Footnotes from Water Music

Grace & Stephen left Cartegena after a wonderful stay in the beautiful old town and even had a visit from friends from Overton, Catherine and Olivia Nunn - Olivia who is teaching English at a university in Columbia! . We managed to slip the boat and she now has smart new black anti fouling and so Stephen was raring to go. Our destination would be the San Blas Islands, part of Panama but an independent series of some 350 islands between Columbia and the Canal. Fortunately, Santiago (aka James Cock, an old university friend of Jay & Gillian and, literally, our saviour in Cartagena) introduced us to Gilbert Thierry in Cartagena - who has sailed these waters over many years and he pointed us in the right direction. The less good news was that his recommendation for a first port of call was some 200Nm from Cartegena and not the 130 Nm we were expecting. That meant an early start and all thoughts of leaving at 1100 or 1200 were quickly banished as we would end up arriving in the dark. The slight problem was that we didnt have our passports and the promised return - scheduled for Saturday afternoon didnt happen. Nothwithstanding this minor technical issue we had a lovely farewell dinner with Gillian, Jay and James in which James had his phone with him all night awaiting contact from the agent with our passports. Fortunately they were delivered back to the boat at 0715 on Sunday morning. We left Cartegena at 0730.

The winds were initially light, but steadily built through the afternoon and stayed with us overnight - so we were sailing in 20-25knots of wind and a sea of 2-3m. Occasionally we had one come on board and so we were constantly being soaked. We also collected more flying fish in the scuppers than i have seen before. We must have scooped 15- 20 from on deck and a good handful that found their way down below in the galley, in the heads and several on the floor some as large as a big sardine and others tiny babies. Some were definitely still alive when they went back - others had been trodden on in the dark and their fate was not as fortunate. It was a very uncomfortable sea and Grace felt quite queasy for the first time on this trip, probably due to tiredness and also anxiety of doing quite a meaty night passage with just two. Very much wishing ANW was on the boat with us as it was just the kind of crossing he would have loved!

We have arrived in San Blas and entered an anchorage through a channel about 10 yards wide (I think we need to get used to this) between reefs and are now happily anchored with the BBQ lit and a chicken waiting for us to eat.