When we returned to the San Blas islands in November, we anchored in a lovely spot that had been recommended by our friends aboard the sailing yacht Gilana. It’s called “the hot tub”, and is a mile or two southwest of the more popular “swimming pool” and “Bug Island” anchorages.
In the photo above, the hot tub is near the center of the image, while the many specs you can see around “Bug Island” (properly named Banedup) at the top right are sailboats at anchor. Notice the white ring of waves crashing against the outer reef. It is thanks the these reefs that the anchorages here in are flat, comfortable water.
Miette only draws 4.4 feet of water. There isn’t much of a tide here, so we dropped the anchor in 7 feet of water. Even the dinghy casts a shadow. When we jump into the water off Miette, our feet hit the sand below.
When we first arrived to the hot tub in November, the first thing I did was unpack the drone. Shawn held it out at arm’s reach while I sat in the cockpit with the controller waiting for it to acquire at least 10 GPS satellites. Once ready, I activated the motors, and used the thumbstick to fly upwards, which I’ve done hundreds of times.
Looking at the screen on my phone, which shows the drone control interface, I didn’t see what happened next. There was a moment of the drone motors whining followed by a splash and then silence.
Shawn looked horrified. I thought she’d simply dropped the drone before it was properly flying. We still don’t know what happened.
She jumped in the water and swam to the bottom, about 7 feet below the surface, and handed me the drone. I pulled the battery off, as it was hot, rinsed the drone with freshwater to displace the seawater, and set the drone out in the sun.
Once it dried, I disassembled it and cleaned everything with isopropyl alcohol.
It was no use. The drone boots up, does all the motions like it’s ready to fly and I can even see the camera’s video feed on my phone, but the interface reports that most of the anti-collision sensors have failed and that take-off is not possible.
I resigned myself to not having a replacement drone until we next returned to civilization. I don’t trust such an expensive item to the freight services of any Latin American company. Things disappear.
A couple weeks later, a Swiss sailor we knew from the Turtle Cay Marina posted on a WhatsApp group that he was selling a similar drone.
My friend Ben, of SV Fickle, was still in Turtle Cay, so I asked him to look at the drone and tell me if it flew. He did, and said the seller demonstrated a short flight. I wired the seller money, and a couple weeks later, Ben brought it out to the San Blas islands with him.
The drone appeared to be ok, but in poor condition. It was evident from the blades that it had been flown through trees, and not kept in a dry place. Every visible fastener showed signs of rust, and the drone smelled, and was slightly sticky, from cigarette smoke.
I flew it about 3 inches off the floor, and landed it. The interface reported all kinds of errors. The compass was misaligned, there was no video feed from the camera, and the firmware was out of date. After many frustrating hours, I have finally been able to fly the drone. The first image of this post is the only one I’ve taken, since I’m not comfortable enough with the slightly different controls to fly and recover it from the boat.
It’s been peaceful here, with the exception of the WhatsApp groups. There was one group called “San Blas Sailors” with almost 500 members. It was a great place to ask questions, however the admin is a toxic old man (and known pedophile, but that’s a different story).
Like World War 1, which was triggered by a single gunshot, one small blinking light led to the demise of the famed “San Blas Sailors” WhatsApp group.
A German catamaran was anchored in the swimming pool. They’d been struck by lightning during the rainy season, losing the anchor light atop their mast. Instead of waiting for a replacement, they sailed for San Blas with a bright, blinking light on their mast that was intended to be temporary.
The blinking light aggravated a neighboring South African sailor (not a friend of ours, by the way), who then took a powerful spotlight blinked it into the catamaran’s cabin, waking her children.
Someone on WhatsApp asked, rather jokingly, if there was a disco party going on. The blinking light was now a “strobe”.
The chat escalated into ugliness quickly, with people citing maritime regulations, safety of having a blinking light over none at all, etc. Hundreds of messages went back and forth over this as the thread grew increasingly nasty and hostile.
It died down for a few days until the crotchety group admin found himself anchored next to the boat with the blinking light, started up the fight again, and kicking people off who disagreed with him.
There is now a new WhatsApp group, highly moderated by a couple level-headed women that also moderate the Shelter Bay chat.
You would think that here, in a veritable paradise, the people from every corner of the world that are here would be chill and full of good will. Humans - you just can’t take them anywhere.
We’ve got a few weeks left before we need to sail for Colombia. We’ll anchor the boat at the border where we’ll get departure stamps on our passports. Then we’ll hire a skiff to take us around the point to a Colombian town where we’ll get stamped into the country and then stamped out of the country. Afterward, we’ll take the skiff back to Panama, and get one more stamp back into the country which resets our visas 180 days. Fingers crossed it works, because it’s a 180 mile round-trip past an long, uninhabited stretch of Panama.
I may have mentioned in a prior post that I don’t enjoy snorkeling as much as Shawn, but she’s found a snorkeling buddy.
This is Susan aboard her boat Wooden Shoe. She is a solo sailor, aged 82, and her boat name comes from a lullaby her mother sang to her, which she in turn sang to her daughters, with a lyric about sailing away in a wooden shoe. She was formerly a concert cellist, and has been sailing and living aboard her boat for a couple decades. She is very sharp, not just for her age, but for anybody.
When asked when she’ll stop sailing, she quickly says, “Never. This is keeping me alive.” The marine environment would destroy a cello, but she stays in touch with her former students who are now teachers themselves, and one of her daughters is first-chair in a major city’s orchestra.
Susan and Shawn get together on cloudy days and play games, and on sunny afternoons, motor to a nearby reef to snorkel. Every now and then, Susan comes over to get my help with technical things. One week, it was setting up a used iPad she’d been given, the next week, configuring a VPN so she can watch programs from the US (she’s from Michigan). I should point out that she doesn’t hand me things to fix - she insists that I teach her how to do it, and then does it herself. She saw me using the 4-finger iOS gesture to see all open apps, and the next thing I know, she’s doing it herself, swiping away the unneeded ones.
Susan bought Wooden Shoe in San Diego a couple decades ago, and like us, sailed down the Pacific coast and crossed the Panama Canal into the Caribbean.
If you’ve ever thought wistfully about what we do, but fear it might be too daunting, know that there’s a bad-ass 82 year old woman out here doing it by herself.
I filmed the following short video at a reef near the hot tub, the thumbnail showing an incredible school of juvenile parrotfish we encountered. I wrote some of the music last year, but the last one, featuring chopped-up, stretched, and re-harmonized bits of an acapella I found on TikTok, is recent and captures our current vibe. Enjoy!