Karin

27
Dec
2024
A rearranged triangle relationship

A rearranged triangle relationship

Back on Mabul! Time for a brief review.

2024 is the year when everything changes again. It is also the year of a boat timeout. When we arrive in San Blas in Panama in January, we think we’ll be sailing through the canal and across the Pacific with our friends from SV My Motu shortly afterwards – but we don’t. Alex has nightmares for nights on end and constantly dreams of our rig failing. We listened to his gut feeling and stayed on the Caribbean side – as it turned out later: with good reason. Here is our review of 2024.

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12
Jul
2024
Guna Yala

Guna Yala

San Blas – The Mystical Paradise of the Guna

From Providencia, we’re cruising 270 nautical miles to San Blas, Panama. The archipelago consists of over 350 islands and islets and is governed by the indigenous Guna people, who call it Guna Yala. We clear into Panama on the main island, El Porvenir, and pay our contribution to the autonomous Guna authority. Porvenir is tiny, with little more than an airstrip and a few houses. While clearing in, one officer is mowing the grass while the other stamps our passports. Here, everyone does a bit of everything.

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21
Jun
2024
Charming cocaine island

Charming cocaine island

On the nautical chart, you’ll only see Providencia if you zoom in very closely; that’s how tiny and charming the cocaine island is. Although Providencia belongs to Colombia, it’s much closer to Nicaragua. Here, traditions are upheld, and mass tourism is nonexistent. In 2020, a hurricane nearly devastated the island’s infrastructure, yet the islanders didn’t complain; instead, they considered the hurricane a blessing.

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06
Jun
2024
Traffic jam at the Panama Canal

Traffic jam at the Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is one of the most important bottlenecks for international shipping. Approximately five percent of world trade is now handled through the canal, and two thirds of all ships that pass through the canal come from or go to the USA. Thanks to the Panama Canal, international shipping routes have been shortened by weeks or even months. Merchant ships, cruise ships, sailing ships and warships no longer have to sail around Cape Horn, which is feared as a ship graveyard with its wild storms and untameable waves, but can cross the continent in a day. The canal is fed with fresh water from two reservoirs: Lake Gatún and Lake Alajuela. These also supply the two million Panamanians who live in the center of the country. The population and the ships compete for the water. For a long time, this was no cause for concern, as tropical Panama is one of the rainiest countries in the world and the reservoirs were always well filled. However, everything changed last year with the El Niño climate phenomenon.

Published in the magazine “Reportagen”, issue #77.

https://reportagen.com/reportage/stau-am-panamakanal

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