After having had as sickness bug, it was probably pretty unwise taking myself off to sea for for several days but there was a hope that I would be okay. I'm not great on catamarans but this was a different motion so hopefully I would be okay. Well, as Gareth's blog said, sea sickness pretty much hit straight away and stayed for the best part of the journey. Sleeping seemed to be the only thing that made it bearable but I'm really thankful I wasn't actually sick again.
One of the plus sides of it being so rough was that it took 33 hours rather than 50.
Day one in San Blas (said in a Geordie accent) - Thursday
After what seemed like a never-ending journey (cue song of the never-ending story sung plenty of times, changing the word story to journey), we arrived in paradise and it made the last 33 hours worth the ordeal.
I have never seen blues and turquoise colours like it, we knew we had to take it in as much as we could as no photo seemed to do it justice.
Day two in San Blas - Friday
Whilst the guys collected firewood, Lynsey, Mags, Martina and I explored
chichime and discovered that most of the islands was a perfect photo backdrop and spent the next couple of hours chatting, exploring and taking copious amounts of photos. Now, no one wants to see me in a bikini, so I'll leave that out but I happened to be on as boat with 3 models that are far more pleasing to the eye.
Day three in San Blas - Saturday
There was one more island to explore so the four of us headed there to see what we could find. To our surprise, it was quite the adventure.
We were greeted by a pig as we entered the island. It was tied to a tree next to a Kuna hut, I imagine it's their pet.
We then ventured through the island to see what it had to offer. Mags marched on ahead with our captain and Lynsey, Martina and I were at least 20 meters behind them. In our view, Wr caught a glimpse of a naked Kuna man in his 50's enjoying the fresh breeze of the Caribbean air. Whilst I'm sure he wad enjoying his freedom, me? Not so much. I overted my eyes and we shouted to Mags to warn that she was in a collision course with a nude Kuna man. However, instead of hearing us she just decided to check out what we were pointing at and got a shock.
To get over this incident we made our way to the other side of the island where a beautiful palm tree was hanging over the crystal clear ocean, begging for yet another photo shoot.
We checked out some of the hand made items some of the Kuna people had produced.
We then made our way back through they island to get our dingy back to our boat. Martina had told us that the most common way for people to die on these islands was from being hit by a falling coconut. This was made very real to us when a coconut plummeted to the ground from 30-40 foot palm tree with a thud that could be heard throughout the island. Okay, it's a small island but if they had hit someone's head, it would have been game over. Needless to say the rest of our journey was carefully made with our heads firmly facing up to the sky, ensuring we weren't directly under any killer coconuts.
We all made it safely to the dinghy which wasn't actually there. Our captain had gone back to the boat to get some money from Gareth for a little present I wanted to purchase from the Kuna people. In the meantime, the people from the hut where the pet pig was kept came out with four 6 day old puppies. They were so adorable and couldn't resist having a cuddle. My little puppy immediately feel asleep in my arms. I then learned the really tragic news that the mum had died during birth and as you can imagine the Kuna people have very little resources to help keep the puppies alive. 3 had already died,1 had been taken by a boat and a lovely German girl, who was spending some decent time in San Blas, brought milk over daily to help try and keep the puppies alive. I so wish we could have taken one but not sure I would have got it through customs. I hope they make it.
Our captain returned with my money and I had to head back through they killer coconut island, weaving through the palm trees and then back again. The good news is, I survived, in case you weren't sure ;-).
We then set off back to the boat, took a quick picture of as beautiful starfish (the first I'd every seen) however, our captain pulled the started chord for the engine slightly too aggressively and our motor was broken. We were then drifting in the current away from the island and away from the boat. Slightly concerned we suggested swimming back to shore but our captain was confident he could hitch a ride. He hailed down as Kuna 'speed boat', they tied us to them and we promptly made it back to our boat for lunch.
Day four in San Blas - Sunday
As the boys were having their fishing competition, us girls took ourselves of again. Fishing isn't a favourite, combined with male egos in competition with each other, we made ourselves scarce. Mags relaxed, Martina went snorkelling and Lynsey and I did a final lap if our beautiful desert island, sharing stories and just gently soaking up our last moments in paradise.
I was sick for a good day and a half of our five and a half days but it was incredible. It's a place I will never forget, another piece of heaven on earth. Once again, feeling so grateful and so blessed.
PICTURES TO FOLLOW.
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