Nicki here,
The San Blas islands have been a wonderfully relaxing destination for
most of the World ARC fleet, and we have had the opportunity to catch
up with a few of the other crews and meet some of the local Gunas
people. Most of the anchorages are sheltered by coral reefs
interspersed with small 'picture-postcard' sandy islands topped with
palm trees - some of which are inhabited, many are not.
On arrival into the Eastern Holandes we were greeted by the crew of
Mango, who invited us to breakfast on their beautiful spacious cat -
thank you! As we anchored at Green Island the following day, the
Canadian crew of Danica invited us over for a cold beer and snacks so
we all swam over - very welcome on a hot windless day. That evening
Makara of Exe invited us on board for sundownders - rum punches all
round, and the next morning we were able to return the compliment by
hosting them to coffee on board Tintin. (First both crews picked up
several bags of rubbish from the island - most plastic items washes in
from offshore; it appears to us that the local people keep their
islands very tidy.)
We heard via the SSB net that Aurora B had succeeded in making temporary
repairs to their steering and had arrived safely in the San Blas islands
yesterday morning, so we arranged to meet them at Gunboat Island
anchorage - a triangular reef about a mile wide with a small inhabited
island which we anchored close to; we were the only vessels there. Ed,
Gemma, Pim, Henry and Eva were very pleased indeed to see us after
having had a somewhat challenging few days! They came on board for
dinner and we were able to serve up quite a celebratory meal - tuna
sashimi and fresh spiny rock lobster (which we had purchased from a
local man as we are prohibited from taking them ourselves here),
followed by pan-friend tuna gougons with mango salsa and sala, then
spaghetti bolognese which was a particular hit with the kids and ending
with generous rations of chocolate which kept Rob happy too. This
morning Jo led a session of 'bums and tums' exercises on the deck of
Tintin in glorious sunny, breezy conditions.
As you may gather, all is well on board!
N