San blas 2015

After only couple of days it was time to move on, so many islands to see so we did a 3h hop to Holandes cays. Caught a kingfish on the way and carefully edged us in to the anchoring spot we chosen, next to an island called Banedup. We were the only boat there and loved it. Wondered why we were the only boat but it was a tiny anchoring spot. The wind had died, sveltering hot sun so off to explore a new island. Saw hummingbirds, picked lots of shells and wallowed in the turquoise water. Kids swimming naked and pure bliss with no other people around. Like it!!! Little did we know what a disaster waited for us the next day….
So following day we started with school and beach and then get the generator going to make water. It’s a beast of a machine, actually both are, the generator and the watermaker. The solar panels and the wind generator is usually enough to generate power but we need it on to make water so a very important part of the boat. Press the button and voila! No? Try again….no….it churned, spluttered and coughed and died. Bloody nooooo……Chris frantically probed, pushed and swore and no, it died! Saltwater had got into wrong place…..bloody caputt. Ok, end of San blas sailing, gutted, I think I even cried a little. So typical, when you find a spot of your own it then goes wrong! Unfair! Ok the next step is to check how much water we have left….one full tank out of two and 75l of emergency water that we store in plastic containers on deck. So we have water roughly for 5 days….although you can stretch it by only using it for drinking. So cooking food, saltwater, washing up, saltwater,wash, saltwater with a tiny amount of fresh for rinsing in the end an so on. But we still had to go, in case we had to wait for the right weatherwindow. So next day we left and motored for few hours to west side of Holandes cays, an island called waisaladup. Had a swim, it rained and we were cold, yes that happens sometimes as well, freezing. And straight the following day we sailed for 4h to an island called Chichime.
Very busy anchorage but we got in. Couple of kuna huts and kids around. Nice place, just not on your own. Went ashore and saw a little monkey and a kitten with the Kunas and the monkey was riding on the back of the kitten, funny!
Couple of days later we went for the day sail to Isla Linton. Heard that there is a marina there where we could leave the boat when we were going to UK. A windy day and the perfect sail and arrived in 6h. In time for a beer or two…
We ended up spending nearly two weeks there in anchor. Not a lot to do, couple of beaches we could go to with the dinghy, collected a lot of rain water for washing and cooking, Alice met a new friend called Chloe, did school, collected more rainwater and did few trips to the historic town called Portobello.
Where the Pirates and the Spanish use to hang out, where 3/4 quarter of the gold from Peru went throug the old customs house, where the black Christ is displayed in the church…..an anchorage that gives you goosebumps, that you can imagine 500 years ago….absolutely fascinating! I’m not going to bore you with the detailed history but you should check it out.
And where Alice had her 3rd birthday with cupcakes and a ringoride behind the dinghy to a nearby beach with see through green water, leaf cutter ants and beautiful snorkelling…..
Finally the time came to get back in to Isla Linton marina and prepare the boat for our flight back to UK for 7 weeks. We were all looking forward to it, to see friends, to pop back to Finland where we haven’t been for 3 years and sleep in a house with a bed and not to worry about anchor or water…..