San Blas Islands 27 February 2024.

It was quite a windy night in our mangrove anchorage but we were fine. I had set an alarm for 5.15am as Keith and Jonas were being picked up at 5.30am by water taxi. The alarm went off and we got Keith and Jonas up and sat in the cockpit waiting. The boat was a little late and when it did arrive I noticed there were others going to the mainland too. Carolyn had got up to say goodbye and once they had left we went back to bed.

It was a cloudy/stroke sunny day and I had planned a number of days ahead and as we were so far south I planned to go to a number of anchorages going east and then west. The first was to a recommended anchorage called Morbedup (Cambombia). This was some 10nm away and had apparently some good snorkelling and meant we had to negotiate through a number of reefs and Islands to get there.

There were a number of approaches to this Island and if you had a shallow draft you could have come on from the southern side which went as low as 3m. This was a bit shallow for me so we had to go round the north of the Island and the reefs on the Northern side and then pass through between two Islands with reefs either side until we could approach the anchorage. I have made it sound easy but we had to use the light to show us the deep and shallow passages as well as using the chart plotter and forward-looking sonar. We made it and many may have found it a bit scary. There were a lot of boats anchored and so we decided to hang back and anchored in about 15-17m. We put a lot of chain out (80-90m) and held well although we hung back from the other boats.    

We had a look in the bilges which had started to smell a bit and I think the washing machine contents which had leaked earlier did not help. We pumped some water in and pumped it out and seemed to have got rid of most of the smell. We decided to take the dinghy to the Island on our left which was uninhabited but which we had been told had good snorkelling off its Northeast side. We motored by dinghy over to this Island and pulled the dinghy onto the beach. It was very deep to the shore until the last minute.  The water was very clear and initially I went over weed and then as we approached the reef it was beautiful with coral, fans and sponges and fish. This continued for some time and then I felt I had to head back. On the way back I saw a stingray swimming gracefully below me and on the way up to the beach I unfortunately saw the odd shoe, bottle and other type of rubbish which is very sad in this special environment.

We left the first Island and decided to go to the inhabited Island Morbedup (Cambombia). This had an amazing beach and still water sheltered from the wind. It also had a very steep depth fall as you left the Island. We walked along and found a small family with a bar. `

We had a beer, coconut juice and a fruit juice. It was a magical setting and we could see fish jumping in the bay. We retraced our steps to Stormbird and found an alarm on which was an old propane alarm. The gas was not on and it must have been an old alarm as there was no evidence of any leak.

It had been a great day and we were in a great location. We had a nice chicken caracole supper with peas which was nice. We enjoyed chilling in the breeze and appreciated the environment we were in.

The blog will continue as we head off to Panama and beyond.

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