Commodore
December 6, 2022

Tuesday 6 December – Arriving in San Blas

Another very easy comfy night sailing, we kept our Gennaker (Sporty Spice) up all night as the winds were light. By 6:30am Panama mainland was in sight, very mountainous. I was picturing that this section is the Darien Gap, it’s always been a mysterious place, my father was so intrigued by it, I can remember him often talking about it. It is the only section that the great Pan American highway can’t get through.

Panama mountains in the background, with the San Blas islands appearing

Suddenly we could see the low lying San Blas islands with tall skinny palms and aqua blue waters behind the reef. What a relief to finally be here at the islands, we are allowed 72 hours before clearing immigration, so we aimed for the first decent anchorage, which happened to be the Eastern Holandes Cays. We spotted a few sailing boats and chose a spot to try and anchor at. We had been warned not to rely on the charts, so I was upfront looking out for coral heads. Suddenly the water was 1m deep and coral everywhere, the charts were wrong and we had to do a very speedy reverse! We finally found a spot near an American Cat that had a S African skipper. We tried a few times to anchor but kept dragging, we must have had sand over coral, we just couldn’t get a bite. We moved again and finally ended up in a gorgeous spot between two idyllic white beach islands covered in lush palms.

Weaving through islands

It wasn’t long before Victor Morris arrived in his dug out canoe to get his US$3 per person from us. He is the chief of the congreso of this bunch of islands. The people here are called the Guna, their forefathers lived in the Darien Mountains and slowly moved down onto the islands, they have semi autonomous rule from Panama. They are not allowed to marry out of Guna society, and is a matriarchal society. Very friendly and helpful. It wasn’t long before another dugout arrived with a woman selling beads and embroidery. All rather lovely, but not cheap, they do deserve every penny as it is pretty detailed work. She had beadwork all up her arms and legs which is the tradition here.

We then caught up on some much needed sleep. In the afternoon we went exploring on the island, the S African guy said there was a chap called Aden on the other side of the island who serves excellent food. We dinghied in on Jeldi Jeldi, very relieved the engine is working like a dream. Amazingly Aden greeted us at the beach and very proudly escorted us along his Tsunami path, lined with conch shells all the way across to the other side of the island. He showed us around his very rustic kitchen and we booked in for supper. He had worked on cruise liners in French Polynesia and said he wanted to recreate BoraBora here. Wonderful to have such ambition out here with no electricity or fresh water!

Aden’s restaurant

Aden’s BoraBora style accommodation!

Aden’s beach front

Beautiful old dug outs

Looking back at PolePole

We tried walking around the island but we were eventually thwarted by undergrowth where the beach ran out. We visited the island next door, called BBQ island. We had to pay there to land, obviously more touristy, and had very artificially inflated Spanish speaking women visiting. God knows who thinks this is a good look!

BBQ island

Locals out sailing

Resting up

Back to the boat for a siesta and then we headed back to Aden for an early supper. It was sensational, home made breads, followed by the most delicious ceviche. Then fish (grouper) and local veg, which was also excellent. He can’t serve any drinks so we had brought our own bottle of sake, which was an excellent accompaniment to the meal. We asked for water and he didn’t have any, but said he could give us some coconut water. He chopped one down next to us and that was our water. All finished off with a coconut cake with cocoa sauce. What a stunning setting, we had the whole beach to ourselves and ate with the light of the full moon. He was surprised we didn’t want to eat under the glare of his solar security spot lights!