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When I look at the title of this magazine and its associated website, I ask myself what ‘escape’ means.  If you are British like me, the traditional escape routes are to the countryside of the United Kingdom, or to the sunny spots of Spain, Florida and the Caribbean.  Much of this form of escape is premised on having as many of the home comforts as possible, whilst seeing somewhere fresh. I am sure that most people steer clear of the ‘way out’ places because of fears about comfort, health and, increasingly, security.  But what if you could find an escape that was not difficult or expensive to get to and where you could stay in excellent accommodation without worrying about the food, the bugs or the guerrillas?  Furthermore, what if I told you that this was one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places on earth?  Would you want to see it?  Read on… The Kuna people escaped themselves to Panama hundreds of years ago from the Spanish, and in 1938 won semi-autonomy within a 232 mile (375 km) long territory (or ‘comarca’) constituting 400 islands and a strip of mainland on the Northeast Caribbean coast of Panama called the San Blas.  The Kuna govern and police the comarca, which they call Kuna Yala.  Only 49 of the islands are inhabited, and usually with tiny communities of a few families.  Almost all of them are like something straight from a dream, with fine white sand, waving coco palms and intensely blue sea. The Kuna are proud of their culture, and base their lives on farming, fishing, hunting and craftwork.  Crime is rare among their communities.  Although the Kuna and their government recognise that income can be derived from tourism, they have been resistant to big buck investments from outside, preferring either to do things within the comarca or to work with a small number of businesses that they know, trust and regulate.  One of these businesses is San Blas Sailing, the only sailing company that has complied with and respects all of the laws and regulations of Kuna Yala. San Blas Sailing was set up in the late 1990s to act as the ‘back office’ for a group of owners/skippers of boats based in the San Blas Islands.  The owners, all of them experienced sailors, have fallen in love with the area that they see as one the last pieces of paradise left on earth.We heard about the company almost as soon as we arrived to live in Panama, and it was highly recommended by those who told us about the sailing with dreamy looks in their eyes.

Watching for reefs

The Sun Legend 41 is a beautiful class of boat, designed by Doug Peterson and built by Jeanneau of France in the late 1980s.  Its dimensions are: length 40 ft 2 in  (12.25 m); beam 13 ft (3.94 m), and; draft 6 ft 5 in (1.95 m).  Sun Legends were conceived to be a combination of comfortable cruising yacht and competent racer.  This conception is fully reflected in the boat’s construction, with a powerful GRP/Kevlar hull and an excellent range of sailing equipment and at the same time, luxurious teak interiors and generous living space. The standard sail array is a fully battened mainsail and a 90 m2 roller-furling genoa.  With everything up and a good breeze, Tai Phou can really move.
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Hotel

Tai Phou has three double cabins, each with sink and showerhead, and a toilet.  It is possible for more than six people to sleep on the boat by using the dining area (and it was designed for this), but in my view, the perfect number of guests on this boat is four – either two couples, or a family like mine.  The compactness of a boat takes a few days to ‘get into’, and in our case of having two small children it was more of a challenge, but once you get into the swing of things you are living in perfect comfort and have everything that you need. When we weren’t on one of the islands, we spent most of our time in the cockpit, which happily seats six or more people.  JC regularly produced simple but delicious meals, and also had the uncanny knack of delivering what seemed to be an endless supply of Chilean wine, Colombian beer and rum; whichever took your fancy.  One of the great things about a boat charter with San Blas Sailing is that the rate is all-inclusive.  Once JC collected us at the airstrip, everything was covered, and we only got our dollars out to buy craft work from the Kuna people who appeared like magic each time we anchored.  Our journey started at Albrook airport, once a key air force base of the US Panama Canal Zone, and now the Panama City airport. We were booked on the 6 a.m. ‘air taxi’ to San Blas. This aircraft was a venerable De Havilland Twin Otter. Its glory days were significantly behind it, but it quite happily carried 20 or so people on the 30 minute hop to El Porvenir, never rising above 5,000 feet (1,524 m) and giving us a good shake when the mood, or thermal, took it.  On the descent to El Porvenir we were convinced that our plane was going to land in the sea until an airstrip suddenly appeared under our wheels.

After that we climbed into the dinghy and went across to Tai Phou. None of the family had ever been on board an ocean-going yacht, let alone sailed on one.  We knew in our hearts that either something special was about to take place or that we had bitten off more than we could chew and it would be a disaster.

After 30 minutes it looked as though the disaster scenario was unfolding, as my wife Caroline and daughter Madeleine were both hanging through the railings being sick!  Luckily for them the sailing time on day one was not too long and soon we were anchored and heading across to Kuanidup, an island maybe 100 yd by 50 with a small hotel.  The rooms of the hotel are traditional Kuna huts, and everything is very basic.  We had bought some lobsters and crab from one of the local fishermen, who came alongside Tai Phou in a cayuco, a long canoe made from a single hollowed-out tree trunk.  As JC knows the people on the island well, he made an arrangement that the hotel cook would prepare the seafood that we had bought and serve it with rice and salad.  While the food was cooking, we got to know the island and the seven guests who were staying in the hotel.  One family had flown in from France, and there were two couples from Spain.
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Madeleine and her big, brave brother Laurence set off to explore and came running back excitedly to tell us about the various pieces of treasure that they had located.  I should explain that we had told them before the trip that we would be visiting a number of pirate islands and that they would need to hunt for treasure.  At their ages, the concept of treasure is a simple one and focused on various bits of flotsam from the beach and some enormous conch shells that were lying around. Our lunch was fantastic.  I have loved crab and lobster since boyhood, and these were some of the best I have ever tasted, washed down by our first taste of the endless supply of wine.  The afternoon was a lazy one, taking in the sun, playing with the children and listening to the hypnotic sound of waves lapping on the beach.  We were visited by one of the two best mola makers in San Blas.  A mola is a hand-sewn panel of multi-layered appliqué fabrics, each one of which has a different design.  Traditionally, a mola would be the feature on the dress of a Kuna woman.  In our experience, people now use them as throws, make cushions with them and frame the best examples as works of art.  On the second day, JC asked if it was OK to sail to Rio Azucar to try to track down his dinghy (we were using a borrowed one), which had been lost in high winds a few nights before.  He had put out the word that there would be reward and had already heard that the dinghy had been found and taken to a village.  The sailing was made easier for my family by taking Dramamine, and there was no more seasickness.

