WASHED UP IN COLUMBIA.. chapta 5
I’ve never been to South America before. Most people enter a new country through an airport ramp.
I swam.
Infact I almost made a habit of it.
My tales of the happy shiny San
Blas, are those below, but with some Laurence of Arabia script writing, let’s shift the end of this story to the beginning. Unlike Lawrence, however, I lived.My first practise run at shipwreck preparedness, came at the border.
We had spent a wet windy day, anchored off a frontier border post, trying to find a Panamanian port captain, in pursuit of an exit permit.
Mule access was the only walking way in. 
Everything else came by boat, including Howitzer style toys, and lots of soldiers. Panama and Columbia don’t always see eye to eye. I was sure that the anchorage would be a surf, and had prepared for a man overboard type drop and pickup, with kayak landing, and passports in water tight bags.
By some hydrodynamic miracle, there was tiny deflecting reef that gave us a bearable, wild ride anchorage.
All day we waited, now low on food, and big on impatience.
Late in the day, the officiados coughed up our exit stamps, and out to sea, and around some new dark headlands we headed, crossing into Columbian waters.
It was here, that the toed kayak became un-toed. Given the dark breaking seas, the unwell Ave Maria, and my affection for White Limbo , the canoe, I instantly declared my farewell, and fully clothed, stepped into the sea, a mile or two offshore. Ave Maria soon disappeared into the bay.
United with the prodigal kayak, there were a few strange looks from local fishermen, as some dripping dickwit, somehow paddled to South America alone, out of nowhere.
Using the using protocol for dangerous beach landings on foreign continents, my first words to the jaw dropped reception, could be summarised as, “ah, un cervasa, por favour?”
This was Sapzurro, Columbia, and a meal and beer were well received, from the perspective of a larder challenged boat.
The next day took us miles out to sea, into dark, oncoming seas, where I had a day sitting in the cockpit, having rain wash off the wave hits. All that was visible of me were my legs, and a slit in my wet weather gear’s hood.
I hate it when you are miles out to sea, and you begin to sink. Something was letting more water into the boat faster, than we could pump it out.
I have had this problem before. But not on an uncharted lee shore, full of FARC guerrillas, narco crims, and gun happy border guards.
Life in a life raft, I figured would not be that bad: we would end up on some rocky shore, somewhere, eventually.
The harder we sailed, the more we sank. Under went the electrical parts of the engine room.
No radio or GPS fed chart plotter, added tension. The fact that the manual bile pumps were out of action, was point of contention that grated like unspoken salt in the wound, between myself and Paul, the owner.
We had to swim to Colombia because the hand pumps had not had thier repair kits installed?
Never again, I swore.
But there was no room for swearing.
Somehow, we found a tiny island to get some sleep, after battling away in the bilge, a cruel task. But we might just have well slept in the surf, as what we found, gave us all the protection of Bush’s Patriot Act.
By the next dawn, we were already fried before we set sail.
So it was not good news, when next, the steerage on the boat was bordering on impossible. The wheel went to full lock, and stayed there, as the boat struggled to maintain windward progress.
A nasty evening build up of wind, prompted me to suggest we should make inshore once again, for overnight shelter. Had i not made the call, there would be no, this chapter to read.
Like reaching out for help, whilst running thorough golden syrup in one of those cheap survival dreams, the island to which we headed for shelter, became a Bridge Too Far. Nothing seemingly, could be done to make the yacht go where it we wanted it headed. As the island slipped away, like fingers grating down the side of an ice crevasse fall, we soon realised that not only was our steering bad, but it’s was nonexistent at all. And ahead was, rocks, surf beach and mafia run , remote Columbia. Add nightfall, shit everywhere, and a rolling boat, and it was again time for shipwreck practise. Firstly, gather the passports and get everyone ready for a sinking beach landing. Then get on the VHF radio for some PAN! PAN!
I might as well have been Falun Gong calling Bejing.
Reducing, tweaking, and re-setting sails did nothing to stop the inevitable…a wet arrival, less boat.
Bugger.
Meanwhile, all aboard kept good spirits, even if weak stomachs.
Then a flash. Does Tarik’s Swiss mobile still work? It did. So via Switzerland, patched through operator, to cops, to navy, to Isla Feute patrol base, we had contact.
At least someone knew what was happening.
Next flash. How deep is it? Could our anchor reach the bottom in the black , breaking sea?
It was only 15m deep. So we could try a grab, as if not, it was just minutes before we would be upside down on the Columbia coast. So grab we did. Of course, that meant bye bye anchor tackle, thousands of dollars worth, as no electrical accessories on the motor, meant no power to raise 500kg of tackle. Stupid system, yes. Anchoring at sea, in darkness, just off a sure shipwreck next step, is no fun. But better loosing the anchor than the boat.
The ability of the sea sickened crew to translate with what Spanish they could muster, was heroic. Well done Rose and Tarik.
By midnight, after some we-are-here-flares provided some rosy moments, we saw approach, a navy panga, with three 200 powered outboards on the transom.
Whether we could be rescued was seemingly secondary to whether we were creating a difficult diplomatic moment, and it took almost 24 hours of negotiation and clearances before were toed to Isla Fuerte, and the crew, now desperate to get ashore, got ashore.
Get me to the Hilton kept resonating privately, in my outwardly all ok demeanour.
Safely towed to behind Isla Fuerte, the next day saw us covered in military personnel, and boat builders, looking for a cut.
The boat builders were soon under the boat, bursting to the surface with, oh-shit looks on their faces. It wasn’t long after, that the rudder fell of altogether, just moments after they got a hole punched through it, for a rope.
Aboard, the evil demise of the rudder was plain to see. Recall, we had already repaired the snapped rudder shaft inside the hull. That was a one a one in a thousand accident. For the same rudder, to break again, this time under the waterline, adds a factor of 1000 to the already 1 in 1000 chance.
