09:39.995N 079:24.749W San Blas
Shaya Moya
Don & Susan Smyth
Mon 23 May 2011 17:02
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Hi All...
We're on our way back to Shelter Bay Marina now.
We're hoping to get the boat ready for passage through the canal on the 25th.
The last few days were quite interesting and a bit
of fun. After leaving Shelter Bay on the 19th, we spent the first night in a
little town called Portobello ( The Beautiful Port ). The place had a lot of
history being the main port from were the Spanish shipped out all the Peruvian
gold back in the day. Today it's a typical Central American town. There wasn't
much going on there really. We had a look at some of it and saw what they call
chicken buses and a few little stores but not much to right home about.
  Captain Jack's and The Bus
That was until we found Captain Jack's.
The sign read "Boaters, Backpackers, Beers, Burgers, Beds" Dad
was relieved to find they also had white wine and served a pretty good filet.
While sitting at Jack's we met a young Canadian couple that had been travelling
through central America since October. We got to chatting and after hours
of conversation they told us they were wanting to go to San Blas and
because we were heading that way we ended up giving them a lift the next
morning.
  Porvenir
The next morning we met Max and Stephanie as
arranged and the four of us set sail for Porvenir , the main island in San
Blas. It was also the only island that we knew would have accommodation as
well as a runway for very small planes. Unfortunately we didn't sail
much because as we've come to realise the wind in this area just will not
do as it's told. It took us just on 8 hours to get to Porvenir where whilst
finding a spot to anchor learnt all about the famous San Blas reefs, Dad gave
one a rub with our keel just to say hi.
 Max and Stephanie ( Thanks again for the
company and good luck for the future )
After having dinner and breakfast the next morning
on Porvenir with Max and Steph we said goodbye and headed over to a small
island called Chichime to relax, read, swim etc before having to
go back to the canal. All the islands were beautiful to look at and
the scene was just like the postcards show it, un till you got ashore.
The islands were pretty badly littered and the local Kuna Indians although being
very friendly little chaps obviously hadn't read about the effect that plastic
can have on the ocean.
  Chichime and it's inhabitants
We still swam in the 29 degree water and enjoyed a
snorkel on a wreck nearby but it wasn't as enjoyable with the plastic
bottles bobbing around your head. What was interesting was the amazing concert
that the birds on the islands gave all day. If you could filter out the
idiot American doing donuts in the parking lot with his dinghy or the salsa
music blasting from some other idiots boat it was really serene and very
relaxing most of the time.
Just like everywhere else in the Caribbean we were
constantly being approached by the local floating sales force, wanting to
sell molas (sewn artwork), lobster, octopus or even cell phones. I say
approached because they were very nice and a simple "no thank
you" would normally suffice. Very different to the boats in Trinidad and Tobago
or the taxi drivers in Cuba.
After three days of hull cleaning, reading,
swimming, eating, drinking and relaxing we left this morning at 0630 and hope to
be in Shelter Bay before dark around 1930. That's all for now. The next blog
will most definitely be about our passage through the Panama
Canal.
 Chichime Postcards
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