Panama, San Blas Islands, Holandes Cays, Eastern Holandes Cays, Anchorage south of Ukupsuit and Kalugirdup Cays – Hanging out in the Hot Tub

Hi, it is your roving reporter again. Reporting to you from the lovely San Blas Islands of Panama.

As you know, I am dragged about at the whims of my two humans.

It is tough to be a boat dog.

But occasionally they bring me to really fun places to be. Not all ‘human’ style fun places are fun for me. Cities can be boring, unless they have a nice park. I also get hot easy in the tropics and prefer to have water nearby to cool off in. Here is my complete list of requirements.

My ‘Quinn’ criteria for a fun place to be:

• Big long beach to run free on,
• Clean water to swim and cool off in,
• Lots of coconuts to chase and rip apart,
• Easy flat day sails between anchorages,
• Nice cool trade winds that blow all night and day to keep me cool,
• Plenty of fish so the humans share,
• NO pesky nosums or sand flies to bight me.

 I do not ask for much! I have not done much exploring yet, but it appears all of this and more is available in the San Blas Islands. Especially now that the humans are finding a few reefs with schools of fish on them.

So what have we all been up to this week?

Easy sailing here

HOT TUB ANCHORAGE IN THE EASTERN HOLANDES CAYS

Well we moved anchorages from the Western Holandes Cays to the Eastern Holandes Cays. The humans heard over the San Blas Cruisers Net (13:30 UTC 8107 MHz) that boats anchored up at the ‘Hot Tub’ anchorage were getting good internet reception. You need a good constant internet signal to start a new sim card, charge it with credit and initiate a usage plan. If you are ‘interrupted’ you may lose all your credit.   So off we sailed the short distance east in the lee of the reefs that protect this big stretch of cays.

The entrance through the reef at the Hot Tub anchorage is a ‘bit’ tight, but the humans were fortunate enough to have snorkeled the area on their last visit near here. They knew the water dropped off quickly from the reef either side and the channel was free of coral heads. The Hot Tub anchorage is well protected by reefs all around, but the islands are mostly mangroves. My humans opted to anchor just inside the channel and off a beach.

Being anchored inside the channel to the main anchorage gave the humans easy access to the reefs for snorkeling. It was supposed to give me a beach close by, but it turned out to be very buggy. So the humans were nice enough to take me to the next cay over, Ogoppiriadup Cay, which was surrounded by a big lovely beach all the way around.

Beach at Ogoppiriadup Cay

Whale bones can be found on the beaches of Ogoppiriadup Cay and off the reef at Nap Garden.

My taxi service.  If you look closely you can see the waves lifting up over the reefs at the entrance to the channel here.

Here the humans worked on ‘boat jobs’ in the mornings and headed out snorkeling on the surrounding reefs in the afternoons. They found the small reef east of the anchorage and the big reef due south of the anchorage both very good.  Strong winds and waves kept them off the outer reefs to the north. But then the winds died down one night and we were all attacked by nosums from the mangroves. Quick retreat the next day.

ANCHORAGE OFF SMALL CAY DUE WEST OF THE SWIMMING POOL ANCHORAGE

The humans had visited a tiny cay, on the route to the Swimming Pool Anchorage, before with friends. They knew it was free of ‘bugs’ and surrounded by reef they had not had a chance to explore. So we headed there for a few days.

This gave me a lovely beach to run on and they could get on with electrical jobs and de-cluttering the boat for their upcoming guest. Hope he knows what he has signed on with these two!

We have a few days here to relax and then we have to head west to pick him up from the mainland. We heard from friends on the s/v Bellatrix that the area known as Carti, where we are to pick up our guest, is not so good for stocking up. The humans and I have eaten most of the fresh fruit and veggies we picked up from Nalumega Cay (near Provenir). It is not ‘out of the way’ to stop at Nalumega Cay again on the way to Carti. So we will stop there and see if we can pick up a few things to feed the guy.

Next time we chat we will have company aboard. Exciting!

That does not look like boat jobs!

A ‘Sundowner’ photo.  You now have an excuse to break out the rum cocktails.