All day, hand signals, struggling Spanish translation and mucho grassy-arses wordage, filled the air, as we negotiated a consensual mutiny and a rudder repair. It took all day, but by evening, we had a plan and a price to fix the rudder, and the crew, myself included, were all loaded aboard another fast speedboat for a run back to shore, hopefully this time to dry land. I had two big packs of gear…and they all were lugged by speedboat, 4 wheel drive, and charted minibus to Cartagena for a very, very alive, but exhausted beer or two at the Havana Cafe with crew Chris and Tarik.
Land, yes land…what a great idea…in fact, some 4000m above sea level seemed like a good idea, and I was soon planning shore leave in Peru.
But of course all is not woe and ship wreck. The Sans Blas, in the weeks before, were completely different:
There is a little sign outside of the Kuna’s palm leaf shack, their national museum infact. It reads, PEOPLE WHO LOOSE THEIR TRADITIONS, LOSE THIER SOUL. The Kuna are a rare anomaly on the world’s anthropological map, having fled offshore from cannibals and conquistadors, to their San Blas, island paradise, off Panama, above Columbia.
Women run the gig, and if you marry, as a man, it’s the wife’s family you move in with. This isn’t Mecca. To govern the place, unlike our left vs right parliaments, the Kuna, sit and talk. This they do, facing each other, and, listening, listening to each other, in their grand Congresso hut, and each day, and into the night, the elders talk it out, in the round, in the Congresso.
The Kunas, and all indigenous people seem to know, that the best real governance, is consensual. It’s hardwork to get everyone to agree, its takes time, tolerance and listening. By comparison, the subtle scam embodied in our democracy’s, divide and conquer governance, where 51% can tell the other 49% to eat shit and die, is a system we never question, and which, I add, is so typical of the polarised, western democratic system. It is, well, flawed. I was an elected official once. I wasn’t long into the job, before the subtle failings of the divide and conquer, 51% vs 49% system became apparent. Governance that is predicated on 51% of the vote, is a recipe for manipulation, and if nothing else, leaves about half the people pissed off, at any one point in time. The end result is the governance we all despise, the governance, that is, as they say, not your friend. My understanding of government, from having been part of it, concludes that freedom and democracy, as we have all been led to accept is, is badly in need of an overhaul. It’s a fraud.
Add Murdoch to the Westminster system, and its game set and match for the corporatocracy and the Black Hand.
The way ahead, I reckon, maybe post 2012, is consensual. If you think I’m nuts, go watch any parliament after the lunch time’s question hour. They are almost empty. On the floor, you will find some lone, bored left vs right, parliamentary crew of 3 or 4, pretending to listen, whilst playing with their Blackberries, as some hopeless speaker orates nothing to no one, where no one even listens as the speech is piped through the parliament’s PA and TV.
The only workplace where you can drink, for free, all day, from a choice of several bars, legally, whilst at work, are our Parliaments. What a mess.
The TV shit throw for an hour of question time, then back to the bar, or the deal making rooms, and this, ladies and gentlemen, is how we are governed. The only listening done, is when the media rush, mikes in hand, from one political player to the other…. “What, Minister, do you have to say to your opponent, after your opponent called you a slime bag?”. This is our form of governance, and it ensures those in governance are simply reduced to flailing PR marketeers, for someone else’s reactionary ideas. No one listens anymore…leaders just react to how the media portrays the world. I was at the one time, both an small region’s elected official, and a local broadcaster. It was the media role that had the legs, not the elected role.
But politics is just the surface of it, it’s just thrashing around in the top 10% of the ego. Pointless really. It’s the much deeper bullshit that ensures life on earth continues to suffer in its escape from its Samsara of dysfunction.
How deep is the bullshit, and how long would it take to summarise it, given no space time for explaining my view, I wondered. Wonder no more, as here I go… no explanation, no details, just out with it:
Start with the biggest lie: ‘all you see, is all there is’.
Don’t concern yourself, that your eyes, ears, smell and feel only scan a small fraction of the spectrum of energy we should sense, before drawing conclusions.
Now let’s go for the second best lie, that’s the one that says, ‘you’re born, you die, and that’s it’. This little bit of attitude, keeps those alive, well and truly fucked.
So let’s go for something less esoteric and more nutty…like, UFOs and ET’s don’t exist.
This one simply amazes me, not that ET’s exist, but that the system ensures a general belief that there is no proof of ET’s, when there are video libraries, book shelves, and thousands of eye witnesses with evidence that no one accepts. Nothing works better, in the lying game, than a real big one.
Let’s try medicine. Despite thousands of years of medical treatment using energetic influences, our current medical system tells us the only forces at work on our body are biochemical and mechanical. This is nonsense. Millions would live, enjoying better health and wellbeing, when the lie that is western medical science, is dethroned.
Try conventional science. Hey guys, explain infinity. Got a problem there? Like, ‘daddy daddy, where does the sky end?’ And even when guys like Stephen Hawkins and Einstein walk us to the door of the multidimensional universe, where everything is purely energy, they are forced to flee, once they get a glimpse of the real implications.
The single most important understanding in science, can come when the system fesses up to the truth of what the mathematicians and advanced physicists have been advocating for years. All there is, are arrangements of energy. Matter, seemingly, does not exist. Not when you are looking at least. Only when you are looking away. What the?
It’s a holographic universe.
Let’s get weird. Try a regular, well agreed lie….’the spirit world does not exist’.
When the multidimensional lie is alive, the spirit world is dead. But the multidimensional denial is eroding, and the spirit world: it’s been true since day dot. Weird as that may sound. Outside of this dimension. And in.
Some more bull-shitter’s bigger hits, include: fluoride is harmless, aspartame is equally harmless, sodium laurel sulphate never killed anyone, MSG is tasty, and Tim Tams are carcinogenic free. A more complex off-shoot lie, says, cancer has nothing to do with energetic influences.
