Panama

1 March 2021

On our website, you have already the opportunity to read many beautiful memories already. Captain Jan writes about one of his special memories today:

The OOSTERSCHELDE has brought me to a lot of places on the globe and left me with amazing memories. One of them is from the end of March 2016. Close your eyes and imagine:

We are sailing along the Panamanian coast, from Colon (Panama) to Veracruz (Mexico). We don’t see any land yet but we are sailing towards a group of islands consisting of approximately three hundred islands off the Panamanian coast called Archipelago de San Blas. It is warm, we have been dressed in shorts, shirts and flip-flops for weeks.

At the end of my watch, the helmsman’s watch (02:00-08:00) we arrive at a small island (you walk around it in half an hour) called Nalunega Island. We drop anchor and the dinghy is thrown overboard. Just as I am hitching up the petrol tank, I see some movement on the water in the corners of my eyes. Two hollow tree kayaks come paddling in our direction, in both of them an Indian woman and a lot of market goods.

I feel like Columbus.

Half an hour later we have some kind of market on deck. The rest of the island also woke up and noticed that there is something to sell aboard the OOSTERSCHELDE…