Days in Pardise
15 March 2010 | San Blas islands
Brad
Day One (12/03/2010) Arrived in the San Blas. Paradise on the horizon appeared through an early afternoon sea haze with palm trees and a line of breaking waves where the outer reef was forcing the sea swell up . We made contact with Sunboy who where anchored in the East Holandes, the same place we had decided to stop. We weaved into the lagoon from the south, passing several deserted sand islands supporting palm trees and fabulous light blue waters and beaches. Anchored in swimming pool hole after sneaking over the shallows (2.4m deep, we draw 2.3m) and weighed anchor for the night. A couple of beers to toast our arrival.
Day Two (13/03/2010) Beautiful morning. Put the dinghy in the water and headed over to BBQ Island (said named as every Monday night any cruisers in the area come for a pot luck BBQ) with water toys and beverages. Here we met a fellow cruiser, Tom, and Reggie, a regular in the San Blas, in fact he's been here 12 years and is now the unofficial curator of BBQ island. Every day he collects fallen palm fronds etc and basically keeps the island looking like a golf course, clean grass under palm trees. We break in the donut towing each other around behind Speccy (the new dinghy with bigger engine). Soon Sunboy arrive, so Lani, Nicci and Luke have a go in the donut. A couple of hours are then spent sitting in warm waist deep water shooting the breeze before heading to the boat for lunch. After lunch we go for a snorkel on the outer reef and see loads of cool stuff, including: a Moray ell, several manta rays, two lobsters, loads of fish and a Nurse shark snoozing on the bottom. Next we break out the water skis. Unfortunately Speccy isn't quite powerful enough to get me out of the water, but Jay just manages it. After a break on the boat we take sundowners and nibbles back to BBQ island for a round of cards.
Day Three (14/03/2010) A little wind up this morning so we decided to get the kite surfing kit out. Head to one small beach, but although idyllic we thought there might be one better suited to kite surfing 500m over there, so we move. Kite up and Jay is learning his new kite. Wind died a little so never got the board running so decide to put it to good use wakeboarding behind Speccy. Awesome Jay Straight up. Brad Up, Kat Up, even Chris who has only done it once before gets up. Hoorah, we have another toy! (Skis for sale, one owner, hardly used, available for viewing - 09 35'.3N 078 40'.4W!!) So wake boarding and donut towing till about 2pm before a nap on the boat, a little hull cleaning then a well earned beer and sundowner over more cards.
Day Four (15/03/2010) Get up, pancakes for brekkie. Write blog. Hear discussion about another snorkel on the outer reef. Stop writing blog.
For photos see: http://www.sailblogs.com/admin/xj_message_edit.php?action=edit&xjID=3090&xjMsgID=121175
Brad