The nooks and crannies of Panama’s San Blas archipelago, made accessible aboard a family’s catamaran, are paradise found

There are 360 or so islands in the San Blas archipelago of Panama, roughly one for each date on the calendar, which explains why George, Melinda and Joshua Salley have made this spectacular Caribbean setting a yearlong destination.

“This is the closest thing to paradise that we’ve come across,” Melinda said. “The islands are unmatched—beautiful, unspoiled, not littered with high rises and resorts. The water is clear, the reefs are beautiful and the people are friendly.”

Yearning to feel­—at least for a few days—like a rock-star sailor, one woman heads to J World and gets a feel for adrenaline-fueled learning

Another gust upward of 20 knots pushes the starboard rail of our J/80 into the waters of the Chesapeake again. With a chill rain stinging down and waves splashing, I thank my lucky stars that I decided to invest in waterproof socks and neoprene gloves the day before. A few hundred yards away, a Melges 24 screams upwind with its crew hiking out, even though nobody is racing. Off in the distance, we see our classmates in another J/80 risk a spinnaker set. After a few seconds of pandemonium, the kite puffs out nicely in the strong breeze and the boat begins to plane.   

Old friends journey by catboat into the heart of the Everglades

A lot can happen when a band of geriatric sailors try to defy the elements and logic by sailing their 15-foot Marshall catboats from one Florida coast to the other in water so shallow they could have walked most of the way. Our first clue came a year earlier on a sail in the shallow body of water known as Florida Bay.

We were just outside the channel leading to the aptly named Dump Key, about 20 miles due west of Key Largo, Florida. Our trusty catboat Catsup was hard aground, with the wind pushing us farther onto the mud flats. Our cantankerous outboard motor had long since given up the ghost. As the youngest member of our crew at the tender age of 61, I was delegated to go over the side and lend muscle to the extraction process.