Another cute lie, says such mobs as the Iluminati are purely a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream.
The list can go on to fill libraries, and it does just that.
Archaeology is not a science, it’s a vendetta. Against the truth.
Then there are the religious lies, and if ever that has been a successful bull-shitter, it’s religion. Take some core truths, and completely twist them around for controller’s sake. Where to start on debunking this business?…God, some white bearded, judgemental guy, out there somewhere, knows.
No time will be allowed today, for defending or arguing the stuff above. Today there really was scant enough time to let any wandering world angst, cloud my mind. What was wandering around, was the odd fluffy, flat footed cumulus cloud. The rest came in shades of aquamarine and blue. Such is the colour around any crystalline cay, in our case, Gunboat, as it’s called, a few miles offshore of jungle Panama, and a few mile inshore of a roll reducing, outer barrier. In short, on a sunny day, the San Blas islands are beautiful. Cutest I’ve seen.
Gunboat Isla is a bouquet of coconut palms, with a white sand wrapping, set in an aquamarine gallery, about a footy field in area. Life is simple. A family lives in a hut or two of cool, ventilated, but snug and dry, palm leaf and timber. The palm leave roofing is so functional, it can outlast corrugated iron, remaining waterproof. People sail dugouts to commute. The women sit around making the Molas . Molas put the birthday into every day, in the Kuna’s traditional, multi coloured clothing, and with the beach at their feet, their kids at play, their food cooking, they embroider these magic molas, varying in style from deep astral insight, to Jimmy Buffet’s junk parrots designs. Molas are to Kunas, what dots are to aboriginals.
It’s all rather picturesque, fun and indulgent. I mean, I think we were forced to eat something other than lobster or crab twice this week already.
They bake sweet little Kuna bread rolls each day, which we add to a breakfast of just cracked coconut juice, and porridge with honey.
Today, again, 3 giant crabs, crabs that make regular mud crabs look handicapped, flesh in every fat leg, costing $8 for 3, delivered, crawling around your cockpit, in your ship’s bucket.
Under Pete’s guidance, and with another $4, the lovely family on the island set a little table for us, and cooked us some rice, alongside the monster crabs, so we could down a few sunset drinks regardless of the fire duties, watching waterlines at eye height, lying down. Lush. The Gunboat Bar and Grill, consists of 4 logs around a sort of table, under 12 palm fronds.
A game of ker plonk, flowed food, whilst the family washed up at beaches edge. Then the Kuna family joined in, with much laughing and ker plonk throwing. We paid for our coconuts, ordered tomorrow’s bread, and all was well.
We had slept in that day, after eating and drinking into the night on Pete’s charter boat, Golden Eagle, in all her 62 foot of action packed luxury.
In sea of international yachties, there is much larconic fun to be had, taking the piss out of the American radio chat, from the beer drinking point of view, of 3 Aussie blokes afloat. US retirees, sitting in their undies, down below, raving away on the VHF, or chatting with the kids on Sail Mail, the text only email through your single side band radio. This they do, with paradise all about. Some yachties need to get a life.
Pete Rippingale, a good name for the master and commander of the, San Blas luxury charter fleet, has seen the coast of just about every yacht destination on earth, and with degree of logic, he sees the San Blas through comparative eyes. And he is right about San Blas being world winner.
San Blas is every bit as beautiful as the Maldives, but way more gentle than the Maldives, at all levels. Culturally, without the harsh aspect of Muslim male rule, as in the Maldives, San Blas are a matriarchal place, and as such, are more feminine. Where every third island in the Maldives is a resort, in San Blas, those guests adventurous enough to come here, and stay, get beds or hammocks in palm huts, all meals included, $35, with boat tour. Sand floor.
I sailed to the Maldives once. I was the only international cruising yacht in the whole country, just 20 years ago. The Maldivian government was a pain with their… “All ships, all ships, this is the Maldivian government”…. bleating over the VHF at me, to which I would reply, ‘Yes , this is all ships here, (the one of us)….what do you want today?’ And invariably, just after we had sailed 3 days into the remote Maldivian Islands, we would be ordered back to the main island, to face charges of some nonsense, debunked in 10 minutes, but nonetheless, after 3 days to windward, for nothing. It’s great, that with the help of some Aussie smart arse, the past corrupt governor off the Maldives, going back more than 20 years, was finally dethroned last year. Good riddance.
No tide here in San Blas, means it’s at times, it’s like a lake.
In competing beauties such as the PNG’s Louisiades, you cannot get a taxi and boat for $25, and in two hours, be at a major international city, with a choice of 20 camemberts. There are no rascals, revolutions, or cyclones here. Culture, a beautiful one, is intact.
Each day, some of the island dwellers head to land in outboard powered trees, the dugouts with the seating capacity of a bus, and once ashore, go farming. By night and day, the community is tight, communicative, co-operative and creative. If money for some imported staples wasn’t a battle, it would be idyllic. It almost is. Laughter, something kids do over 300 times a day, whilst western adults do only 17 times per day, is done here, at the child’s 300 per day rate, from 3 to 83 years old.
And given a stream of backpackers unwilling to spend $350 for an air ticket to Colombia, when at $350, they can choose a much more adventurous way to get there, by picking from a 20 boat fleet of backpacker running yachts. 5 days through San Blas en route to Columbia, for $350 means the place is full of characters, both captains and crews.
So from Pete, the master and commander’s larconic point of view, San Blas is good. It looks beautiful. It is as liberal as SE Asia was 20 years ago. It’s cheap. I had my good meal, and fruity final, here, for $4, on sand floors, in a 10 seat restaurant, where table clothes kept light and water under control, as sheet plastic eaves, tied over the cane baton walling. Fun.
