Believe it or not we finally left the San Blas islands and made a LONG sail.. well, 40 miles, but compared to the little jumps that we had been making, it felt like a long sail. But what a sail it was! We had 15-20 kts on the beam, and BlueFlash (oops, I mean BlueJacket) was doing between 8 and 9 kts all of the way. I even threw in a single reef to balance the boat better, and we we still flying. Ken & Bonnie, in their 41' Morgan didn't do quite so well and got in about an hour later.
The main anchorage in Isla Grande is down a long, wide, reef strewn channel that faced right into the oncoming swells, and the boats that were anchored there had 3-4' long period swells that they were pitching too. No thanks! I pulled around the west end and dropped into a nice sheltered pool alongside a boat from Maine. The biggest problem was the lack of wind, but the pool was a beautiful green color. The waterways here are so strewn with reefs that it's dangerous to explore even by dinghy without good light.
Isla Grande is a weekend tourist destination with lots of hotels and rental houses. Not much happens during the week, so they must pour into here come Saturday. The "restaurants" were even closed during the week, but there was a dive shop that filled a tank.
Ken & Bonnie decided to drop hook at Isla Linton, which is about a whole 2 miles away. Isla Linton is supposed to be inhabited by monkeys that come out at dusk, so Ken & Bonnie suggested some afternoon cocktails & then going in to see the monkeys. We weren't disappointed, as they were hanging out at an abandoned house and playing on a trawler that was careened near the house. It was quite a sight seeing them run full bore on their hind legs and swinging hand over hand along the rope going to the trawler. They're quite used to people coming to feed them, so they'd run right up to the end of the dock and wait to be fed. We had to be quite careful as we heard about some people being bit by them. But it was all very entertaining.
Tomorrow it's on to Puerto Bello before the throngs arrive here and jet skies
come out!
Log ID: 179
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