Instant wakeup and work was the drill for this morning. I was awoken by Victoria shouting through the hatch saying “Alex! We need you on deck!”. So I sprang out of bed, put some pants on and jumped out on deck, just as the rain started to pour down. It was a squall! Very intense one actually. The rain came down in buckets and was basically hail with very bad visibility. The winds were very strong and even with both outboards on, it was difficult to keep the boat heading into the wind. As the guys were trying to get the sails down, I had to steer the boat into the wind – that was on my port side – with a port side engine in strong winds. In fact it was impossible to turn until help arrived and both engines were lowered into the water.
After thirty minutes we were out of the squall and back on course. Squalls can be very dangerous at sea, especially if you have sails. If you fail to lower your sails, the mast could snap – which is what happened to Grazia a few months ago – or the boat can capsize. Catamarans are inherently much harder to capsize, as the wide body stops it from tipping it over.
By 15:00 we arrived at our first destination in the San Blas Islands, Coco Bandero Cays! The entry to the mooring was a bit tricky so we had eyes scanning for obstacles in front of the boat, sonar, Bauhaus navigation charts and GPS to guide us through safely.
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Once we arrived at an excellent mooring area between three islands, some locals in a boat came to sell us a huge barracuda and three lobsters. All this fresh seafood for 20 USD! Not amazingly cheap but for the size of this fish alone in Europe, you could pay 30 EUR. It’s also good that the locals make a living for themselves too. The locals seemed very happy with their trade and when we got to eat the delicious produce that Coen grilled on the BBQ, we too were also happy to the utmost extent. It was fabulous, so delicious! It doesn’t get much fresher than that.
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It was a bit cloudy when we arrived, but the scenery was just jaw dropping. Fine sand beaches, crystal clear water, perfect temperature and great seafood. We just arrived in paradise, that’s for sure.
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As Coen was cleaning the hull of the boat from barnacles, another rowing boat from one of the nearby islands came by, occupied by some very colourful native women and a guy at the helm. They had some really nice bracelets to sell and some other artesian goods. We didn’t buy anything, but had a small chat with them. Very nice people and not pushy what so ever. I loved the boats the locals use too; They are a single piece of wood carved out of a single tree trunk!
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One thing did scare us a little that evening. Once Coen finished gutting the Barracuda and dumping the guts and blood straight into the sea, we were looking over the side of the boat about fifteen minutes later and we saw a giant shark! I had never seen a shark in real life before – apart from an aquarium perhaps – but this shark must have been at least a couple of meters. It definitely picked up on the scent of the dead fish with blood and came to check out what was going on. Wow. I was pretty amazed by that. I wish I had never seen it, as for the rest of that day, I felt a bit safer on the boat :)
After experiencing an early, unexpected start to the day and arriving in paradise for freshly grilled fish and lobster, we were very excited to be here.
