Safely into Porvenir, San Blas

Just a quick report to say that both Stormvogel and Maunie arrived at the tiny island of Porvenir (009 degrees 33.33 minutes north, 78 degrees 56.86 minutes west) at 7.00am local time. We've moved another time zone in this voyage so are now on GMT-5.

 

As reported in the last blog we had to keep our speed down overnight to arrive in daylight so sauntered along at 5 knots or so when we could easily have been doing 7. Even so, the average speed for the 682 mile passage was over 6 knots. Unfortunately whilst we arrived in the first light, we also coincided with a huge rain squall which reduced visibility to only 300 metres; at least it washed all the sticky salt off the boat. By the time we'd anchored, the rain had cleared and we have the beginnings of a warm if cloudy day.

 

Porvenir has a maximum altitude of about 2 metres above sea level and isn't really inhabited; there are a few huts and palm trees and it looks as though there is some human intervention going on to prevent the island from eroding away altogether. However it has a very small airstrip ( a relic of WW2 when the Americans built it) which takes up the full length of the island and so there is a Customs post here for us to clear in to Panama, once we've had a bit of a kip. The neighbouring island has wooden and tin huts crowded together along the water and we have already seen native Kuna Indians paddling wooden canoes and sailing small lug-sailed fishing boats. We can't wait to explore the islands.

 

There won't be wifi here so we'll continue to be reliant on the sat phone for emails and updates so that will limit our ability to add photos to the blog but we'll try to select a few pics over the next few days to give you and idea of the place.