The main villages get denser near the Kuna’s land ashore. Given all sorts of nasty neighbouring Indian tribes, with blow pipes of poison, coupled with passing Conquistadors-gone-berserk, the leaders and women of this Kuna mob, some 200 years ago, said to its mob: mob, we’re outta here. So down from the war torn jungles they came, and out to sea they paddled, where blow pipes and lead shot failed to reach, and where the Kuna built their own distinct island homes. Given 500 years of harsh Spanish rule, it’s no mean feat that this tribal lot survived at all, but 84 years ago, in a puddle of blood around the last 4 Kuna leaders killed by the Panamanians, the Kuna Yala became its own independently ruled state, inside Panama: a rare thing indeed, especially in these days of the homogenised, soon to be, One World Inc. As soon as the Iluminati smash the banking system, they can rebuild it to their, one world bank plan, where you guessed it, they control it. Cute. Homogenised.
Lazy days, paddling around in the new canoe, the aptly named, White Limbo, (caught somewhere between heaven and earth), as I float around, I feel that the San Blas is just about as good a place as any, to come out simply saying, the world if full of shit.
With idiots like me waking up to what is really happening in the universe, it can’t be long before tens of millions join me, if they haven’t already.
Gratefully, all is not shit, and what is really happening in the unseen world, is quite beautiful. The way things unfold, from the all accepting point of view, that can relax and say, everything is just perfect, the way it is, right now, right here, is the balance point from which there is a counter to all the crap coming out the last gnashing of the bull-shitters teeth, here, near the end of this 12,900 ish year old procession of the equinox.
Technically, the new cycle starts from 21 Dec, 2012, onwards. This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius, you hippies with failing memories.
They say you will one day again realise, that when you signed up for this current reincarnation, technically, you signed up for replay game of duality, where here on Earth there is good, and, bad luck, there is bad. Such is the game.
Given the rules of the game, there is no point lamenting, woe is me, the bad shit. As they say, shit happens. By the same token, there is no point in remaining an ignorant sleeper, at important transitions like this. Wake up world. All is not as it may seem. Besides, once you really work out what is going on, it often has a direct link in getting you on the way to wellbeing, and yes, the not so elusive, acceptance, enjoyment and enthusia
sm.
Today, the day starts with a lemon drink, then a swim. There’s no alarm clock. I only found out yesterday, that it was Sunday. So that makes now, Monday morning. And instead of laps in a chlorinated pool, watching the lane lines, this swim took me along the coral drop off, though miles of bait fish, and their one consciousness. Instead of some stretching exercises in a Yoga class, I had a small patch of golf course grass, native to these parts, on which to lay out a mat, two meters from the beach, under the, well, swaying coconuts. Some arm sweeping sun salutations, breathing in this kind of aquamarine freshness, fills your cup with a clean, light, demeanour.
There is, I’m told, and anchorage here, called the Swimming Pool. It is, as you guessed, like a swimming pool. It’s so beautiful, some yachties dropped anchor, and stayed there for 5 years. Eventually they sailed on to Cartegena for a year, but returned to live in the Swimming Pool for another 5 years. It’s cool here.
Just being here, being, is all you need to do. In atoll living, you get a 360 degree of the world, horizons making the big round dinner plate that is your home. Kool cigarettes, with their aquamarine marketing, insult this place, at $2 a pack.
We run the old Perkins diesel for an hour a day, which enlivens the Dell, and chills the crabs, the lime and the coconut. Life comes at $20 a day, here. Why retire and battle in the ‘burbs at $200 a week, when here, you could live like a king on this pension. Not that I believe in retirement, but I’ll take the cheque anyway, and I now know where to go, when that day comes. One could argue that the trick is to stay fit and well, long into old age. The Chinese stretch their ear lobes as a Qi Gong exercise each day, as if you look at anyone over 100, you will notice they all have long, plump, ear lobes. Here is just the sort of place that makes you yank ya ears, by the hour. Hell, I could live in a swimming pool, being visited by eccentric sailing gypsies for a social life, in daily tones of aquamarine.
The lovely thing about sailing, is that you gets loads of time to read, and when in Rome, read Roman. Here, in the land of the Mayans, we read about, you guessed it, Mayans.
The Mayans and the Gypo’s of the Nile were seemingly, or is that obviously, all influenced by same source. Both have advanced pyramid building skills alongside their grand ceremonial architecture. Both without telescopes, knew more about astronomy that even us today. Both, without 1000 tonne cranes, could lift and stack stones that were so tightly seated, that we could not compete today. We have, “A Short History of Time”. Mayans gave us the whole history of consciousness.
In the 80’s and 90’s, a raft of new understandings were published about the Mayan’s , including the Mayan Prophesies, by Gilbert and Cotterell, but more recent works, by new paradigm writer/publisher, Barbara Hand Clow, such as her, ‘Mayan Code’, and Drunvalo’s, ‘Serpent of Light’, adding the extra dimension, that our confused archaeologists can’t fathom. For god’s sake archaeologists, what Egypt and Maya is all about, is outside the visible dimension, wake up.
If one thing is clear from Mayan texts, it is that there is a cyclical pattern to change here on earth, that is well defined by history, and in an overview, this pattern has also defined the evolution of consciousness.
I’ll slip a cheeky one in here: all that there is, is consciousness.
The Mayans where the flash mob amongst their tribal neighbours, back in their hay day, just as the Egyptians were, amongst their North African, tribal neighbours. For example, these guys had written language well alone in their regional neighbourhood.
The spin of the Earth, along with its top like wobble, all has a spinning pattern to it, around 26,000 years per cycle, of this equinox counter. A start and finish point comes up. Just before the sun goes down on 22 Dec, 2012, and as the sun sets, Venus will sink below the western horizon as Pleiades rise over the eastern, and as the sun sets, Orion rises. In terms of the procession of the equinox, it’s a new chapter, as our earthly axis takes on a new view.
