Christmas in San Blas

Left: Sidewinder in her holiday finery, David with his dorado.
Below: Excerpts from an e-mail from Suzi received on the morning of Dec. 25-
We are still in San Blas with the plan of leaving in a couple of days. We started Christmas Eve with Richard and Virginia, rowing into the little yacht harbor where we were given a slip to help us after having welding done at the fuel dock. We had a nice Çhristmas Eve dinner at Mike McDonald's restaurant and there was another large table full of cruisers who are also anchored in the estuary. We have been the only boat in the harbor, since they just opened on Tuesday. David's gift from them was a blow up crocodile so that he could slowly rid himself of his terrible fear of crocodiles. We will include pictures this afternoon when David comes into town with me. We swam in the tiny pool at the harbor facility and then took showers. We went down to the boat and made margueritas for starters, then walked into town. After dinner we made our way to the basilica and attended a very unorganized Catholic mass (just the beginning of it actually) complete with a stray dog walking ahead of the priest when he entered to begin the ceremony. The streets were packed with children and families partying, still trying to sell goodies for presents, selling food, and enjoying the little carnival in the town square. The entire town was going crazy and the night air was filled with different kinds of music. They love their music. As we walked back to the boat, we enjoyed strolling by the many parties full of excited children and festive families. The partying continued on into the wee hours of Christmas morning. It was a bit different than what I had expected (a somewhat more spiritual Christmas Carol experience ) but it was very fun feeling the festivities.

Christmas day was filled with David working to polish the welding work, me doing laundry at the facility (another funny story) and finally, a hike with Richard and Virginia up to the old Spanish fort and basilica where Longfellow wrote his famous poem of the San Blas Bells. It felt great to hike. We found a shortcut up through a hillside neighborhood on a jungly path straight up the hill and then took the road back down through other neighborhoods. We stopped for an afternoon beer and smoked fish snack. We made our way back to the boat where David was waiting. He took the afternoon off, and we cleaned up for Christmas dinner on Mandy. David and I motored over, boarded, and were met with Christmas music, good smells, and a tiny tree Virginia had decorated with shells and earrings. Wish I had a picture of it. Sidewinder, too, has Christmas LED lights which are very beautiful and I think we all did a great job of being in the spirit and the moment!

Excerpts from an e-mail received on the evening of Dec. 26:
David and I came into town this afternoon around 5 and are still hangin' like everyone else in the square. After siesta the town comes back to life. It's quite fun to watch the people and pick up on the energy here. There are lots of cruiser families here right now and they are also fun to talk to.

Suzi then goes on to describe a jungle cruise; I am still waiting for the photos that were to accompany this e-mail. - K.
The boat ride started early in the morning at 7:30 and we were the first boat to leave the dock. We glided through the inky mangroves and began spotting birds right away: a forest pelican, Pico de Bole, an Angringa, king fishers, a Calandia Nest, Blue Herons, egrets, a Tiger Heron. The falcon (or Hawk) was a snail eater called a Tego Colo. As we moved through the terrain, the vegetation went from mangroves to grasses, along pastureland, and then wound into the jungles along pastureland. We saw three crocodiles in the wild, along with turtles and beautiful blooming red bromeliads in the exotic trees and spider lilies lining the shore. Our boat stopped at a small parque where they raised crocodiles. It was amazing to see crocs really close. Richard was quite amused by David's fear of crocs, and we laughed a lot at croc jokes. We stopped at a beautiful freshwater spring as well and enjoyed our magical morning immensely. As we wound our way home, we saw many boats and were thankful for the tranquility of the early morning ride. We spotted a baby crocodile who seemed to be smiling as we ended our adventure in the wild.

We hitched a ride into town for an e-mail session and caught a taxi back out to Matanchen Bay in time to have a magnificent plateful of fish, shrimp, and octopus made with garlic and yummy sweet hot sauce served with fresh tortillas, rice, guacamole and chips along with cold crisp Pacificos. We were all stuffed by the time we hopped into the dinghy to motor back to our boats for sunset. The pictures of us at the restaurant say so little of how special the on-the-beach restaurants are on the bay. Fun times!!!