Arrived San Blas

We had observed while waiting behind Isla Linton for good weather to complete the last leg of our trip to the San Blas that our weather data was not matching the conditions we were seeing. We began to wonder if being situated near the steep hills and mountains not far away was creating some localized effects. We were rocking horribly at anchor from incoming swell, so we decided to head out and see if we could tolerate maybe ten hours of what looked to be very rough and confused seas. Once out, we confirmed it was very rough, but we decided to go on. The wind was just enough off the nose that we could get the stay sail out, and that helped drive through the seas. It was what we call a washing machine ride, such as watching a cork bop around during the wash cycle of a top-loading machine. Our trip took just a little over eight hours, so not bad. The boat down below needed a lot of straightening out after we arrived, and we had a water mishap, which was a big surprise. We were running low on water, which influenced our decision to go, so we ran the watermaker for eight hours while underway, and we were really surprised to find we had a near-empty water tank once we got there. I probably hit the cold water faucet in the galley while below and being jostled around, and didn't notice it, so we pumped just about all our water down the drain. We were so looking forward to those showers, too. We recovered quickly by opening the deck fill to the water tank, building a small dam, and began collecting rainwater. By morning, we had a 1/8 tank, good enough for coffee and showers.

We stayed the night off Porvenir so that we could check in with the Port Captain in the morning. After checking in, we moved on a short distance to the Lemmon Cays. We have been blown away by the beauty and peacefulness of the San Blas, and we have yet to begin to really explore. We are now slowly working our way east toward Nargana. We have been without internet for two weeks now, and we understand we may be able to get internet at the school in Nargana. We did hear on the BBC the results of the election, but only because we made the effort; other than that, we have had no news, but we are not complaining. Being disconnected is nice once in a while.