San Blas Update

What is the definition of Paradise?
Well we think we have found it. Icarian is anchored off a little island called Morbedup in the San Blas Cays. It is truly lovely here. White sand beaches, palm trees, birds singing, turquoise water and very comfortable temperatures.
The snorkeling in the San Blas has been amazing too. The coral varieties here are so varied in colour and shapes and every reef is a new wonderful garden to discover. There are amazing 4 foot fan ferns in delicate purples and mounds of coral in bright oranges and maroons. The fish are the added bonus of course with all their different shapes and colours. Awesome!!

Island hopping is so easy. We just unfurl the jib and sail from one to the other. The northeast tradewinds have been blowing while we have been here but we have been able to find nice little knooks for protection. The reefs that surround the islands cut the waves just like there is a wall. Amazing to see.

Brian has been enjoying lobsters and crabs galore, he is so lucky!
So that is our update for now. We are just hanging out and having fun.
Sorry..pix will have to wait until we get to an internet cafe in a few months.

Pixs: Marilyn's birthday, the crabs are BIG, a cute girl at Isla Tigre

Icarian in the San Blas!

Icarian spent Christmas 2007 in the lovely harbour of Portobello. This very protected bay is just loaded with history having been discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1502. The Spanish soon claimed it and sent their galleons to load up on gold and silver from Central and South America. These galleons and Portobello became the target of pirates like Henry Morgan and Sir Francis Drake who died in Portobello. Forts surround the bay and we found ourselves anchored with many rusty old canons pointed our way. The forts have not been restored so they are just as they were way back when. Very cool! :) We had our Christmas lights up and although the weather was a little wet we managed an excellent feast with friends off Second Nature and Quinuituk.

After a brief stop at Islas Linton and Grande we set off for the San Blas Islands on New Years Eve. We had a great sail in sunny skies and winds in the 15 to 20 knot range with seas averaging in the 6 to 8' . We arrived in the San Blas at a little Island called Chichime (chee-chee-may) late in the afternoon. It is the first time in many years we welcomed in the New Year sound asleep! :)

The San Blas is a huge area of coral reefs with the odd small island thrown in. In fact there are over 300 of these little islands and the reefs give protection from the 6-10ft swell rolling in from the Caribbean. The weather since we arrived here has been fairly windy which is keeping us cool. Water temperature is about 84'F and the skies have been mostly sunny!!
The beach here has very white soft sand and palm trees galore with few native huts nestled under them.

The Kuna Indians govern the San Blas as an independent state within Panama. We have begun to see and buy some of their crafts. They are famous for needlework called Molas which are very colorful pictures usually depicting their history and lifestyle. These pictures take a long time to complete and are very beautiful. We plan to investigate many of the islands in the San Blas in the next three months before heading to Cartegena.

Pixs: A typical island in San Blas and an ulu used by most of the Kuna for fishing/transportation.

Icarian does float in the Atlantic!

Icarian transited the Panama Canal on December 12th 2007 and is now in Shelter Bay Marina across the bay from Colon. This is our first stop in a marina since we were in Puesta del Sol, Nicaragua in April 2006!
Our transit went off without a hitch! We had our niece Kelsi and her boyfriend Chris from Kamloops, Steve on the sailboat 'Last Resort' and another cruiser named Spencer from 'Second Nature' as crew. We had a very nice day with only one rain squall.
We 'locked up' at about 10:15 a.m. in the Miraflores and Pedro Meguel Locks, a series of three locks and were out of there by about 11:15. Then it was about a 5 hour trip through the Gaillard Cut and Gatun Lake. We passed many interesting freighters and cruise ships heading for the Pacific side. We then 'locked down' in the Gatun locks about 6 p.m. It was a long day but it went off without a hitch. Our crew left us in Colon in a taxi Steve had arranged for the return trip to Panama City.
Icarian spent the night in the flats off off Colon and then moved to the new Shelter Bay Marina the next morning. This is a lovely facility in a jungle setting on the old sight of Fort Sherman. The wreck's of old barracks and runways can still be seen and I am sure there is lots of history here. We have now completed our paperwork and tomorrow leave to begin the fun part of this year's adventure.
Our first destination will be Portobello where we will most likely spend the Christmas holiday. Our Christmas decorations along with the cards we received last year are now up and give us a festive look. We will put our outside lights up when we reach Portobello. Christmas in the tropics is still a little weird to us but we will give it all the spirit we can muster.
Hope you are all enjoying this wonderful season!

Pix: Our niece Kelsi taking in the sites, Steve our #1 line handler taking a break and the southbound line-up in the cut.