And they wonder if the magnetic pole will shift, when it’s already off and wandering.
The evolution of consciousness, measured by the rate of change worldwide, sees as much change in this, second last 12 year step, as have been seen for hundreds of years before. Scarily, or fabulously, depending on your perspective, accordingly to the spiralling, accelerating Mayan Calendar, the last 260 odd days of this cycle will see as much change, as in this, the second last cycle of 12 years. Its looks like 6 billion humans have bought reincarnation tickets to the grand finale of something.
But back the now.
I’ve been trying to find a few minutes to throw a few words over a subject that has intrigued me. I need to add, that mid way through this San Blas tour, we have transformed ourselves, from observers, to participants in the mad, border-running backpacker biz, by sail. Yep, we having paying passengers aboard, willing to bathe in San Blas beauty, and pay the price of a tough sea crossing, on the mecca-esque pilgrimage to the world’s new cool, hot spot, Cartegena. Columbia, baby.
Accordingly, aboard ship we have a whole new cast and crew.
We sit, here at anchor at the Lemon Cays, in a coral protected “bay”, surrounded by wave protection across 300 degrees, in still, aquamarine water, along with 20 other nationalities and their boats, here in the midst of the big blue.
Across the bay, is the main drive in supermarket, by way of two palm huts, one of which contains some high tech kit, in the form of a gas stove. From this stove, at varying times of the day, are born lots of little Kuna bread loafs…20 of them for 3 bucks.
Cats, clunkers, Swans and Ave Maria swing on their anchor, in this picturesque and serene space.
It’s about the Kuna sailing stuff, that I wish to write. If you have ever stood on a floating log, you would have some idea about the stability of round logs. Halve the log, hone it out, add a sail, head out to sea in it, with the family, and you get basic summary of how Kunas commute. And sure, it ain’t stable, but is fine, from years of seafaring knowingness. I love indigenous sailors, they make us hut-hut sailors look like lame losers. I’d like to see the fat arse Dennis Conner get a family sailing canoe more than 400m before capsizing it. But when you are born with a paddle and sail in your face, you develop skills that us Microsoft-cocks can’t fathom.
Allow me a moment on the craft, the canoe, itself. Basically it’s a tree. But it’s a tree with style. Unlike their Melanesian counterparts, the Kuna canoes are the Citroen D of the sea.
For starters, the bow of the Kuna canoe is dead vertical, like the whaling skiffs of 200 years back. I am no expert, but I figure one of either two design rip-offs have occurred here. Either the Spanish galleon sailors have ripped of the traditional Kuna bow design, or, more likely, the Kunas, in their flight to sea around 1800, ripped off the style of the Spanish dories. I’m not sure which.
The stern of the Kuna canoe has all the swept-up pizzazz, of a Venetian gondola. And all this, hewn out of a basic log. I like it.
I’m a big fan of indigenous boats, and if I ever I had a spare $100 million, I would collect and open the world’s only museum of indigenous boats.
In the high tech world of cantilevered keels, they have this thing called a canard, which is basically a fin near the bow of these maxi go-fasts, that stops these boats slipping downwind when tacking, and when their keels are otherwise disposed to counter balancing duties, swung out on the horizontal. One day, they will realise they can swing the ballast out above the drag of the water, in the air. They thought I was nuts, thirty years ago, trying to describe swinging keels on beer coasters, at the very pissed, Airlie Beach pub. So now, I say, ballast the maxi racing boat on high tonnage banana boards.
I also drew plans for canting masts. They haven’t got that one happening yet. I am a bit obsessed with breaking down naval architectural boundaries, and for example, I just spent $ fifty grand, and a year or two designing up a truly extreme, and very innovative solar to hydrogen, trimaran. So classify me as a boat nutter.
Back to the canard du canoe. Kuna canoes have a very subtle keel at the bow. Quite fancy, for a log.
The sailors are want to call sails, “rag”. Kunas want to have real sail cloth, but use rag. Sewn together in interesting stripes and checks of whatever is affordable, a Kuna canoe can sail like the wind.
How it’s done, is grace and simplicity in motion. Mum and the kids are basic ballast. Dad either hangs out on a trapeze, or steers.
The trapeze, is a piece or rope you grab and hang onto, an lean out. The trapeze role is seemingly privileged, as it is above the splash zone. The crew, they get wet. But wafer thin, plastic table cloth, or the garbage bag we left with the Gunboat family, suffice as adequate wet weather gear for the family. The first son, or whoever, is the helmsman. There is no rudder however, just a paddle on the lee side.
Unlike the Indonesians, there is no strapping to secure the rudder-paddle. It just works, squeezed against the downwind side of the hull. There is no centre board. The pumps are busy, always bailing the water leaking in, or spilling over the topsides, in gallons. The pump is a coconut shell, halved. When we were hammered down to double reefs in our sails, the Kunas were casually going about their seafaring commute.
Gaff rigged sails spill and billow at height, unlike our triangulated rigs on the typical sailing yacht. The complete Kuna canoe rig can be installed and set, in about 3 minutes, so fishing crews in 15 foot logs, can strap and dump the gaff rigged rag and pole on an island beach, and paddle into fishing mode, in minutes.
There is no glue, fibreglass or epoxy in sight. Fancy canoes can get a coat of bitumen, but most are basic tree. When a gap opens up in a log, the solution is very ‘post garbage’. Panel beating a tin can, or pinning discarded inner tube to the hull, will do all that is needed to keep the fuca afloat. Those Polynesians can only sail using trainer wheels, namely, outriggers. Sure, Maori war canoes can do 30 knots in full hammer mode, but only the Kuna can keep a log to windward in any sea condition. I’m a fan.
The grace, silence, and simplicity of the Kuna sailing skill, is a delight to watch, and photograph. I would love to fill a container full of these fast fading ethnological master pieces, and put them on display, in appreciating European foyers and galleries.
