{"id":83,"date":"2007-02-23T00:44:24","date_gmt":"2007-02-23T00:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/2007\/02\/23\/porvenir-to-yansaladup\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T17:03:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T17:03:14","slug":"porvenir-to-yansaladup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=83","title":{"rendered":"Porvenir to Yansaladup"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">\n.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }\n.flickr-yourcomment { }\n.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }\n.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }\n<\/style>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\">\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/48817769@N00\/399258290\/\" title=\"photo sharing\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/172\/399258290_e26aff17e1_m.jpg\" class=\"flickr-photo\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>\n\t<span class=\"flickr-caption\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/48817769@N00\/399258290\/\">Porvenir to Yansaladup<\/a>.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"flickr-yourcomment\">\n\tWe are now anchored just outside of the tiny island of<br \/>\nYansaladup in the San Blas Archipelego.  Where exactly is that,<br \/>\nyou might ask?  Well, to tell the truth I am there, and even I<br \/>\nam not really sure of where it is.  We are really truly in the<br \/>\nmiddle of nowhere &#8211; but it is an amazingly beautiful and<br \/>\ntranquil nowhere.  We are the only boat here &#8211; in front of us is<br \/>\na small palm covered island with one family living in their hut.<br \/>\nThe family tends coconuts and sells molas whenever they can to<br \/>\npassing tourists. There is another even tinier island just to<br \/>\nour right with just two huts &#8211; no palm trees at all ( see<br \/>\nphoto).  There is a large reef extending for miles  &#8211; just in<br \/>\nfront of us which blocks us completely from the rough seas<br \/>\noutside.  It is pretty much a constant 87 degrees with a steady<br \/>\nbreeze blowing. It is very calm and comfortable in the<br \/>\nanchorage, the boat barely moving at all in the gentle seas<br \/>\nbehind the reef.  We spent most of the day yesterday at the<br \/>\nChichime Cays &#8211; mentioned in our previous blog with the little<br \/>\nislands of Uchutupu Pippi and Uchutupu Dumat. Claus and I had an<br \/>\namazing morning swim off the boat and then later in the day the<br \/>\nthree of us took the dinghy over to the reef and spent an hour<br \/>\nor so snorkeling in a beautiful coral garden. Lots of fish,<br \/>\nbeautiful coral of all kinds, and very warm water.  We really<br \/>\nenjoyed it.  By 3:00 P.M. we had to head back to Porvenir so we<br \/>\nwould be ready to take Claus to the airport in the morning.<br \/>\nWhen we got to Porvenir we decided to go see if the customs and<br \/>\nimmigration office was open.  We had been told a few days<br \/>\nearlier that it was closed until February 26th, but we didn&#8217;t<br \/>\nthink that sounded right and we noticed that most of the boats<br \/>\naround us had their Panamanian flags up so we thought it was<br \/>\nbest to check. You don&#8217;t want to ignore any rules when you come<br \/>\nto a new country.  It turned out that the office was open, but<br \/>\nas it was nearly 5:00 P.M. by the time we got there, no one was<br \/>\nactually in the office.  Someone sitting outside saw us and ran<br \/>\nto find the official for us.  It was an incredibly shabby office<br \/>\n&#8211; even by Caribbean standards.  The islands are so beautiful<br \/>\nhere that it is easy to forget how poor it is.  One room was<br \/>\nabsolutely filled with heaps of papers &#8211; copies of previous<br \/>\nboater&#8217;s documentation &#8211; all mildewed and yellowed &#8211; just<br \/>\nsitting in big piles. It would be impossible to find anything in<br \/>\nthose piles of paper, but they need to collect the information<br \/>\nanyway.  The entrance way had two chairs, each completely<br \/>\nbroken, with all of the insides sticking out.  The somewhat<br \/>\nunfriendly looking official offered to help us &#8211; including<br \/>\ngetting the necessary cruising permit &#8211; the  Zarpe  He asked our<br \/>\nboat size, did some calculations on his little calculator and<br \/>\ntold us it would cost $80 &#8211; which sounded just fine to us as<br \/>\nthat was what we expected.  Then he said there was a $20 charge<br \/>\nfor his overtime.  Not wanting to be cheap, but also not wanting<br \/>\nto get ripped off, Mark asked if there would be an overtime<br \/>\ncharge if we just came in and did the paperwork in the morning<br \/>\nduring regular office hours.  He got very quiet and then said<br \/>\nthat it would actually take two weeks to get the Zarpe, so we<br \/>\nwould need to come back again then. The deal was, if we paid him<br \/>\n$100, the Zarpe could miraculously be obtained right then and<br \/>\nthere ( no receipts available).  If we paid him only $80, the<br \/>\nZarpe could not be obtained for another two weeks because it was<br \/>\nso complicated.  Very interesting, don&#8217;t you think?  Anyways, it<br \/>\ndidn&#8217;t take us more than a minute to agree readily that $100 and<br \/>\nno receipt would be absolutely fine with us.  We were soon<br \/>\nofficially checked in, and even got a free Kuna calendar.  After<br \/>\nchecking in we celebrated our trip with Claus by eating again at<br \/>\nthe little restaurant that sits next to the airstrip here.  We<br \/>\nwere the only guests, and this time the menu had chicken and<br \/>\nchips &#8211; no fish had been caught that day, so there was no fish<br \/>\non the menu.  It was great.  It was relatively expensive<br \/>\ncompared to our meal at Raouls shack the night before ($4 a<br \/>\nperson), but still incredibly cheap at $7 a person including not<br \/>\nonly the chicken and chips, but a beer and a soda each.<br \/>\nThis mornng we had to bring Claus to the airport for a 6:40 a.m.<br \/>\nflight.<br \/>\nSince we were anchored just 100  feet from the dock; and the<br \/>\nrickety airport gate is another 50 to 100  feet away, we didn&#8217;t<br \/>\nhave to get up too early to get him there on time. In fact we<br \/>\ngot up at ten to six and were at the airport gate at 6:00. It<br \/>\nwas another 15 minutes before the other passengers arrived &#8211;<br \/>\nmany of them coming to the dock on the little dug-out canoes<br \/>\nthat the locals use for just about everything, including their<br \/>\ntaxi service.  A few showed up at 6:30. At 6:35 the plane<br \/>\narrived &#8211; landing just in front of us, turning sharply at the<br \/>\nend of the run-way, then taxiing back to the waiting<br \/>\npassengers.The plane stopped about 25 feet from where we were<br \/>\nstanding.  By 6:45 everyone arriving on the flight had<br \/>\nde-planed, all the luggage and packages were unloaded , the new<br \/>\npassengers were on ( each one called by name by the captain),<br \/>\nthe luggage stowed, and the plane took off.  Really the most<br \/>\namazing airport we have seen.  Claus waved goodbye to us from<br \/>\nhis seat near the front of the plane and Mark and I went back to<br \/>\nthe boat to sleep again before starting our day here. We are<br \/>\ntired, but thrilled to be here!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Porvenir to Yansaladup. We are now anchored just outside of the tiny island of Yansaladup in the San Blas Archipelego. Where exactly is that, you might ask? Well, to tell the truth I am there, and even I am not really sure of where it is. We are really truly in the middle of nowhere &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=83\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Porvenir to Yansaladup&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other","category-panama"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}