San Blas Islands, Part 3

by KARIS

February 28, 2022

What a difference a day makes. We left the anchorage early yesterday, as soon as the sun illuminated the water enough to see the bottom. We had to navigate through a shallow, narrow reef out of the anchorage, hugging sailboats to one side and coral to the other. Luckily, we were able to watch a couple of other catamarans and follow them out. After a few minutes of motoring, we had our first positive sailing experience; broad reach with around 12 knots of wind most of the way, protected by the outer reefs. We needed that. We arrived at a super populated anchorage, which was fine by us. We weren’t used to solitude yet and were ready for some social interaction. We slithered between a couple big catamarans, set the hook, let out every last link of chain, and prayed to Poseidon.

As luck would have it, as we backed down on our anchor we found ourselves parallel to another Lagoon 56 just like ours. We were closer than I wanted to be but the anchor set for the first time ever, so there was no talking Mike and Ryan into moving forward. It wasn’t as if we were going to drift into the other boat, it just felt like an invasion of privacy. The captain of their boat didn’t seem too interested in us, but when the two charter guests got back from the beach, a guy and a girl in their early thirties, they were visibly pissed. They kept looking over at us, gesturing to their captain, and shaking their heads. The girl scooped up her designer chicken (that’s right, she had a chicken that she apparently took with her on vacation) and walked haughtily to the front of the boat with her pet. The guy stripped down naked and then, in an act of raw, animalistic dominance, presented all of us with his (not designer by any means) cock. Unbelievable. We air-toasted him with our beers and continued to clean the boat.

Overnight our anchor alarm went off a few times but we only slid a few feet. By sunrise, things got more serious as the anchor appeared to let go of its holding, and we had to pull our anchor and reset it in 25 knots of wind. Thankfully, Ryan was at the helm and was characteristically steady and calm. I found it quite stressful. We ended up about 60 feet in front of our original position. When the captain of the neighboring cock boat came out in the morning, he glanced around frantically. When he saw we were so far ahead of him, he assumed he had dragged. He quickly pulled anchor and left the anchorage. Karma.

The surrounding beaches were full of twenty-somethings playing volleyball and taking selfies. It looked like a tropical version of Google's main campus. We snorkeled through what Sloane called “a garden” of coral. I wished I could have enjoyed it a little longer, but once Sloane insisted on climbing into my back, it took everything I had to kick my way to the edge of the reef without crushing it. We had a late lunch at the neighboring island in a restaurant on stilts over the reef. There was a ten by ten hole in the middle of the dock where we could sit with our legs dangling and watch the vibrant sea life below. We ate whole fried snapper and patacones and washed it down with two bottles of wine. We dinghied back to our boat, guided by the stars and our anchor light, feeling so grateful for this little life of ours.

We’ve been talking a lot about this adventure - whether or not we feel more or less anxious at sea than we were at home, whether this is all living up to our expectations. It's a mixed bag so far. I feel really good. Really happy. Significantly stressed, but not anxious. I like that it feels like we’re on a team, working together, worrying about things that actually matter. I like that my adrenal response is actually working as biology intended it to, as opposed to reacting to text or email notifications on my cell phone. I was pretty worried about the kids until today. They were all feeling sad, homesick, missing friends. But today something changed. They played some imaginary game together on the island for hours and it was like they were in the zone. No fighting. No boredom. Just living in the moment. It felt like this was the life-affirmation I was really hoping would come. I needed that after the way the morning went. No one wanted to do school. Trinity freaks out whenever something is new or challenging. I really hope that is some kind of phase. It's hard not to take it personally, especially now that we are the only influences in her life on a daily basis.

Ryan tells me he is struggling too. He says he feels lonely, and I think he means, like, really alone. Because we are. We went from having family, neighbors, coworkers and friends to floating in a sea of distant strangers who most likely don’t even speak our language. I don’t know if it will be enough for him out here. Enough to fill him up and quiet his mind. Only time will tell. He and Mike are starting to work more as a team which has to be super fulfilling - their friendship is undergoing a huge shift as they learn to balance egos and trust each other with their lives.

I’m trying not to analyze anything too much. We are still in a transition period. It feels like we need to give it all more time to shake out, for all of us to get into the routine of life on the water and to find ourselves out here. There is so much to be grateful for, so much that is absolute soul fulfilling perfection. And then there are moments of terror. But there isn’t much in between, which is interesting. Because on land, we lived in that middle space most of the time.