Safe Arrival in Porvenir - San Blas
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Lovesail
Wed 28 Jan 2015 16:08
9:33.4N 078:56.9W
1200 UTC 27 Jan 2015
Land sighted shortly after dawn – first a few palm trees then the mountains
of the cordillera appeared through the haze as faint shadows. And we had two
yachts in company – one in front about 4 miles and one behind – which we assumed
were rally boats. However the one behind turned North and sailed away.
Conditions were perfect for our approach and we entered the San Blas Channel – a
wide break in the reef – with the sun up and behind us making it easy to make
our way to Porvenir which is nothing but a patch of sand, some palm trees, a
landing strip from one end of the island to the other, a couple of buildings for
the “airport” officials and a “hotel”. We are told not to anchor in the
line of the airstrip or else the planes landing will hit our mast. We are
amazed to see how many yachts there are around. Not at Porvenir itself
where our little group is gathering, but in some of the islands nearby.
Some of them, no doubt, belong to the ARC World Rally which is following a
broadly similar route to ourselves and is due to go through the canal a week
ahead of us. Anyway, more of this once we start to cruise the
islands. So then it time to drop the anchor and relax. Not so
simple! We couldn’t get the anchor to hold to the skipper’s satisfaction – being
surrounded by reefs we do NOT want to drag in the night – so, after several
unsuccessful attempts, we set the second anchor in tandem and that did the
trick. So at last we could relax. We contacted the rally guy on the
island and said we’d be ashore to check in after lunch, allowing us to break out
the cold beers.
Congratulations to all the crew on a safe and pleasant passage without
incidents.
M
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