We started the day with another healthy pancake session delivered by the one and only Victoria using her secret recipe! After breakfast we attached the outboard to the newly cleaned and re-enforced dingy and Richard took it for a quick speed test… It flew like I had never seen it before, nicely planning across the water. Ready for action!

We wanted to take the dingy out today and go hunting for fish and afterwards go to the shipwreck to snorkel around there, but unfortunately we had to turn back as we were not sure what the weather was doing. It looked like a storm was coming our way, so we returned back to boat. We grabbed the surfboards instead and decided to do a bit of wake-boarding :)

Chilled out was the motto for most of the day as we encountered some rain and a bit of thunder nearby, but it didn’t last long until we were back in the water again. The locals came by again in their boat and delivered us two huge crabs that we cooked, striped its meat and put it in a nice white wine and cream pasta sauce along with some left-over grilled barracuda from the night before. Another amazingly delicious dinner served with white wine to celebrate a hard days work.

In the early evening, we picked up anchor and plotted a course for Gannirguinnitdup Island in the West Cocos. We decided to go there as a change of scenery, but also to get a bit closer to the island town of Nargana where we had to fill up on Gasoline for 5.75 USD per US Gallon. It was a nice anchorage on the south side of the island with some nice reefs and a few rays swimming around. We snorkelled to the island to unfortunately find quite a bit of rubbish lying around and two very authentic looking huts where we met a small girl who was the only one there at the time and didn’t seem to speak much Spanish, or perhaps didn’t understand us. I don’t think they have many visitors there as she seemed quite surprised to see us. We carried on walking around the island to find yet more rubbish and then snorkelled back to the boat, checking out the reefs and fish along the way. Tomorrow morning we will cruise to Nargana which is about five nautical miles away to stock up on fuel.

We woke up the next day in paradise. A perfect start to the day as the sun was shining and Victoria had prepared pancakes with nutella, cream cheese and maple syrup as toppings. We then jumped straight into the crystal clear water and did a bit of snorkelling around the nearby island. Giant crabs, big starfish and hundreds of types of different fish surrounding the reefs. We took the GoPro with us too and videoed the whole journey through the water, so sit tight and there will be a video section appearing on this site soon :)

Shortly after, we took the dingy to the nearby island to clean the barnacles off the bottom. We must have removed at least a bucket full of barnacles, which were definitely slowing it down. The setting was beautiful. Surrounded by white sand, shaded by palm trees and every so often we were dunking into the water to take a break. Once it was cleaned, we took it back to the boat and got it back up on the deck to add some reinforcements to where the 2-stroke outboard engine sits on the back, as we wanted to use the dingy to tow the surfboard behind it tomorrow… more to come :)

In the morning we also saw some locals cruising around in their little sailing boats. The sails on them were very nicely decorated with art and looked very authentic.

Later on, Coen and I were doing forward and backward flips off the back of the boat. It was also the first time I mastered a straight backwards flip (not shown below, video coming soon).

Towards the evening we drank beer, enjoyed the sun’s rays, had conversations and we finished the day with a marvellous meal consisting of grilled barracuda, potatoes and salad. Another great end to a perfect day.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.