Panama City Again

We left Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador on an early morning high tide November 14^th. We so enjoyed our months in the Bahia. The 'family' atmosphere of Puerto Amistad was so welcoming and the people living there very friendly. This is a super place for Summering over and a safe place to leave your boat while travelling inland or visiting home. It will remain one of our favourite spots.

Icarian is once again in the anchorage called 'La Playita' in Panama City. It is so green here now as of course we have just finished the rainy season. Very beautiful! Our passage from Ecuador was great. It took us 5 days and 4 hours which is a very good time. We left Bahia with a SW wind about 12 knots and we had a steady reach for 4 days straight. Very little changes had to be made with the sails all we had to do was keep a look out for fishing boats and freighters. Our fifth day had no wind so we turned on the engine and continued into the Bay of Panama.

A highlight of this trip was the sighting of a big whale feeding on the surface. We are not sure if it was a Blue or a Humpback whale but it was waving it's pectoral flippers in the air and rolling over, just enjoying himself. We managed to get pretty close before he dove to find more feed. It is always so special to see these amazing creatures.

One evening on the passage we had a flock of a dozen tiny little land birds, like sparrows, come and spend the night. They flew down below to check out our living quarters but ended up snuggling down for the night huddled together under the dodger. They were so cute! At first light they were off again swooping over the waves.

The last few days have been dealing with officials. We have cleared with the Port Captain and Immigration and are now organizing our papers for transit of the Canal. We have been measured and inspected and this evening we should hear if we get the date, Dec. 12, that we requested.

Our lists have been made and now the provisioning begins. Sure hope we don't forget anything!

Pix - Our good friend Janet in Bahia, colorful fishermen in the Bahia market and the new BC Ferry exiting the Panama Canal!

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Off to Panama

Icarian is enjoying the last few days at anchor in Bahia de Caraquez, Ecuador. We have very much enjoyed our stay here. This is a very beautiful country and we would not hesitate to recommend it to everyone.
Our yearly maintenance is complete. Icarian’s decks have received a full refit with new seams, new plugs and a complete sanding to make it look like a newly laid deck. The heads have been rebuilt and new bilge pump to name just a few jobs Brian managed to fit in this year. Marilyn’s task has been to ready the below deck storage to take on supplies for approximately 3 months of staples.
We are setting sail on November 14th, 2007 and heading for Panama City.
Expected duration should be about 5 days. Our first order of business will be to book our transit date to go through the Panama Canal. We are hoping to get December 12th as our niece Kelsi is flying down to transit the Canal with us. We hope this works in with the powers that be.
In Panama City we need to provision as we have never done before.
Our destination is the San Blas Islands of Panama and stores as we know them are non-existent. We will hopefully be able to trade for fresh food with the Kuna Indians but other than that we need to be self-sufficient. We have done lots of reading research and can hardly wait to enter a world so different to any we have visited so far. There are more than 340 Islands in this chain so that should give us lots of destination options. We also hope to be in Cartagena, Columbia when the rainy season starts again next June.
We have changed from our web-site this season to another format, which will allow us to update you more regularly via e-mail as to what we are up to. We will plug pictures into our blog whenever we have Internet coverage.
So we are off!!

Pictures: A waterfall outside Banos, the flower market in Cuenca, and a massive cathedral in Cuenca which took up a whole city block!!

Bring on year 4!!

It is mid October and Brian and Marilyn are all set to return to Ecuador and Icarian. Our daughter Melanie was wed to James in Vancouver on October 6th and the wedding was a huge success. Marilyn made the wedding dress (a real labour of love) which turned out to be just what the bride wanted - a huge relief! It was wonderful to be part of this special event and so satisfying to see everyone so happy.
Weddings mean getting together with family and friends and we really got to enjoy everyone this year.

While Marilyn was home with her sewing project, Brian was doing maintenance on Icarian. Her teak decks are now in good shape with all the plugs replaced and hopefully sealed.Some mechanical maintenance was also in order and now we are set for another year of cruising.
Our plan is to be back on board by about the 20th of October where we will spend a few weeks getting all the systems like the fridge and freezer up and running again. We will need to do a major re-provisioning with a departure date around mid November. Our plan is to once again head towards the Western Islands of Panama as this route has proved to be very favourable. Then on to Panama City where we will start planning our transit of the Panama Canal. Hopefully this will happen about mid December and we can celebrate Christmas on the Caribbean side.
We plan to spend most of this cruising season in the San Blas Islands, which number over 300, and then summer over in Cartagena Colombia next year.

So that is it from here. We are excited to be on to year number 4 and will keep you all posted as we go.
Happy Cruising!

PS...yes that is black steam puffing out of the volcano just outside Banos, Ecuador