King crab

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As soon as we arrived at the village, a man came out in his cayuco to explain that he would act as a ‘broker’ between JC and the finder of the dinghy.  As a new dinghy with cover and outboard motor would run to three or four thousand dollars, it was important that the negotiations went well. Despite some pressure, the broker wouldn’t commit to what he thought a reasonable reward would be, so JC pitched low at $ 50.  The guy paddled off in his cayuco, and JC said that we would follow to the village a little later.

Rio Azucar is a community of about 500 people, and most of them seem to be children.  We read somewhere once that the Kuna are an unfriendly bunch, but I can report that this is absolutely untrue.  When we went over to the village, adults and children wanting to meet us and have a chat mobbed us.  Nobody was trying to sell anything or ask for anything; it was that simple human interchange of ‘hello’, ‘where are you from’ and ‘what are the children called?’  As we walked around the village, we were at the centre of a throng of people.  More joined as the word spread that there were visitors.  Our own children were completely overwhelmed and, if truth were told, a little frightened by all the attention.
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Tai Phou at anchor

When we got back to the jetty we found out that JC had settled on a reward of $ 100 for the dinghy and that everyone was happy with that.  All of the gear was intact too. On the next day, after a minor diversion to help out another boat that had an engine problem, we headed across to Isla Verde.  This island is uninhabited.  After anchoring we went across to the beach and then walked around the whole island, which took about an hour, what with the children wanting to climb every tree and examine everything on the shore.  Again, on Isla Grande we were struck by the stunning beauty of San Blas and by the serenity.  Although we played music on Tai Phou (and JC has a good collection of CDs), one of my main memories is of the absence of man-made sounds on our trip.  We waded through ‘fields’ of sea grass and watched in amazement as thousands of fish swam in shoals around our legs.  Laurence and I caught some brilliant red and orange giant starfish that were 1 ft (30 cm) across and then watched them speed away on the sea floor.  All around us, pelicans and cormorants were diving for fish.  This, we thought, is not the same as going to Orlando! In the evening, we invited Jean Claude and Penny over for dinner.  They were a Canadian couple who were cruising for a few days before linking up with relations for further sailing.  JC rustled up a banquet and liberal quantities of the Chilean wine made the event great fun.  For the whole of our time on Tai Phou, we were struck by how friendly other sailors are.

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In San Blas there are a number of well-known beauty spots where the boats regularly stay for the night.  Dinner parties and conversations late into the night are common.  Although you don’t need to spend your evenings like this, it is a great way to meet people and find out what brought them to the islands.
 

Day 4 took us to Chichime, an island with maybe four or five Kuna families living on it.  By now you probably don’t need me to tell you that the island was beautiful – but it was.  We went to visit everyone out of a combination of courtesy and curiosity.  One old man was the ‘village baker’.  He had taken coconut cakes out of the oven just before we arrived and was happy to sell some to us.  The cake was rich, hot and very good.  Constructing an oven on an island where the only natural resources are coco wood, sand and seawater is not an easy project.  On Chichime, the people had salvaged some ironwork from a shipwreck.  A curved section of metal had been placed on another flat piece, and then two additional flat pieces (one of them removable as a door) made up the structure that looked like a miniature aircraft hangar.  The ingenious thing was that the fire was built on the outside.  Overall, the oven appeared to be efficient.  We also sampled the baker’s bread, and it too was tasty.  You can perhaps go too far in getting close to those you visit, and so we decided not to sample the smoked iguana that was hanging in the kitchen house.  It had been prepared as one of the main delicacies for a forthcoming party. On the beach we discovered thousands of hermit crabs scuttling about, which prompted a family marine biology lesson.  You can never start too young. The mobile shop visited Chichime during our time there.  The inventiveness of the entrepreneur knows no bounds.  The shop was a large cayuco laden with good covered with plastic sheets to protect them against the spray.  The owner was selling a range of things from eggs to t-shirts, and he appeared to be doing a roaring trade.  The islanders either bought things with the few dollars that they had on hand or bartered with fresh coconuts.

Baker

We had chartered Tai Phou for only five days, and so after Chichime we sailed back to El Porvenir.  On our final evening we had a meal at the hotel of octopus stew, rice and guandues (pigeon peas) washed down with – well you know the answer, and started to feel really sad.  JC reckons that a 10-day charter is the ideal.  This allows you to see a lot, and also allows you to focus on sailing, snorkelling or fishing if these are your interests.  Certainly, for my family, five days felt too short.

Now a few weeks later and I look on our time in San Blas as magical.  We all had experiences that would be difficult to have anywhere else.  My family and I are lucky to be living in Panama, and so getting over to San Blas is easy.  If you are interested in seeing this unspoilt piece of our amazing planet, I understand that San Blas Sailing can put together complete packages including travel.

San Blas Sailing can be contacted at http://www.sanblassailing.com.

Malcolm Couch can be contacted at malcolmcouch@hotmail.com.
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