Arrived
08 June 2015 | Yansaladup, San Blas
Mark
Yesterday was another mostly sunny, mostly windless day. This trip sure would have been great for my brother Dave's planned solar electric cat. We've motored more than we've sailed. Sure would be nice not to hear that diesel. By noon there was enough wind to make raising the sails helpful, but not enough to shut off the engine - if we want to make more than 3 kts. Since we had 30+ kts to go, we motor-sailed. About an hour out from Chichime, we cut the engines and just sailed, still maintaining 5 kts. Nearly as soon as we were sailing well, Bryan got a strike on his lure. We have been dragging them the whole trip, but have yet to catch something! It was good sized and spooling his rod quickly. He tried to set the hook and reel him in, but he got away. Maybe if we had still been motoring and I could have slowed down quickly,... It is hard to slow down a sailing boat quickly other than by just blowing the sails. We were crossing a ledge and no sooner was the lure back in the water than he got another strike. This one was smaller and he successfully landed a nice Coiba - probably in the mackerel family. It was a couple feet long and probably 3-4 #. Will make a nice addition to our dinner. On to Chichime. Except Chichime was FULL! It is a popular spot for arrival / departure because of its location, but I don't know why it was so full now. We decided to continue to Yansaladup, another two miles. I fired up both engines to turn and drop sails and motor along the reef to our new destination. The engines started immediately and then the starboard engine promptly died. This is the engine we were running on all day. I tried again. Same result. Check below and sure enough, the fuel filter is clogged. Oh well, change it tomorrow, we'll go in with one engine. And we did, with no difficulties. Except the landscape had changed. To stay in deep water, you normally have to skirt three tiny islands leaving them just to your S. Except they weren't there. There was the stub of a palm tree sticking up where one island was supposed to be and the other two were now just sandy shoals where day boats had anchored and people were playing in knee deep water. The chartplotter was accurate and we made it in to anchor in 15-20' over beautiful sand. The really strange thing is that there are a half dozen other boats here just anchored willy-nilly among the shoals. It is well protected in here so there is no reason not to do it, but the only other times we have been here, there were no other boats. We spotted Eilene Farrell, a boat we knew from a couple years back and hailed them on VHF. Turns out they have been in San Blas for two years now - ever since they left Bocas. We chatted, they offered to help us set up internet over a cell phone, and we planned to get together later on. Then we went for a swim. Lorenzo said that there was good snorkeling right in from of our boat. Maybe I misuderstood his directions, but we never found any good coral. Lots of sand and sea grass. We did find one conch big enough to eat and Deb collected an arm-load of sand dollars and sea biscuits. Actually two arm loads! I showed Bryan how to get a conch from its shell and Deb showed him how to clean it. Next one he is on his own. Bryan steaked up the fish and we grilled it and had it along with conch salad, guacamole, Con Queso (cheese dip), carrots, celery, and grapes. Nice dinner! Today we'll need to clear in, get a SIM card and phone data plan set up and start exploring.