Panama, San Blas Islands, Lemon and Chichime Cays – In search of an anchorage with no sand flees

Many of you regular readers will remember that we left our visitor Steve escaping crocodiles and succumbing to the thousands of hungry mouths of the sand flies found on the islands of San Blas.
Our mission, should we choose to accept it, was to find him an island where he would no longer be ‘eaten alive’.  We accepted entertaining Steve aboard the boat, but not his thousands of ‘little friends’ who had taken such a shine to him.  Poor Steve, we did initially fail him.  But you will see we did learn from our mistakes.

We left our anchorage in the Eastern Holandes Cays and initially made our way west to the Middle Holandes and anchored off the rarely visited reefs off Wichubuala Cay.

During his visit, Steve become became very good at snorkeling and kayaking and even went so far as to learn how to combine the two.

Reefs run the full length of the island offering great snorkeling opportunities.

We had been to Wichubuala Cay before and had no problems.  But the sand flies here could smell Steve coming a mile away. No sooner did the poor guy come ashore than every sand flee for miles was alerted to the possibility of a free lunch.

So we did not stay here long.

The search for an island or cay without sand flies continued.

With Steve’s present ‘midges magnetism’ I would not even want to bring him any where near an island with even a single tree on it.

Finally we found Steve an island with minimal chance of infestation. Welcome to the cay we fondly renamed Kuna-Henge.  Do not laugh.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.

We found this little gem in the Eastern Lemon Cays. We were warned ‘You do not want to go there, it is too touristy’. But we found the snorkeling very good. In fact, the best yet in the San Blas Islands if you want to see a wide range of fish.
Being in a touristy section of the San Blas Islands is not all bad.

After some snorkeling in the Lemon Cays we moved over to the south side of the Chichime Cays.

This anchorage had two great advantages. First it put us in an easy launching position for a trip west down the coast to Portobello and second the island here has a Kuna bar, open to the wind to keep the midges away!

My humans could not resist heading in for an ice cold pint.  Not too much mates as we have got an early start and a long day tomorrow.

We leave the lovely San Blas Islands behind and head off to the Panamanian port town of Portobello.
Wish us luck!

 

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VISITORS VIEW

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So the search for the ‘holy grail’ of San Blas islands that did not currently have an infestation of midges continued. And it appeared that this quest was answered when we did indeed stumble upon Kuna Henge. A small remote island that was uninhabited, had NO VEGETATION and NO STAGNANT WATER that should equate to NO BUGS. Nirvana for a man with more than 150 bites about his person.
What was even better was that the modern temple erected on this site looked worthy of a visit. So we headed over and as we approached it became clear that there was a sign erected here to greet us lowly pilgrims to this remote and surely most holy of places. What enlightenment would it afford us?
We got ever closer with due reverence (and a bottle of bug spray just in case) and hesitantly stepped forward to receive our future spiritual and moral guidance. What would these words of wisdom say? Would we be able to understand their true meaning? And the words said upon to us…

 

And finally, with the beer once again running mysteriously running short, this is what a San Blas Ocado Home Delivery looks like….

The veggy boat visiting Spirit of Argo
TRUE DELIVERANCE in the form of a dug out, home made boat. Remember, if the answer is not beer you are probably asking the wrong question!
Onwards and upwards. Onto new adventures