Week 65: San Blas (20nm)

A second week of cruising this remote archipelago included some relaxing days exploring a couple of anchorages before being crowned by an impressive Thanksgiving celebration with friends Yanell, Missy, Stephen and Lisa.

Captain’s log

23rd Nov: We spent a quiet day on some boat jobs and envying Stephen as he sailed around the bay in their recently renovated sailing dinghy (one of their many pieces of water sports equipment). Then spent a jovial evening aboard Azimuth where Lisa prepared her newly discovered pressure cooked conch curry, which saves an awful lot of energy not having to tenderise the conch.

24th Nov: Laura earned herself some brownie points making a few running repairs to Azimuth’s bimini (which was even more tired that our old one), after they had complimented her recent sewing handiwork aboard Serenity. We’d hoped to have a bonfire on the beach, and maybe even find some lobster to cook, but our prey eluded us and lots of mini rainstorms arrived in the late afternoon, which forced a literal raincheck.

25th Nov: The wind picked up overnight and the the lack of room in the Coco’s was becoming stressful, so we made the short jump down to Green Island (after discovering a stowaway squid in the engine strainer!). It seemed to be a smart move as over the next few hours we were joined by five more boats (busy by San Blas standards), and we were all grateful for the space and protection during a highly unsettled and squally night

26th Nov: Azimuth came down to Green in search of some calm water having spent what sounded like a very uncomfortable night in the Cocos. The visibility was poor and so we spent a quiet day aboard, other than a brief dip to cool off in the afternoon. Laura later remembered that there was meant to be a crocodile at Green Island, and promised to try and deliver this sort of useful information in a more timely fashion at future anchorages!

27th Nov: Hoodoo sent us a WhatsApp whilst in Colon to advertise the turkey in their possession, and so we’d made plans to rendezvous in the East Lemmon Cays for Thanksgiving. This is a popular cruiser spot, presumably due to the presence of a fairly ramshackle bar on one of the islands, and we enjoyed catching up there over a few beers.

28th Nov: Azimuth turned out to be mutual friends of Hoodoo, and so they were persuaded to join us for Thanksgiving, which we hosted aboard Serenity (see Story of the Week below)

29th Nov: Spent a quiet day recovering from the previous day’s indulgences and waiting for the weather to improve so that we could head back out to some of the more remote islands.

Story of the week

Upon realising that we would be halfway through our stay in the San Blas for Thanksgiving this year, Laura had resigned herself to a muted celebration given the challenges of sourcing fresh meat and produce, and the constraints of cooking in a boat galley.

But that all changed when we got the text from Hoodoo announcing they had sourced a turkey crown during their run to Colon, and asking if we were down to try and pull together something substantial for the holiday. Upon comparing store cupboards, we found that we had most of the bases covered:

All that was missing (apart from perhaps a couple more potatoes) was stuffing, and that was when we remembered Lisa on Azimuth had been hoarding some stuffing for a special occasion. They were on a nearby island when we met up with Hoodoo on Thanksgiving Eve, so we reached out and asked if Lisa would be willing to join us the next day for the reasonable price of one bowl of stuffing. She initially demurred given a lack of sausage that was apparently essential, but Hoodoo were able to solve this code red emergency with a pack of Lidl chorizo – we were good to go!

We offered to host the meal itself on Serenity seeing as we were contributing the least and also had the most propane in the group to fuel the turkey oven. All the other dishes were prepared across the boats, and then around 5pm everyone dinghied over to Serenity for a sundowner before the meal. Azimuth had even managed to scrounge a few more spuds (which solved what was otherwise going to be some stringent mash rationing) and Hoodoo took the culinary award for the home made crispy onions on their green bean casserole.

What followed was a unique Thanksgiving experience that was only enhanced by the confines of the yacht environment, as it just made all the efforts everyone had made with the food that much more remarkable. Laura did a great job on the turkey despite the challenges of cooking in an oven without a reliable thermometer, and everyone finished the meal fittingly stuffed. We also reconfirmed our long standing hypothesis that there is nothing that chorizo cannot be added to and not enhance it.

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The evening finished with a couple of rounds of the ‘traditional’ board game of Secret Hitler (in which the novice fascists managed an impressive 2-0 victory) before we moved back to the cockpit for some stories and stargazing. My request for a round of ‘what are you thankful for’ was aggressively torpedoed by the Americans (apparently that only happens in the movies?), but we all agreed we were thankful we had made the effort to put together such a fun evening of food with friends.

Parting thoughts

The longer Laura and I spend afloat, the more we realise how important it is to initiate or maintain some external relationships with the cruisers around us. Whilst we’ve been forced to get better at spending time as just the two of us, and we do our best to stay connected to friends and family back home, the cruising community fills a really important gap of face-to-face friendships and the socialising we did around Thanksgiving in terms of planning and then coming together really underscored this for me.

It seems counter intuitive in some ways as the move towards digital friendships and social media would suggest that isolation should no longer be a difficult problem for those that sail (provided some internet connection can be maintained). But our experience has taught us the value of having local community (even if the friendships are relatively new or known to be temporary), and I suspect that this will be a lesson that serves us well once this cruising adventure comes to an end in (what is now!) less than a years’s time.