San Blas Sailing

Good news ‘round these parts:  my fixes have held up.  We’re mobile, and its likely (nothing’s for sure in a marine environment) that S/V NOMAD is actually in better shape than she’s ever been.  Aside from things that need to be done via a haul-out.

Leaving Porvenir

There were a few worrying things over the last couple of days – the most notable being an exhaust leak.  With that fixed, and new, unobstructed exhaust elbows installed – the engines are performing as well as can be expected.  We’ll really try them out on the way to Locombia, but right now we have wind – and I’ve missed sailing so much, that’s all I want to do.

We were stuck in Porvenir waiting on some epoxy to dry.  But with that dry, I was able to install the exhaust silencer, clamp everything together, and try it all out.  It worked.  We did a last trip into “town” to pick up some fruit and another bottle of rum.  With that sorted, we picked up anchor, raised sails – and did some pretty epic sailing.

We plowed though a bit of rough stuff crossing the channels.  After we were through that though – we were flying.  I managed to grab a screenshot of us at 8.1 knots, with a dirty bottom.  I love sailing like that.  The only downside is that when you’re sailing that fast – the “day trips” between islands become much shorter.  Which can leave you wanting to keep sailing.

Kuanidup

Either way, we enjoyed the sail out of Porvenir.  We sailed to a fun little spot that our buddy Andy showed us – Kuanidup.  There’s an island there that is usually uninhabited, and next door there’s a bar with (wait for it….…)  A POOL TABLE.  I wouldn’t nominate it as a spot for a billiards tournament – but any kind of pool table in San Blas is welcome.  Playing pool against a backdrop of bright blue ocean water, listening to the waves crash on white sand beaches is something worth mentioning.

Check out the pool cues:

San Blas Billards

There were three games played.  The captain took home two wins. Then we found the hammocks.  Then Luke found a swing.

Hammocks

More hammocks

Swinging in the Carib

Then we went back to the mothership, cooked, watched a movie and slept.  The cooking is worth a mention.  We made hamburgers, Luke made hamburger buns.  We ate like Kings (and a Queen).

Diving Kuanidup

That night we got a bit of a beam swell, and it made our anchorage a bit uncomfortable so nobody slept particularly well.  I heard Amanda up early so I stumbled out of bed around 7AM.  We had coffee and breakfast, hoping Luke would wake up so we could go dive.  Despite a knock on his door, he was completely out.  So Amanda and I went diving.

There are two spots worth diving in this area – one that’s about 60-70 feet, with mediocre vis.  There’s a hole there that holds nice Dog Snapper and a few 6 pound lobsters.  But it’s hard to locate, deep, etc.  Amanda was with me – so this trip was about ceviche and sightseeing.  So we choose Option 2 – a shallow water dive with really beautiful coral formations.  I’d pulled a decent Dog Snapper out of there last go-round and knew where the majority of the snapper lived.

We kicked against current, located the snapper house – and I started diving.  They’d clearly been hunted.  They knew what speargun range was.  The big ones kept their distance, the small ones were curious.  After a half hour, mostly spent on the bottom of the ocean – I opened up and started pulling the trigger.  I shot one, missed one, shot another, lost him, and then shot another small snapper.  One Dog Snapper and one Schoolmaster came back for ceviche.

Amanda wanted to learn how to clean fish – which is a skill I’m happy to teach (and a chore I’m happy to offload), so we had a quick lesson.  Finger’s crossed that she’ll clean more fish as we get them.

Dinner

More dinner

Leaving Kuanidup

At this point we were over Kuanidup and anxious to set sail.  We had sunshine, wind, and relatively calm seas – perfect sailing weather.  So I did a couple quick fixes in the engine rooms and then we pulled our anchor up and sailed out.  Again, we had the wind with us and only a moderate swell – so we were cooking.  Not quite 8 knots, but we made it up to 7.9 before losing wind behind the islands.  Zipping around San Blas like this is a bunch of fun.

At this point we didn’t really know where we were going – just a general direction.  We’d missed the Panama Connection Net thus far – so we had no idea where our friends were.  We headed East.  We started to pass Salardup, but decided to pull in for a night.

I’m glad we did, this would turn out to be one of our favorite stops.

San Blas Sailing