Coco Banderos Cays, San Blas Islands, Panama

We headed further East toward the Coco Banderos Cays, which are known for being the most beautiful islands in all of San Blas. There is a four-mile reef that extends around this island group and because it is far out away from the mainland and its rivers, these islands have some of the clearest waters. It was only a few miles from the Holandes Cays, but enroute we lost our GPS navigation system because the chart plotter overheated and blacked out. Mike grabbed the hand held GPS and started plotting points on a paper chart. He had a good time navigating the "old fashioned way", and that is how we made our way into the anchorage between Tiadup & Olosicuidup. Later, Capt. "McGyver" Mark fixed the chartplotter with a toothbrush.

We anchored in about 30ft of water, with 6 other boats in the anchorage. We could see from our anchorage a large freighter wrecked on the reef nearby and we found out that it was on it's way from Cartagena, Colombia to Colon, Panama and in a storm, the huge ship lost it's way and ran up on the reef. As soon as we set the anchor, the visitors started arriving - one cayuco after another with local people selling their wares.

The first person that arrived was Venancio Restrepo. He had 2 boys paddling him around and in the cayuco were 2 five gallon buckets full of Molas. He gave us his business card and it read Venancio Restrepo, Master Mola Maker, from Mormake tupu or Mola Maker Island Kuna Yala San Blas and even had his cell phone number. He was very advanced and could speak English rather well. We invited him aboard and he must have shown us 100 Molas. They were the prettiest we had seen, the detail was astounding and he told us that some of the Molas take up to 4 months to make. He had Molas from his whole family to sell. We bought a good many Molas and sent Venancio on his way.

A while later some Kuna men came with lobsters or "langustas" in their cayuco. Yovanni, Antonio and Juan sold us 11 lobsters for $25, tails cut and cleaned. They were a bit small, but the large lobster they had, probably weighing 6 lbs, they were selling it for $35! Capt Mark grilled the lobsters for dinner along with some Mahi Mahi we had caught earlier on the trip. It was succulent!!! Much better than any lobster in a restaurant! We had a few more vendors that day. A Kuna man came by selling bread, which we gladly bought, and he told us he could deliver beer, sodas, take our garbage for us and anything else we needed. We thanked him for the bread, but had already planned to go to the island of Nargana the next day. Nargana had a grocery store, restaurant, liquor store and more, so we opted to wait.

We snorkeled all over the anchorage and Capt Mark and Walter went out to the ship wreck to get some closeup shots. We snorkeled around many reefs and explored some of the uninhabited islands - it was great! In the anchorage, the water was very deep in some places over 50 feet deep and there were starfish everywhere.

The next morning we listened to the Cruiser's Net from Panama and were preparing for a snorkel when a young lady rowed over to our boat. She was a young French girl named Katherine who asked us if we would like to see some jewelry. We welcomed her aboard and she had a bag full of jewelry with a fantastic presentation. She and her husband/boyfriend had been living in the anchorage for 4 years. They had sailed a 27ft steel sloop from France via Africa. She was very interesting and well traveled. She gave us lots of good information on places to visit. She and her husband make jewelry from a local nut that they find in the jungle called the tagua nut. The jewelry is exquisite! She called the seed "vegetable ivory" and they had used it in so many creative ways to create some beautiful works of art - they could sand it, cut it and dye it to create the desired effect. All of the jewelry was gorgeous, but we held ourselves to just a few pieces.

Later that morning we all went snorkeling next to Olosicuidup. The coolest snorkel sight so far, with tons of reef fish, coral heads, sea urchins, Bahamian conch and sea biscuits. It was incredible!

Afterwards we weighed anchor for Nargana & Rio Diablo.