San Blas Islands

We are at the San Blas Islands and I must admit it is a bit hard to handle. Back to the life of long sleeps, fishing, snorkelling and beach combing.

The trip down from Colombia was ROUGH. It is apparently one of the roughest coasts in the world. We left Santa Marta at about 1000 Monday morning 10th December 2012 into a 20 to 25 knot NE'er looking forward to a good sail on a bright sunny day.

The wind gradually rose to about 35knots as we passed Barenquilla to port about 15nm offshore and then rose again to approx 45 to 50 for the rest of the night. Bare pole sailing for us all night at 7 knots with warps streaming. Day 2 saw the wind moderate back to 20knots dead astern with us on a course of 240T and an incredibly confused sea that made everyone including the cat slightly seedy. We were due in at 1900 the second day but discretion saw us slow down again to arrive at sunrise at Coco Banderas Cay. Anchor down by 0800 and it was so so good to be back in clear water, coral, fish and islands after the over-hyped, degraded and polluted Eastern Caribbean.

We are visited daily by dugout canoes that wish their phones to be charged or to sell crabs, crayfish, fish and the lovely Molas they make. I suspect I have a MOLA shirt for Christmas but will have to wait to confirm. Tizer the HOP is finding it hard to have actual sand in his kitty litter tray. Poor little lamb has finally had his claws cut back so the genoa is safe for a little while.

The weather has moderated and we have a lovely anchorage and this morning swam and snorkelled the outer reef but no large fish for the gun. Keely has managed to feed us with small Sweetlip so we hope she continues her fishing for tonight.

Gill is now 1st Mate and is under heavy training to become skipper. He now must do everything Dad does to learn the art and science of seamanship and is excelling at this task. The rate he is learning I will be bale to pass on the mantle of command within 6 months. Perhaps we have another explorer/expeditioner in the family.

Jo of course reckons this is great and she no longer needs to remember everything she does not really want to. The extra sleep and relaxation is good.

Plans? We will hang here for another day and head to some more islands before Christmas in Lemmon Cays and Gill's Birthday in Shelter Bay, Panama. The Canal is scheduled for late February so then a few more years in the Pacific and we are back where we started.

Photos when we get the Internet. So be patient.