San Blas take 1

A beautiful San Blas island

Upon awaking and seeing the beautiful blue skys, calm water, and hardly any other living souls around I knew it would be a great day.
There is so much to write about, I don’t know where to begin. We are in the San Blas Islands, east of Panama, north of Columbia, World. It is beautiful here, much different than what you see on the charts. On the charts there are lots of colors which look like land but which are really under the water, close enough to hurt the bottom of your boat, but not easily seen as you are sailing along. So coming into this watery area of beauty can be daunting, we had our waypoints and made it in just fine, greeted by our friends on Kokomo.

Careful lookout for reefs is necessary

The water inside the reef is calm, there is some little wave action enough to keep the boat moving a bit but no rolling. The first night Kokomo made dinner for us, we had been traveling the last 2 days and were tired, they knew that, after our wonderful dinner I said it was time to go, thinking it must be after 10 and when we got back to the boat it wasn’t yet 8pm. I forced myself to stay up till 9 just cause.
The next day it was a little cloudy, we did some projects on the boat in the morning and did a little snorkeling in the afternoon at the wreck. Even with the low cloud cover the boat wreak at the bottom is covered with colors that are just unbelievable, it looks like a fabulous artist conjured up all the textures and colors and dropped them there.

Mangrove islands

Our trip after snorkeling was to Banedup, where we met the ‘owner’ of the island, there is a ‘bar’ and some little ‘hotels’ there, see pics. This little island is the cutest thing, do not imagine a big 2 or 3 star hotel, noooo, there is an outhouse though, the bar plays music from 6-9pm and he said all the people come and dance and drink and have a great time, and they make fresh bread sticks there. We also were able to make arrangements for me to get to Panama City next week here. In all of San Blas this is the only ‘happening’ place, I couldn’t be more thrilled.

One of the one palm islands

Today we awoke to bright sunlight and blue skys. An early morning snorkel was in order so off we went with Kokomo to a great reef (there are so many). Becky took some pics with her underwater camera(I need one of those), and then we went to another island to look at some molas. Becky bought one for her aunt, I looked at all the wares the lady had for sale, her baby of 8 months, and after talking and laughing in our Spanish, promised to buy some when I figured out what I was going to need for my quilt.
Lisa greeted us as we returned to the boat, Lisa is actually a man dressed and looking like a woman who makes molas too, she says she is the master mola maker. I let her know that I didn’t need any today but that I would buy some when I returned from the states. She said the others from the other islands will try to sell me some molas but tell them that I am waiting for Lisa. I said OK.

Surrounded by reef

Well it is quite magical here, I have been getting up and doing yoga every day, then doing some projects on Rocinante and then getting some flute playing in before our swim or snorkel. I think tomorrow I will swim to the 2 rocks that are close to our stern, not in harms way of course, and then to the shallow spot where there are lots of sand dollars. Which is covered by about 3-4 feet of water. It is so surreal to look out on to the Caribbean sea, nothing between us and the sea, and be in such protected waters, amazing. The project I worked on today was to re-seal my dive mask, I also found one of the skirts that goes around the back of the cockpit, to give a little privacy, and put that on. While I was doing that I met Chester. Chester and I are now good friends, you can’t have too many friends. Chester is 4 legged, has a cute grey tail and the tinest little padded feet you could imagine. Chester is a Gecko. I told Larry, ‘did you see the little lizzard’? His answer was guarded, ‘yes I saw him in the head but I didn’t see any harm in him, I wonder if it is the same one?’ I asked him if the one he saw was named Chester? Well he didn’t know of course, we laughed. We have a gecko on Rocinante and I couldn’t be happier. Geckos eat cockroaches and although Chester has a way to go to take care of some of the roaches I have seen lately, I am more than happy to find out the proper care and feeding of a gecko.
San Blas
Vicki