09.48N 78.25W

JENNY
Alan Franklin/ Lynne Gane
Thu 17 Jan 2008 20:34
Hi everyone
 
Arrived Porvenir in the St Blas Islands yesterday, cleared in Customs and Immigration on such a sweet but SMALL Island. A concrete blockhouse with corrugated tin roof and a similar sized building called "The Porvenir Hotel", a very short landing strip for a very small plane and one thatched house as the "museum" - that's it!  A dog-leg island 600 metres in either direction.  The offices I can't describe, but you've seen better derelict buildings, BUT the people were lovely, the beaches bleached white coral sand, perhaps a dozen palm trees, and we walked the length of the island in 15 mins, windward to leeward side in 45 seconds.
 
We stayed there only long enough to do the necessary paperwork, and pay of course.  Lovely as it was, we had planned to head for Hollandes Cay where we are now, and its lovely - we feel we've started to see the unspoilt beauty we've been looking forward to seeing. Hollandes cay is just one of a large group of islands that make up the St Blas group - each Cay itself is a small group of islands with coral reefs and rocky shallows between tiny islands with tufts of palm trees and mangroves running down to the water - were anchored inside the reef, in shallows in the midst of 6 islands as I write.  There were several other Blue Water Rally yachts here already and it was a lovely welcome we got, with drinks with all crews on "Paramour" in the evening. They've all gone now to Cay Coco Banderas, so we are alone except for a few catamarans, ourselves leaving tonight for a rather shorter but busy trip to Panama.
 
Today we've been out in the dinghy, anchoring, and then snorkelling, its so quiet and peaceful here!  We're not quite alone - the islands are sparsely inhabited by the Kuna Indians, who in the main have managed to avoid too much westernisation, simple folk who are quite happy to paddle out in their dugout canoes to trade breadfruit, bananas -  they prefer to barter for potatoes, coffee, milk - I've seen no shops and the nearest supermarket???? , however the two fisherman came from nowhere, and they had the de luxe dugout - a sail (sort of!), they made us laugh as one fell in whilst taking down the sail. Anyway they had 2 enormous crabs - we "snapped" them up for 5 dollars each, I'm now stuffed!
 
Hate to leave this place - so many Cays to explore you could spend months here,  but in an hour we up anchor, thread our way back out into deep water - Panama bound.
 
Alan
 
To be continued........