We were a bit nervous about the ten hour sail to San Blas. Purely because we have had a lot of very bad thunderstorms recently with strong winds and lots of lightning. There were a few boats that had left, only to turn around and come back when a bad storm catches them out.

The problem with these storms are they are so localised that they are not forecast. You generally just need to wake up in the morning and check if there are any around you and then make the decision to leave. We did all our checks and although we had a bit of rain, it was not too bad. The problem was we had no wind so had to motor all the way there!

We had heard about the San Blas and how beautiful they were. But nothing really prepares you. If someone says to you “Imagine Paradise” I bet most people will imagine deserted, palm fringed, white beaches, surrounded by coral reefs and tropical fish. Well that describes The San Blas Islands perfectly! They simply are paradise!

We arrived quite late in the day, and it wasn’t as bright as we would have liked it to be in order to see the proximity to the reefs. Add to this the fact that the charts in this area are generally inaccurate or hard to see exactly where you are. We dropped anchor at sunset in “the swimming pool” anchorage, which is named for the clarity of its water. We knew we were slightly close to our friends boat once the anchor was set, but decided it was safer to stay where we were due to the failing light and the vast number of reefs surrounding us. We figured we could easily move in the morning when the light was better and we were well rested. We couldn’t have been more wrong!

When we woke up the next morning we could see a storm brewing in the distance. It looked like it was going to pass us by, however in a very short amount of time the wind changed direction and the storm blew our way, swinging the boats in all directions. We soon realised that we should have moved our anchor the night before instead of waiting, as we found ourselves very close to our friends on Sailing Vessel Challenge. Shawn started the engines so that if we did get to close we could quickly get away. Luckily it was all ok.

As the islands are so small and flat they offer little protection in the anchorages, and your boat can swing all the way around on its anchor during one storm as the wind rapidly changes.

As soon as it cleared we decided to move further away, which was a great idea as it meant we had the other anchorage all to ourselves, along with our own island to explore.

After dropping anchor I made some bread to take to our old neighbours, to apologise for our mistake. They were absolutely fine with us, apparently you need to experience a San Blas storm in order to see why anchoring with lots of space around you is an absolute must! So now we know!!!

There were so many reefs around us that we all could not wait to get out and explore. The next morning was beautiful! Shawn quickly put the drone up so that we could get a good view of what was around us. It was stunning! With the drone we spotted a sandy patch on the reef which was covered in Star Fish, so we hopped in the dinghy to go and see them. They were huge, and there were so many of them we couldn’t keep count! We watched them shuffle along the sand for ages, marvelling at their colours and sizes. It really was magical!

We loved paddle boarding around the reef near us. There were so many fish and coral heads that you didn’t even need to snorkel, you could see it all from your paddle board. At one stage I had 3 big trigger fish following me, I didn’t paddle anywhere near the boys as I knew they would want to hook onto one of my new found friends! It felt like I was taking them out for a walk.

We stayed in this anchorage for a week, and got so much footage that we need to break it up into manageable pieces. Our next episode will show us exploring a wreck, feeding sharks and discovering Kuna houses.