A basic boat will be adzed into shape, in the jungle hills on the distant shore horizon, then man handled to the sea, where it is capsized and soaked before the master craftsman’s finer work begins, shaping the mast step, and…um…not much else, other than the hull.
Boats are beautiful things, and those that are born of native necessity are cultural icons that are fast fading from the worlds waters, and I ask the world, please world, save the indigenous sailing canoe, before the gay whale.
But given the necessity to make to sea with a crew of backpacking travellers, I must admit to the preference of doing it on a solid yacht.
There is this thing separating North America from South America, and it’s jungle, called the Darien Pass. There is no road between the continents, and it seems the Panamanians and Columbians like it this way. This is not a happy thing, for confused hippies in Kombis, getting to the end of their road across the America’s, to find the last 150 kilometre section of road missing. They can dig a canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic, but they can’t finish the last section of intercontinental connecting road…..what the?
So as in days of old, if you are young and adventurous, you won’t fly to South America, you will sail.
Give it a year or two, and some commercial fuck will ruin the whole romantic adventure. But for now, it’s out to sea in foreign yachts that intercontinental travellers must go. And we are now, officially, one of these Dunkirk-esque fleet, of high seas, backpacker buses.
How the fuck this seafaring trade could exist under Western supervision is beyond my imagination, as every boat would never pass survey for what is demanded of it, let alone, be allowed the party packed pax that these yachts carry.
This is not a cruise around the Greek Islands or Whitsundays, this is the deep ocean, at night, against tough headwinds, in boat wrecking conditions.
I must admit to being behind the plan, as Ave Maria was not planning voyage to South America. But using the twin lures of fun backpackers and the money they pay, it was not long before Ave Maria was no longer going to Mexico, for now at least, but to Cartagena, pronounced Kart-a-hey’n-ya, in Columbia. It was where Michael Douglas departed on his yacht, in the last scene of Romancing The Stone.
It was not that long ago, that Columbia was the kidnap capital of the world, but times change, and now the crown of kidnap capital has been bestowed upon Iraq. Lucky us.
I’m told, the Columbian mafia, US included, wanted to clean up their bad cocaine export image, and decided tourism was all the go, and so began killing those who harmed tourists, rather than killing tourists directly, and the result is a new, safe and allegedly beautiful new world hot spot, and we have a boat full of exponents of this theory in action, onboard. The boat beside us, and behind us, is doing the same.
To arrange this affair, I was paddling past a dock on Kuna central station island, Carti, a few days back, where a ramshackle backpacker loft feeds onto rickety wharf. I noticed a load of backpackers loading into an outboard powered tree. From my White Limbo canoe, I quipped, ‘Anyone for Columbia?”.
That’s all it took.
The next thing, I’m in the sand floored loft, being passed a mobile phone, connected to an Australian in Panama City, who owns a backpacker lodge called Mamalema. There was, as it seems, a backlog of backpackers, seeking a way south.
The lynch pin in this deal, was the king cool Kuna, by the name of something like Eulogia, who we were told by master and commander Pete, was nick named Illogical. Illogical had us in his outboard powered tree the very next day, and by morning tea, we had made our way by canoe, and four wheel drive, from one of the most primitive island homes, in the Atlantic, to the busiest international city in Central America, Panama City, on the Pacific side.
A day in the taxis and cues of Panama City, saw us collapsed on the couch of the backpackers haven, Mamalema, with boxes of provisions under the stairs, and a bunch of new best friends, signed on as $ US75/day passengers.
The day was not what I had foreseen. Any new world adventurer will consult with the shamans and sages before any trip of discovery. In my case, my first flight of this trip around the world, took me to LA, to visit my inter-dimensional guide and friend, Rose Pfeiffer.
I love Rose. She’s a gem. But she was ill. I spent several days with her, making her herbal teas, and picking up fresh salads from her local Redondo hippy marts. Hammered by what was then a recovering lung cancer assault, Rose kept bright spirits. They say, as things get close to death, the light of the soul shines through. Rose glowed, as she wheezed.
We spent days discussing the galactic agenda unfolding in tales such as the Mayan Code, and the Serpent of Light, the story of how the spiritual grounding of the planet has moved from Tibet to South America. Times, they are a changing. Time, it’s in for a bigger change.
So it was unhappy news, to open my Yahoo email, to see a message from Rose’s lovely, inter dimensional PA, telling me that Rose had not continued her recovery, and died peacefully last week. I’m generally good about life and death, as I’ve done it a thousand times before, and it’s no big deal. But saying goodbye always tears at the heart strings.
I could go into some detail here, but I feel not many of my readers would either believe me, let alone understand, but put it this way, there is more going on, here in this existence, than meets the eye.
There are some among us, who, in a position of conscious dreaming, get very busy at night. Old George Musgrave, the aboriginal shaman from Cape York, he was one. He died. Rose, she was another. She is now dead. I’m left feeling a little alone, in this sad loss. But both Rose and George remain busy, useful, and wonderful.
What to do without you Rose, I asked her. Who can fill the loss?
Within minutes of asking the question, I was introduced to my new crew member. By cheeky cosmic throw away, her name was Rose.
I sit here in my little cabin of dreams, a tad teary, as Jack Johnson chills the card game in the cockpit. We are going to Columbia. Rose is dead. It’s 2009.
The bit I can’t really describe, without opening the curtains of derision, is to write about what I understand of why Rose is gone, and what she needed to do. There are some important changes coming our way, and there is a lot of action going on behind the scenes, outside of this dimension, and in. To be evasive, I’ll just say, Rose seemingly had a senior managerial role, in what is the galactic game plan.
It may seem like a silly fantasy world, to which I refer. There is a silly fantasy world. And you are in it. The real world is much grander. Let’s leave it at that.
