Everyday life

For a while a certain routine has also set in to my life. Twice a year we are sailing with up to twenty guests between Central- and South America, filling up our stocks in the cities and enjoying our holiday in the Comarca of Panama – theoretically – because on an old ship there is always something to do. The machine needs lots of maintenance; electric is still a lot to do and our lists are getting rather longer then shorter. Nevertheless there is always time for a snorkel trip in between and some quiet evenings in the hammock.

Now, those islands “in front of the door” and the crystal clear water became more familiar to me than medias and civilization things, I feel at home. Kuna Indians are coming for a visit aboard, inviting us to their funny festivities or asking for neighbors help. Their everyday life consists out of fishing, paddling to get water from the river, cooking, playing with their kids … In their language there is no word for work. Every month are celebrations, especially when girls are becoming pubescence. Then their long hair gets cut and they brew “Chicha”. As soon as the “Sailer*” decides the trunk as good, everybody gets boozed-up till nothing is left anymore.

Last year we´d agreed, to bring sailors from all tribes in the west of San Blas to the big Kuna congress. It was a clear and sunny morning with good wind, when we sailed off under full sails. From the dinghy out in the distance I saw the old schooner graceful sailing between the reefs, while I jetted from one Island to the next, to bring all headmen aboard on the full run. After a while the deck was filled with colorful little Kuna’s. It was a funny day though at the end we just looked forward again to a quiet evening, before the next tour began and declined their invitation to participate on the congress.

Then there was this aluminum yacht, which a retired couple abandoned, desperate, after they run it on a reef. It was a beautiful boat which somebody with a little needlecraft would have got fixed easily. But nobody took care of it anymore and soon it got ripped apart from the Indians till Chombo, our food supplier bought it, to transform it into a cargo boat and asked us, to pull the accident down from the reef. We needed two days, to get the yacht back into the deep. There was so much tension on the ropes that they snatched almost every time. Back lashing knots broke our reeling and some other things cracked away, but finally we found the right angle, to wriggle the thing into the deep, where two of three parts of the hull sunk immediately.

A couple of barrels, which were installed inside gave an upward trend for a little while but the boat sank fast and we barely made it to the beach. Then it was laying there till somebody claimed, that he had seen a mermaid, which settles in the wreck, ready to breed offspring. The Kunas had jitters for mermaids and so after a couple of days, the boat disappeared.

In paradise it’s never getting bored. And also the time in Colombia means schedules, organization, and sometimes pressure of time. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had the old schooner on the dry. The shipyard just had bought a new travel lift and never before they had lifted a sailing ship with 230 tons out of the water. On six belts we dangled in the air and everything seemed to work, till the sandy floor dropped and one of the wheels sank in. With heavy machinery they lifted us out in the night, jacked the hull up temporary and forgot us. It didn’t seem that we would leave soon from there but our next tour was almost booked out and finally after four days and night’s of accord work we made it back into the water.

* Chicha – fermented corn juice

* Sailer – headman of a Kuna tribe

* Dinghy – little boat (zodiac)