Saturday, 14.01.2012, 12:00 local, 9° 28' 21” N, 78° 38' 18” W, at anchor

 

Yesterday was nice sailing. We arrived at the eastern entrance of the San Blas archipelago at four in the morning, 2 1/2 hours before sunrise. So we turned around and sailed back for 1 1/2 hours and turned around again. The San Blas are a few hundred islands, some of them not bigger to hold a single pam tree. Some of the islands are inhabited by the native Kuna indians, who largely preserved their old way of lived. Enriched bycell phones and outboard engines, and trading with cruisers.

 

By 0900 we were anchored in front of SV Irie (Mark and Liesbet), just south of “Green Island”. A postcard scenery from paradise. Unfortunately the palm tree postcard scenery didn’t care much for Irie’s wind generator (our Silent Wind still isn’t working), so we relocated a little further away from the island.

 

Our Navionis gold charts by the way are of limited use here. According to the charts we drove over shoals three times, and anchored on the beach. In reality the water was 10m deep and we were 30m from shore. We don’t know how long we’ll stay here, maybe a day or two. There is nice snorkeling in the reefs and a few things to fix.