A stunning morning at the beautiful anchorage of Eastern Lemon Cays. Even though there are a lot of other boats here, it is still a gorgeous anchorage. We are surrounded by little islands that are covered in palm trees. The water easily laps against the boat and the shore lulls you into a transe. Its so peaceful and serene and such a simple way of life here. We enjoyed a blissful morning and decided to do a boat chore before exploring.

There was an icky smell permeating from the freezer so Matt decided to defrost it. We stocked the freezer in Aruba. However, we didn’t cook for a month as we were so close to a million amazing and cheap places to eat in Santa Marta. We did not think much of the food that was in vacu-seal bags in the freezer until a week ago. We noticed a funky smell and slowly started finding effected food. A rack of ribs, the tuna we caught a month ago, and some pepperoni. The fish was sad, but we can catch another one, the pepperoni was a bummer but we can make pizza with other toppings. The rack of ribs was heart breaking. Matt makes delicious marinated ribs and finding more ribs in Panama is unlikely.

We had made plans with our friends on “Sweet Chariot” to swim on a wreck at Dog Island, which is a mile away from Banedup. This wreck is a sunken cargo ship that was beached in the late 1950s and now lays in 3-6 meters of water. The ship evidently had a leak while passing the San Blas Islands that was too big to fix or pump against. The captain beached the ship while under full power to salvage the cargo. Some of the cargo, which included rum, reached Colon.  But the remaining part of the cargo disappeared.

It was a perfect place to snorkel with lots of fish, an enormous Barracuda and Queen Angel Fish, too many jelly fish for my liking, and beautiful soft coral. The sea life sure has taken a liking to this site.

Ship wreck near dog island. Photo courtesy of Go2SanBlas.

After our snorkel, we spied another huge wreck above the water and decided to go investigate. It is another mile further out toward the Chichime Cays. Even in the dinghy we have to be vigilant about avoiding the reefs and shallow spots. So, we carefully navigated back toward Banedup and made a sharp left toward Sand Bank and Yansaladup.  The Lemon Cays have to be carefully navigated in a big boat or a dinghy.

As we were coming across the sandy spit, we noticed a monohull listing to one side. Oh dear, she ran aground. We diverted to go assist. 3 other dinghies and a panga were already trying to help, but those dinghies only had 9 hp engines and the panga only had oars. Since we have a 25hp engine, we knew could help.

We tried a number of different ways to get this 40-45’ wooden boat named “Wooden Shoe” off the sandy bottom, but nothing was working. More dinghies and two more pangas came to help. We had a few dinghies at the starboard bow and a few at the port stern trying to rock her back and forth – nothing. The two pangas anchored using a small line tied to a 10’ stick that was stuck in the ground (ingenious) and all 4 Kuna Indians jumped in the water. Two had snorkels and could see where she was wedged in the sand. In concert with the dinghies, the Kuna were pulling down on the bow sprit and rocking her up and down. Slowly she started moving, inch by inch until she was off the sand bar.

It was such a relief to see this boat afloat again, but even more spectacular was the jubilant faces of the 4 Kuna who had successfully manhandled this wooden boat. Job well done! The owner, a woman who has been single handing the boat since 1999!  But even for the most experienced, the Lemon Cays can be dangerous.

After that, we resumed our trip toward Chichime Cays where we saw the other wreck. We had not been to this anchorage yet so we were surprised to see a host of other boats all congregated between Uchutupu Pipigua and Uchutupu Dummat. Just past this anchorage was a large ferry that had run aground and was visible to well below her water line. In addition, there was another sail boat aground with no mast or sails visible from where we were. A big reminder to stay alert in both the big ship and the dink!

Back to the boat for a light snack and a swim to enjoy the Lemon Cays.

Lemon Cay Islands we visited or went past on this trip:

• Chichime Cays
• Sand Ban
• Yansaladup
• Uchutupu Pipigua
• Uchutupu Dummat