Loki / Blog
2010-12-28 Porvenir, San Blas, Panama
We arrvived yesterday to San Blas archipelago
after four days sailing. The first three days were nice downwind
sailing in 10-20 knots N/NE winds, for the last day the wind
increased to 25-35 knots N with many rainshowers. The strong
N wind and rain has continued untill today.
The San Blas islands and part of the mainland
territory are called Kuna Yala and is the home for the Kuna
indians living autonomously here. The Kuna indians still
preserve their culture and traditions in Kuna Yala area.
We plan to cruise here for 2-3 weeks before
heading to Colon and Panama canal.
2010-12-22 Port Antonio, Jamaica
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to our
readers !!
We plan to spend the Christmas at sea enroute
to San Blas islands in Panama.
Here we have provisioned the boat from the
local supermarket as well as from the open market. We have also
visited some nearby places like Blue Lagoon (place of Brooke
Shields movie), Boston ( small village for Jamaica's best jerk-food,i.e
chicken, pork, sausages), mountains where the local farmers live
and come down the Rio Grande river with a bamboo raft.
2010-12-19 Port Antonio, Jamaica
Strong northerly winds were blowing while we
were in Ile A Vache. After winds calmed down to 15-20 knots
level and turned to NE we sailed to Port Antonio in Jamaica, the
sea was still quite turbulent after the N-winds, we also had
heavy rains when arriving here. The Errol Flynn Marina in Port
Antonio is very protected with good services.
The nearby city, Port Antonio, has quite good
supermarkets and a really nice open market with a variety of
goods and products available.
The safety here is good, the problems in
Jamaica are very much concentrated into the capital, Kingstown.
2010-12-16 Ile A Vache, Haiti
After one day sailing and one day motoring we
were in Port Morgan at Ile A Vache. This is the only place
recommended for a visit by the cruising guides in Haiti. We
indeed felt very safe there and all people were very welcoming
and polite.
Port Morgan is a well protected anchorage
lagoon, on eastern side hill is the Port Morgan Resort with some
services and on western side is the local village. The island
has no infrastructure like roads, electricity and running water.
There are very few powerboats, children are paddling with dugout
canoes made of one piece of wood and men are fishing with
sailing boats.
The island is a fascinating place to visit but
also a tough place to live for locals, especially after the
earthquake close to one year ago and the present cholera which
had also just arrived to Ile A Vache.
The picture file "Hispaniola" includes
pictures from Casa de Campo, Boca Chica, Santo Domingo and Ile A
Vache in respective order to highlight the major differences
between upscale resort in east and local traditional living in
west.
2010-12-11 Boca Chica, Dominican Republic
Casa De Campo was really a place of it own.
Large area with bigger and smaller villas,a hotel, many golf
cources, tennis fields, horse ranche and horse polo field,
shooting range for hunting birds, mall with shops and
cinema, restaurants, beach and marina. There is no no need to go
beyond the area for looking services, however, there is also no
local culture.
Motoring of 40 miles westward in calm weather
brought us into Marina ZarPar in Boca Chica. Again the marina
people were most welcoming. The marina is well protected by a
reef with one boyed pass into. Boca Chica is a tourist area
where also people from the capital, Santo Domingo, come for the
weekends. Here you hear the music which is played loud. The
shallow protected lagoon is quite nice water sports area with
long beach.
We made a bus tour to Santo Domingo, a
city of 3 million people, to see some of the sights. The city is
established by Christopher Columbus and there is quite lot of
history related to him. The traffic in the city is total chaos,
not a place to rent a car for going around.
2010-12-04 Casa De Campo, Dominican
Republic
We had quite nice two day downwind sailing
from Tortola to Casa De Campo with winds from NE 15-25 knots,
behind the islands of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola winds
however calmed down and we motored some hours.
Casa De Campo turned out to be a very large
and upscale apartment and golf resort, the marina is very
protected with good services. People are moving around the area
with golf carts.
We contacted the marina with VHF and after
some hazzle with language were quided into marina by a tender
boat. Many polite people helped to tie down the mooring lines.
We were advised to wait in the boat the authorities to come
which they did after appr half an hour. They were 7
altogether, many papers were filled and various fees and few
tips paid.
Now we start to look into Dominican Republic.
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