Jamaica - Cuba

Cuba - San Blas on Google Earth

We always knew that we are going to pay one day for our detour to Cuba. Today seems to be the day. South-easterly winds blow on our nose as we are leaving Cuba to sail towards Grand Cayman. The wind is light, the movements of Blue Bie are gentle and beating into the wind is more comfortable than expected. It just takes longer to get. Having no deadlines, planes to catch or visitors to meet, we have time. We are very much relishing the long passages. I never have as much time for myself and my thoughts, time to make plans and to talk with Nila as on a long passage.

In Gran Cayman we have to wait two hours and four cruise ships before clearing in. This sets the tone for the next few days: Tourism and banking are the main industries in Gran Cayman. In addition to the 4’000 daily cruise ship passengers spending a few hours on Gran Cayman, all the five star hotels have their resort on Grand Cayman. After a few months in developing countries, we are enjoying the big selection in the supermarket – until we see the prices…

We would like to stay in Grand Cayman only briefly, but the first tropical depression of the season is coming our way, locking us in for at least a week. Fortunately, we are meeting Mary Anne and Pete, Canadian cruising friends of Nila, who have settled here. They offer us their neighbour’s berth in the North Sound canals and their backup car, which we very happily accept. Other than some beautiful coral reefs and the unique blue iguanas, Grand Cayman has not many natural attractions with ‘stingray city’ being the noteworthy exception. Stingray city, a sandbank behind a barrier reef has in earlier times been used by the fisherman to clean out fish, attracting lots of stingrays. Today, tourist- and dive-boats feed them and they are surprisingly tame. They not only love company, but love to be caressed and I was fascinated by their elegance and the velvety touch of their skin as they were gliding over and around us.

We are thrown back to the Western world in Grand Cayman, spending far too much time in the car and in shopping centres without experiencing something worth mentioning. It demonstrates what an exciting life I am otherwise living. We don’t like the very hot nights with lots of mosquitoes neither. Then again, finding replacement for a broken computer memory and an used watch battery, getting the cockpit chairs upholstered, enjoying ice cream and a fantastic bookshop – not all is bad on Grand Cayman. We are very fortunate to live in both the developed and developing world and take the best of the two. Nevertheless, we are setting sail as soon as the first passable weather window opens.

It is a good passage from Gran Cayman to San Blas; instead of the forecast south-easterly winds, we are treated with a nice breeze from the north-east and can easily sail directly to the San Blas islands.

One could write books about the San Blas islands: 340 islands, of which 40 are inhabited by 55’000 Kuna Indians. No other tribe in the Americas has been able to retain its culture as good as the Kunas. Since their revolution in 1925, they govern their islands pretty independently from the central government in Panama.

I have never seen as many palm trees as in San Blas. The Kunas sell the coconuts and lobsters to Columbian traders, which come by boat and bring essentials like rice, salt, sugar, oil and some vegetables. There is no road from Panama to Columbia and the whole trade is by boat and small plane. The other source of income is the sale of molas, colourful fabric embroidered with local motives. We are finding most women sitting outside their huts, embroidering and chatting. The inhabited islands are close to mainland and rivers, since most islands have no running water and the Kunas have to fetch the water by dugout canoe from the rivers. Also, only some islands have electricity produced by a small generator. The working day starts at 5.00h, ending at noon. The afternoon is dedicated to the family and the men convene every evening in congress to discuss the days work. This is in quite some contrast to the maternal principle of inheriting the houses from the mother to the daughters and the men moving to their spouse upon marriage. Should a woman only have girls (quite rare since most women seem to have at least six children), the last child is raised as transvestite, inheriting the family’s little wealth. The transvestites are very highly esteemed and the best mola makers.

There are hardly any tourists other than sailors, since they the islands are off the beaten track. Only backpacker’s visit: Due to the lack of street from Panama to Columbia they are sailing on some (wrecked-down) sailboats from Colon to Cartagena. I took me a while to find this out, too and we have decided to sail from San Blas to Cartagena (Columbia) rather than Colon (Panama) to explore Latin America from there.

Visiting the San Blas islands by boat is a special experience. From far away the children are hailing ‘hola’ and wherever we go there are children around us. Dugout canoes approach frequently, selling lobster, pineapple, lime and mango; some asking for charging their mobile phones (in the east they have mobile phone reception, but no electricity!) or to chat. Hardly an island is bigger than 150m. They are so full of huts that they seem to topple over the edge of the island.

Big differences mark the islands. We are enjoying the smaller and more traditional islands of Tupsuit and Nurdupu the most. The huts have walls made of cane stems and are thatched with palm leaves. There are hardly any shops on the smaller islands: What little they need they are getting from Columbian traders. They only have a bakery on every island – luckily for us. At times we feel like intruding into their private sphere; buying bread is always a good excuse to stroll between the huts. The more progressive islands have a different atmosphere: Carti Sugput shall be the wealthiest islands of all, but to us, it is the ugliest. Between run-down huts there are concrete buildings, litter is everywhere and people are lurking around. Carti Yuntup, no hundred meters away, is just the opposite. Everything is neat and clean, the huts have small front gardens and the people are welcoming and friendly. We expected Nargano, the most progressive island to be worse than Carti Sugput. But we are proven wrong: it is very peaceful with wide spaces between the huts.

Between the visits to the inhabited islands, we are exploring the many uninhabited islands. They are all beautiful and quaint. The bigger ones have mangroves and lots of sand flies, at least in the current wet season, making them nearly untenable. The anchorages in the Western Hollandes Cays are beautiful, but we can’t set a foot on land without being eaten by sand flies. Of all the uninhabited islands, we are enjoying the Coco Bandera Cays the most: Four tiny islands, with no mangroves and sand flies, but beautiful flowers under towering palm trees and a beautiful anchorage in between.

I am usually very wary, if everybody is praising a place. But the San Blas islands well deserve the praise.