San Blas and Beyond

When you dream of desert islands...

where tall coconut palms stretch up in to a blue sky from beautiful white sand beaches. They dot the sea; the azure blue sea, scattered like gems amongst the scars of coral. Populated by an indigenous people that have retained their origins and traditions; that live in pampas leaf huts between the palms and the mango trees, fishing, harvesting coconuts and trading hand crafts. Then you are dreaming of the San Blas islands. They are stunning.

However, anyone who dwells upon such a desert island will be only too familiar; there is always a wet season. The British call it summer, though to be fair its always raining on our blessed little isle and never that tropical. Unfortunately for us, A pot of varnish and brush in our hands, the rainy season has arrived. We're forever chasing the final sunset of the season before transiting the canal in to the Pacific and another sunny predictable season. Hurricane season starts in a week or so and though we were lucky last year, this year we seem to be getting wet. Oh, and its hot, humid hot.

So we delayed our transit by a few days as we fell deeper in love with the San Blas, but only a few days.

Despite the beauty of these islands we're trying to 'get a grasp' of our provisions. We have the time tranquility and the seemingly endless resources that Colon city provides. Currently we're going through tins. Ordering, sorting and counting. Tins for us means only one thing tomatoes; helpful when the labels come off. Argued there are always a few odds and sods to be found artichoke hearts and sauerkraut, if they're small they may be water chestnuts, but generally all are tomatoes.

So we now have 101 cans left, we had 194 when we left America, not bad after 7 months. They haven't all rusted through. Indeed they're fine but, we have a slight list to starborad, its ruining our predominately submerged starboard waterline. We're going to be sailing on a port tack for over three weeks, so stores are getting re orded; shifted to port if they're heavy, and counted.

After re-upholstering the boat we were left with lots of offcuts of foam. With the San Blas on our list of destinations and their famed molas much reverred we stuffed the foam in to over filled lockers with the ideas of using them to make cushions; to liven up the inside and say something of where we have been. So we have been spending our hard earned pennies on beautiful hand stitched embroidered molas.

And finally, the day has arrived. We're back in Colon now anchored just off the hustle and bustle; we have our line handlers onboard, just coming to, after their first night onboard; our adviser joins us at four then its up through the first set of locks. A night in the lake itself then a long motor across (Sailing frowned upon) before we drop down in to the Pacific. There will be a few more blogs on this, hopefully they will be happy ones.

Sorry the photos will come later, were a little busy.