Along with sailing vessels Optimus, Queen Mary and Island Dreams we continued our westward trip through the islands and sailed to a small uninhabited island with a harbor which American sailors call Snug Harbor. It is indeed snuggled between reefs. To sail the San Blas islands most cruisers use Eric Bauhaus' Panama Cruising Guide as there are no maritime charts of this area which is filled with atolls and coral reefs. This guide gives precise routes and way points on maritime charts which we followed VERY closely as the routes go inside hundreds of reefs where the life of a boat can come to an end. Many boats have been lost in this area or gotten a hole in their haul as they miss the route by a bit or dare go into an uncharted area that appears to be safe. Even Bauhaus' guide is not precise as we were to learn later in our trip --- to hear our story stay tuned to this blog.

This harbor, as many of the other uninhabited island, was just incredibly beautiful. Being here in the company of a few boats seemed like a dream. The islands, often as small as to have just 1-2 trees, are speckled with tall and healthy looking palms trees which give the Kunas coconuts, a main source of income for them. Coconuts are traded for goods, mostly main food staples, that boats from Colombian bring to the islands. It is said that Kuna Yala has continued to exist because of the Colombian trading boats as Panama has not supplied this service. The blue sky-shooting palms which grow right down to the pristine white-sanded beaches of the islands and the perfectly blue/teal ocean with water so clear that we could often see 10-20 or more feet under our boat seemed just like paradise.

We celebrated New Year's Eve with our friends from the other sailing vessels in our boat. There were a total of 10 people and we managed to have a delicious meal seated on the table in Kikuyu's main cabin. Though the trip from Ustupu was only about 6 hours long in a sunny and clear day, we were all pretty exhausted from having to pay so much attention to the reefs and were unable to stay until midnight to watch the fireworks in the distance from the nearest inhabited island San Ignacio de Tupile.