 or 5 kids standing and smiling for me, in various groupings. They would have me take the picture and then rush up to view it in the viewfinder.
I was really sorry that I didn't have a couple of candies in my pocket.
We have been using the Bauhaus Panama Cruising Guide waypoints for our trip, and they have been very good. Our regular chart has no detail for the area we will be traveling east of here, until we get more north along the coast of Colombia. So the guidebooks are invaluable. For the Bauhaus Guide, the author actually used satellite photos to chart the areas where the conventional charts do not cover. We use the Sea Clear navigation program with scanned in Bauhaus charts to keep track of where we
are on the computer. It is amazingly accurate.
In the morning, we took the dinghy up the river inshore of Aligandi. Usually this is a nice way to get a fresh water bath, do laundry, and see some animal life. We went all the way up the river as far as we could drag or paddle the dinghy, and never found any completely fresh water. It is the end of dry season, so maybe a little rain will produce a fresher river. We were able to collect some mangoes, floating in the river. All the huge mango trees are in full fruit right now, and dropping ripe
fruit into the river.
While going upriver, there was a lot of traffic in dugout canoes, going to and from their 'farms' up the river. We also saw several grave sites (little houses shading a grave). One site had so many graves that it looked like a little village.
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