I think we are further south than I have ever been in my life. We are continuing another 30 miles south before we start heading back north.

The trip to Ustupu was another easy one... very little wind, just a large easy swell. Because it was only 5 miles, and part of that was protected by an outer reef, we opted not to put up the main and super-secure the dinghy, which of course we regretted later.

The town on Ustupu is on a small flat island and is just offshore. The anchorage is between the mainland and the island, in very protected water.

We anchored in 20' in very soft mud. We did our normal backing on the anchor, an 88-lb Delta, and it just kind of oozed along. We opted to leave it as is, and hope we didn't get any big winds during the night. The other option would be to retrieve the muddy anchor and switch out for a Danforth, which works better in the mud. A hot and muddy job. Since we haven't seen more than about 10 knots of wind in 2 months along the coast of Panama, it seemed a safe bet to just leave it as is.

There were 2 Colombian trading boats tied to the dock, so Dave went over and asked about buying diesel. They were more than happy to sell him 40 gallons for $3.75/gallon. (The going price when we left Bocas del Toro 2 months ago was $3.85). With an extra 40 gallons, we now have enough to motor everywhere we go (which it looks like we will have to do), and not sweat running dry before we make it to Cartagena.

We had a nice cool night, contrasted with the very hot night we'd spent the night before in Achutupu. We are not sure if the coolness was due to the small mountains just inland, or the big thunderstorms that threatened out at sea. But it was pleasant nonetheless.

At 5am thunder and lightning awakened us. Uh-oh, anchor not set well... thunderstorm... not good. But I quit worrying when the dim dawn light showed that the Utupuians were all setting out in their ulu's (dugout canoes) for the days work. If they had been expecting a 40-50kt thunderstorm, I'm sure they wouldn't be heading offshore fishing in a low leaky dugout. It did rain hard for a few minutes, but thankfully we got no wind.

In the morning, we went ashore to the town to try to buy some groceries. Ustupu is supposed to be the largest Kuna town, with about 8,000 people and an airstrip, so we were hopeful that we could find a largish store with some fresh goods. But it was weird. When we'd ask someone for a tienda to buy food, they didn't seem to understand us. It may be that here in this large town of Kunas, not many speak Spanish. We did get eventually directed to about 4 different very small stores, and 3 restaurants.
We were looking for bread (of any kind), fresh veggies (of any kind), potato chips, and eggs. We eventually were able to locate potato chips in small bags, at a restaurant. That was it.

If we had wanted to, we could have bought rice, canned sardines, powdered milk, and saltine crackers. But we have all of those. We probably could have bought fish and lobster. But we didn't need any of the former and won't buy any of the latter.

In addition, because we went ashore, we had to pay an $8 'anchoring fee'. We also opted to pay an optional $3 'water fee', so we could jug some water.

Yes, I know. We JUST commissioned the water maker. The last time we ran it, about 5 gallons into the run, the high pressure brine water suddenly dropped pressure. Worried about damaging something, Dave shut it down without trying to fully diagnose the problem... we had only planned a short run because we had to get moving while the light was good. The backflush (rinsing the RO membranes with fresh water to deter bacteria growth) took the 5 gallons we made, so our net was zero. The next 2 days
we anchored in places too close to town or a muddy river (so the sea water wasn't clean enough to run it). So our choice was to jug water while we had the opportunity, or HOPE the watermaker problem is a minor one that Dave can fix. Dave spent 3 hours doing 4 runs with out 20-gallons worth of jugs...

There is a largish-looking river on the mainland just in from the town. There was a lot of traffic in ulus back and forth from town to the river. We never got a chance to go explore the river.

Labels: PanamaCarib