Arrival in San Blas Islands

Anchored off Porvenir Island

Waiting for light to enter between reefs into the San Blas

Short runway at Porvenir

Arrival in San Blas islands

This is exciting to have made landfall after the first big passage. We had to seriously slow down starting yesterday so as not to arrive during the night. The wind and seas stayed high so we were travelling with just a small bit of mainsail. Despite not seeing a boat in days most arrived this morning, including one of those coming from Jamaica. It will be fun to hear how the passage went for other boats. I know one caught a lot of fish.

We have checked in at the airport. There is a short runway, a small motel, and customs office and that is about the size of this island. We are in need of a long quiet sleep so will stay here tonight before moving on to one of the other small islands. We are busy cleaning up today and hope to get Bob’s bed back in use. It looks like the garbage and oily rags are with us to Panama.

There are 3 boats wrecked on various reefs that we can see from here. One was just 2 weeks ago trying to enter after dark. There have been locals on it all day stripping things off. Most charts for less travelled places were done a long time ago and are not very accurate. The governments don’t have the money to updating them.

The Kuna women have been by in their dugouts selling molas, an intricate fabric art. We may need to get one and hang it on the life line to get some quiet. I need to get out the Spanish dictionary and see if they could understand something like “tomorrow”. We have a good guide book on the area that we are anxious to finally start reading. We’ve only tackled the navigation parts so far. Looking forward to our time here until Feb8.