For example, my own reincarnations in this silly place Earth, are as mad as the place itself.
My last life was quite tweedy, I suppose, as a Cornwall barrister, with a small local political role. I guess I was something like the local squire, in the late 1800’s. I never got his name, which is something I better research, before I ride down to Cornwall, so I can stand on one of my many graves. R.I.P….Rod Is Present.
I have not been anything too important or famous, albeit, when I was a Frenchman, I was a complete arsehole. Mind you, it figures. French and all….
Recall, the French and the English had a few ‘issues’, back in the middle ages. I was one of the ‘issues’, as some shitful, gay French warlord, whose hobby was beheading Englishmen, presumably, because they can’t cook. His name was Jacques. Jacques, the frustrated frogy poof, with an axe, and a bad attitude. Apparently, one of my most useful lives was as a retarded cripple, who only lived to 5. I was a hit with the dysfunctional family, sorting things out, as only a retarded cripple can. Nothing changes much.
I’ve been twins, too. Part of me in each of two medieval soldiers, one brother called Antonio or something, and the other, Antonino, or whatever. They were the sort of twins, that are kinda the one person, know what I mean?
They had kinda fun job, as diplomats on horses, selling the deal. This was the deal. By the way, this was yet another of those Euro wars again, English and French all fucked up. The medieval gig. Ant’ and Ant’ were sent off to negotiate with the village, over the hill from the army.
The deal went something like this… ‘ok guys, tomorrow our army mates, they are coming over that hill, and we have a deal. This is the deal: either join us, give us ya food, and ya fighting men, or we will, ah, sorry to be blunt, but, ah, kill you and ya kids.” Apparently, we had great success. Mind you, nothing like an impulsive sale.
A sale rejection was tricky.
All that war stuff was tough stuff, so I then reincarnated as a chic called Clara. Clara was around about,um, forgetting my notes, some 300 or 400 years ago. Rather charmingly, Clara lived as the fairy headed daughter of an Italian family, living in the Italian Alps.
Clara had bad habit of wandering off in the spring meadows, talking with the trees and the bees. She must have been a hippy pioneer, and got treated with some disapprovingly looks. I hope they didn’t burn her at the stake. I better recheck my notes.
But the full karmic compo lives, came wearing orange. I must have needed a balancer, and not unlike a lot of blokes of their day, 500 years ago in Sri Lanka, I was a monk. 3 times in a row. I actually , tracked down these lives, by plane, three wheeler, and foot. Sri Lanka was very hip, at the same time as Europe was in very dark times. The cultural heart of Sri Lanka, inland and north of Columbo, was a palatial, civic masterpiece. Somehow, I was in this power-sharing, religious-political brew, as monk Rod. I was a more shit eating, nervous monk in the same area, later on, when monks were being hunted. But gratefully, I got to live in some very well designed and landscaped caves, scratching away with quills on Sri Lankan papyrus, recording the more secret and esoteric teachings of Budda. Whew.
I was also a travelling monk, who, with seafaring and trekking-mate monks, made my way into Myanmar, Burma. I tried to trace that one through Burma a few years back, but never figured it. All those massive, stupas and temples-on-tour gigs must loaded me with entities, bugger.
I reckon, however, that the Big Kahuna of lives came as a Polynesian, then later as Maori, some 700 years back. Always reincarnate where the hip action is, I say. This time, the role was actually some Kahuna shaman gig, not uncommon I guess, but very hip, I reckon, given my two my of favourite things, big fast canoes, and, of course, Hawaiian chics, in grass skirts, or less.
Those left over Lemurians of the Pacific basin, 700 years ago, would have been living it large, or so I would have guessed. Racing from island paradise to island paradise, by boat, for a bit of action. All this, whilst fully plugged into the universal cosmic, Google. I love it…no wonder I’m loving island life afloat, here in the San Blas. And no wonder I’m obsessed about building a big canoe. Somewhere in the daisy chain of mad lives, I rana shipping company with my son Sam. Easy.
And through all these odd lives, were a cast of characters, mainly comprising family members and or wives, many of whom are around today, and still amongst my friends and family, rather like actors in sitcom crew, who never say goodbye. Every actor gets rewritten into the script, as new character after each night’s mortal showing of Ophelia. That’s what I call an Actors Union. Strange, but true?…well, I can guarantee the strange bit, but can’t I prove the true bit, let’s be straight.
What did make me think twice about these tales, were the details surrounding the good, the bad and the ugly of each life, and what is was for, and what it taught. There is bit of me now, in all of these lives, I guess, and technically speaking, this part of me, is the personality imprinted into my spirit, like an old etheric T shirt.
So wearing my etheric T shirt, I remind myself that time is only experienced in the now, and right now, I’m squeezed into a V shaped seat, in the V bunks at the bow of Ave Maria. The bay in which we sit is Panamanian, and 8 miles away, is Columbia. If this tale suddenly goes blank, assume we have been kidnapped by FARC, gun-barrelled of into the forest, or caught up in some narco, political angst that is the Columbian Panamanian border. It’s been a bit of a wild sail down the coast, and because the coke snorting, rum drinking immigration guys at San Blas were missing for a week, we have had to sail down to the actual border, to find an immigration office ( if you can call it that), where we can get the exit stamps for our crew of 6, including a genetics grad form Oz, Liam, and a medical grad from Switzerland, Tarik. If FARC abducts us, at least we can chat about DNA when roped and bound for a few months.
Before we left San Blas, a bad idea in itself, we spent some time at the Swimming Pool, making calendar grade photos, and enough screen savers for a lifetime. It’s a beautiful anchorage. I was wrong about the yachtie who lived there for 5 plus 5 years. His name was Reg, on a New York registered floating home, and he and his Aussie wife never left the Swimming Pool….they have been there 11 years. They like it there. Reg tells me, he has met a yachtie who has been surprised to see him again after his first time circumnavigation…..and whilst Reg chilled in the Pool, the surprised yachty has since circumnavigated twice. As Reg says, different strokes for different folks.
