Tropical Paradise of San Blas

While we await the arrival of our next round of guests Don and I are enjoying our time alone, the first in four months of constant company and traveling. We are now anchored in the beautiful island group known as the Eastern Lemon Cays where our daily view includes palm trees, sandy beaches, clear water, and the occasional visiting ulu with a lobster or coconut for sale. Definitely paradise. The only thing on the agenda today is which book to read, making sure there is plenty of beer on ice, and putting out the buckets to catch the almost daily occurence of rain as it is now officially the “wet” season. Better known as hurricane season in the Eastern Caribbean, here in the west we are safely out of the hurricane belt but still subject to the torrential tropical wetness. Great for laundry and excellent for mold, my vinager bottle is loaded and ready.

Ulus are the usual form of inter-island transportaion in the San Blas, although there are larger motorized pangas for net fishing, long distance travel and tourists. Made from a single log and sporting sails made of cloth, plastic tarps, old flags, bed sheets or any other useful material, paddled and poled by hand, an ulu underway is a visual reminder of the traditional way of life still very much in evidence here. But then out comes the cellphone and charger along with a polite request for a few minutes charge time on our house batteries.  Paradise with a modern twist.

Getting wet was a priority after the brown muck of Colombia, even for Daisy, and snorkeling is of course my favorite water activity.



Pillow starfish, sea anemones, and an aero crab where among the many creatures spied and caught by my camera. But this elusive brittle starfish refused to poke its head out from its tube sponge home no matter how long I hovered!