Astra Blog: San Blas round two 06/04/08 - 16/04/08
|
Astra
Blog: San Blas round two 06/04/08 – 16/04/08 Sunday 06/04 With no encouraging news coming from Agent Stanley, we
decided to tear ourselves away from glorious Colón and have another shot at the
San Blas Islands. Along the way we
stopped for lunch at Portobello, a beautiful anchorage with a ruined fortress,
from where the Spanish took tons of gold to Monday 07/04 We weighed anchor bright and early in order to make the
50 or so miles back to the “Swimming Pool” in plenty of time for the traditional
Pot Luck party. In the end we only
just made it in time, there were several delays as our fishing lures managed to
successfully fool some large lumps of seaweed into taking the bait. After a number of these false alarms we
were finally rewarded with a real bite and Ash hauled a fish on board, after
much deliberation Jeremy and George identified it as a “Little Tunny” (small
member of the Tuna family); it was absolutely delicious. The Pot Luck party was great fun as
usual and Astra received a very warm welcome from the San
Blasters. Tuesday 08/04 We awoke to probably the hottest morning so far, the deck
was already scorching by the time we had had our cereal that one could barely
step on it. There was nothing for
it but to slip into marquee mode and up went the tent. No sooner had the crew completed this
task than the sky went black, the heavens opened and the temperature plummeted
down to about 35C! George
celebrated by jumping in the sea until it was pointed out that swimming with an
electrical storm overhead is not a good idea. Luckily the weather sorted itself just
in time for George and Ash to challenge the German San Blasters to a round of
Boules on Wednesday 09/04 Normality was restored and with it the sweltering
heat. Most of the crew spent a lazy
day snorkeling and playing Boules apart from Jeremy who singlehandedly read
about 30 books on the Pacific! Thursday 10/04 George seemed to lose the plot completely on Thursday
morning. He awoke early and swam
all the way to Just before lunch, John (a “Swimming Pool” resident) had
promised to share a little of his fishing wisdom with us. When he arrived on Astra and saw the
confusion we had managed to create with bits of fishing gear everywhere, he
realized that he was going to have to start more or less from scratch. This turned into a 3 hour master class
during which John very patiently showed us how to correctly load a reel, tie
some specialist knots, rig and tune a large number of exotic lures and a number
of techniques for catching and landing various fish. After lunch we decided to consolidate
our newly acquired skills with a practical session. So John, Jeremy, Ash, George and some
fishing gear were loaded into the tender and under Johns guidance headed off
through a cut in the reef and into the open sea. It was an exciting hour or so being
tossed around on the Atlantic swell and although we went snorkeling and saw some
huge groupers, they had obviously already had dinner as we were unable to tempt
them to bite. Undeterred we
returned to the anchorage determined to have another go the following
day. That evening, John and Christine had dinner aboard
Astra. Sally had produced a
mouth-watering curry and an enjoyable evening was had by all. John and Christine imparted more
invaluable information about fishing, provisioning and how to access some of the
most spectacular anchorages in the area. Friday 11/04 Things got very weird as both Sally and Jeremy joined in
on George’s fitness regime and braving the sharks, rays and current all three
plunged in and set off towards The remainder of the daylight hours were spent perusing
the extensive literature on board covering the South Pacific. Gradually out of the general confusion
an itinerary began to take shape.
Ash and George celebrated by going fishing again…once more with no
success! Saturday 12/04 After another marathon swim to the island and back, the
morning was spent trying to reach some decision as to what to do in the
Galapagos. Our agent had kindly
emailed a list of the trips and dives which we might like to do. As far as we can tell, it all looks
fantastic. Unfortunately, every
dive seems to include a rather long list of hazardous marine life! After lunch, the whole gang along with John and Christine
took the tenders out through a different cut in the reef and spent another
afternoon bobbing around on the deep blue.
John caught a Horse-eyed Jack and then we all went snorkeling. It was an exciting dip, we saw a large
number of Southern Sting Rays and Spotted Eagle Rays (luckily Jeremy was not
sporting is amazing trunks on this occasion) and a multitude of stunning reef
fish. Sunday 13/04 George continued with his swimming training and Sally
went to her Yoga Class, while Jeremy and Ash got back to business with the
arduous task of eating breakfast.
It was a fairly restful day after the exertions of the tender trip the
previous day. Just before sun
down(ers) Sally, Jeremy, Ash and George all went on a sortie in the tender to
try to photograph some reef fish.
Again we encountered a lot of very large rays some of which Ash managed
to get pictures of while hurriedly swimming after them. Jeremy spotted a nurse shark but by the
time he had got Ash’s attention the sleepy chap had woken up and started
swimming away rather faster than we could give chase. All returned to the boat for Happy Hour
and a spot of “Shit Head”. Monday 14/04 Monday morning had been designated for hull cleaning and
Astra’s scuba team managed it in record time. Once they had recovered a bit and got
their breath back, Jeremy suggested that they might like to do a full stock
check in order that we would know what needed to go on the provisioning list on
our return to Colón. Unwittingly,
they agreed to the task, not realizing that under the floorboards there were
enough tinned meals to feed an army for 90 days. About 3 exhausting hours later, having
pulled the boat apart and sweated several bath loads the job was complete. They were rewarded by being allowed to
test one of the tinned meals “Chunky Chicken in Gravy” has never tasted so
good! To recover from the ordeal
Ash and George went to try to find an agreeable nurse shark to take some
pictures of – the things we do for the blog!? We got shots of some more large rays but couldn’t
find a nurse shark. Just as we were giving up Ash spotted a large shadow
and swam towards it (for some reason!?). It circled and started to swim straight
at him at which point he realised that it was enormous (7ft) with a big powerful
body and definitely not a nurse shark!? Its fins were sharper, it was
silvery grey not brown and it was in fact a reef shark! Anyway, Ash tried
to take a picture that did not come out against the dark background. At
about 20ft it circled again and swam off. George who did not realise what
was going on saw Ash photographing what he assumed would be a nurse shark and
started swimming determinedly after it! Thankfully the shark was unimpressed by
George’s wounded fish impression and left.
We figured that was probably enough excitement for one day! Tuesday 15/04 After saying our final goodbyes to the San Blasters, we
headed out of the “Swimming Pool” and set a course which took us along the edge
of a drop-off (John said good for fishing) in the direction of the Eastern Lemon
Cays (San Blas). Just as we entered
the rough water, the reel screamed and Ash wrestled a 3ft King Mackerel
alongside. George expertly gaffed
the fish and flung it on board, unfortunately the fish came off the gaff and
went sliding across the slippery deck in the direction of the open hatch above
Sally’s bed where she happened to be having a snooze! Ash and George dived after it and
managed to avert a cataclysmic eruption by millimeters. The fish is now safely in the
freezer! That evening we anchored behind a small island where a
“wealthy” Kuna family lived. They
came out in a canoe and asked if we would charge their mobile, we obliged and
they gave us two fish in return. Wednesday 16/04 We awoke early and left Yansaldup and set sail for
Shelter Bay Marina. We slung out a
couple of our choicest lures and it was not long before both reels went wild
simultaneously. Everybody rushed
into action, George and Ash got the two fish alongside and Jeremy had is work
cut out to get them both on deck.
About 40 minutes later we had to lovely Blackfin Tuna in the
freezer. So with a good dinner
assured we motored into the |