Reg tends the golf course grade lawns on his nearby little BBQ island, where each Monday, all the boaties float in for a feed and a piss-up. Not all make it, and despite 100,000 miles under his very expensive Hallberg and Rassey keel, one traveller thought he could sail into the BBQ Island, for the Australia Day partay, at night, under full sail, in pitch darkness. His yacht still graces the anchorages reef. In pieces. Kunas had it stripped before the crew had finally departed, the, ah, dearly departed yacht.
Each day, as Kuna custom has it, the palm fronds are gathered by Reg, and burnt along with the garbage. This is a Kuna offence, according to Reg, as is gathering in numbers of more than two, on deserted islands. Kunas have no money, so enforcement officers are non-existent, everyone has to burn the garbage, as otherwise Kunas will let it float away to every filter trap beach, and as for the subversion bit, what nutter made that law up? (probably the same sort of nutter with whom I was once a co-legislators, at some Australina regional level, myself).
Reg tells me the old Kuna men were given employment by the US when they were less subtle about their control of Panama, cooking in the mess halls. It’s a wonder of wisdom, that these old critters elected to say no to all the US whiz bangery, and returned home, to enjoy living in palm frond huts. Good on’em.
And good on them for saying no to the current Tourism Minister’s desire to turn the San Blas in the Sand Cras, with Maldivian style, mega resorts.
The US left its marks everywhere here, with some 14 abandoned airstrips on islands, everywhere. Buying off the Kunas is a lot cheaper than building aircraft carriers.
The fresh blue azure of the swimming Pool, and most other San Blas anchorages are summarised in one mouth opened, Australianised word… ‘Bullshit’.
It’s so good, it’s hard to believe.
I better come back here and have a go at beating Reg’s 11 year record. His groceries are delivered each 3 week, direct to his boat, a duration determined by vegie shelf life. His social life floats in from around the world every day. Each night, Reg’s boat emits country and western tunes, as he adjusts to another shitty day in paradise. He had to leave the boat once, when his mum died, but that’s about it. I reckon Reg wins the prize for the guy who most successfully stepped off the world. Give me a pittance of a pension, or a tiny rent roll, and I’m moving in alongside Reg. Anything that floats will suffice as a home. Residency is a give away, if you have some miserable but steady income.
I have been dreaming of all sorts of weird boats these day, aside of the Trybrid, the extreme trimaran on my current drawing boards.
One of the beautiful, agricultural grade, island traders out of Cathegena would be nice, say a funky 70 footer for under $40K. Or I fancy buying an old 70-80 foot, unloved maxi, cutting the deck out just to before the mast, and building an open back cabin, on a new, lower, deck 300 above the waterline….sort of having all the open, one level space of the catamaran, but on a go-hard. Then it occurred to me that this is how I designed Trybrid anyway, but hey, I enjoy the evening’s creative design games, as I watch the stars, lying in the cockpit.
Yesterday, we pulled into Pina Isla, after a long sail tough through reefs, so far off shore, it must have been a boat graveyard. No charts in this corner of the world even include some islands we passed. We were trying to buy a few basic supplies, and just about all the guys onboard, myself included, smacked our heads on one door or another, designed for pigmy sized Kunas. Kunas are the Lilliputians of the Caribbean, and infact are the second smallest mob on earth after the pigmy.
I got rolled into the Congresso parliament, after failing to find any cigarettes for the addicted ones, and was asked pay an $8 yacht fee by the chief, which was all fine, being that Kunas are my current favourite charity. The chief was there in his hammock, swing gently alongside two other, chief type fella’s. Kunas have 3 island leaders per isla, a nice way of balancing the corruption of absolute power, and in the Congresso, the whole island must face and listen to the 3 old dudes swinging in the hammocks, on centre stage. Theatre in the round, political style.
What a great way to run a society… whilst everyone gets uptight on the hard arsed benches, those listening and making decisions, stay chilled, just swaying back and forth in the royal hammocks. Way to go. I reckon we should introduce hammocks to the Westminster parliaments, and the leader of the opposition, the prime minister and the speaker should all get a hammock. The speaker, instead of bringing the house to order, could instead, oblige the prime minister and his opponent, by giving them a gentle kick from his hammock, to keep things swinging along happily. Swaying politics…it happens each election anyway, so why not during question time too?
Ave Maria has taken a bit a bit of a beating, and is not a well yacht , at the best of time, but add some crashing backpacker bodies, in the full blown, big blue rollers, and some of the furniture got a tad demolished, the GPS plotter gave up, the single side band radio gave in, and we are sailing into Columbian waters with no charts. Apart from that, all is fine…no wait, a hose burst and was trying to sink us a few days ago, and after quickly closing the engine room cover, with an all OK, fake smile, I promptly took the guests ashore for swim, whilst the rather dramatic affair was quietly settled down, out of sight. No big deal, just sinking.
Having spent so much time on my sea tough old Fullmoon, there sure are times when I’m glad to be a passenger, and not owner of this boat. I can swim. I could list the disasters waiting to happen on Ave Maria, but it would only add to the owner’s tensions , worsening things. Besides, basically Ave Maria is a lovely old girl, even if she soon needs an intensive care nursing home. Boats are worse than farms, when it comes to the daily fix it list.
At this point in time, we are left wondering how to anchor at the border post, when I figure it must be like anchoring in heavy surf, given the wind and swell direction. Maybe we can mount a dinghy of panga expedition to the border post, with passports inside a watertight floater? The Lonely Planet has all sort of, hard-core-only type warning about this tense border area. So we are either hard core, or stupid. Maybe both. Whatever.
And off we sailed to Columbia.
