San Blas Islands, Panama - Day 3

August 4, 2016

Today, was a beautiful morning! The rain had passed and we had a lovely sunrise.

The morning plane arrived and took off as is the rhythm of the island every day.

Breakfast was a slice of cheese and sliced ham and some bread. The juice was Maracuya (Passion fruit). I don’t normally care for it as it can be sour, but this was quite tasty.

Since it was such a pretty day we went around the island and reshot our photos since the first day was overcast and the photos weren’t as nice. Then, we relaxed on the deck until the conch was blown for the morning snorkel.

 our cabana

 photo taken from our cabana

 restaurant & bar

 new people arriving for breakfast - just off the plane

 immature Grackle

 Kuna men fishing

 dock area

 beach on Yandup

 Kuna man fishing

 Tropical Kingbird

 inside another cabana (not over the ocean)

 

 solar panels

 our cabana

 our cabana

 door to our cabana

 Greg on the walkway

 my toes waiting for the sound of the conch

 waiting for the sound of the conch

Domi said since he forgot his snorkel gear last time and the island that we went to before is the best, we would return to the same island if we didn't mind. Only 2 of us were going to snorkel, except for 1 woman that asked if she could join us since her husband doesn’t snorkel and she doesn’t like to snorkel alone. We snorkeled out and I looked back since I didn’t see that woman and she was on the beach. So, Domi lead us to some of the same places we had snorkeled before and then out to some different areas we didn’t find. He went down and showed us urchins & shells. He also pointed out a conch shell. Then, as we are watching it I see this eel like thing wrap around it. Then, I see the creature that was trying to eat the conch was actually an octopus. Domi went down and took the conch away and put it just out of reach so the octopus had to come out to get it and we got really good views of it. Domi actually took the conch away from it several times when finally the octopus wrapped 2 of his tentacles around it and hugged it to itself. Later Domi came across a pretty good sized crab.

 Kuna men fishing - seen from the boat ride to the island

 Domi showing us an urchin

 Flounder

 Sharpnose Puffers

 Sharpnose Puffers

 Squid

 Squid

 Squid

 Octopus, Conch & fish

 Octopus, Conch & fish

Octopus, Conch & fish 

 Octopus, Conch & fish

 crab

 crab

We snorkeled through thousands of small fish and saw a lot of corals and beautiful fish.

 almost solid small fish

After about an hour and a half we snorkeled back to shore. I said to Greg I thought that lady was going to come out with us. He said Domi told her “no”. I think it was a miscommunication (language gap) because if she was able to snorkel out there she was free to come along. For everyone staying on Yandup English was a second language (if understood at all). Except us of course. We were hearing French, Portuguese, Spanish (from Spain) and possibly German or something close to it. We had an hour left before the boat left so we snorkeled back out to the reef.

I was starving after all the snorkeling and as luck would have it the fried whole fish served at lunch was too strong for me to eat. It did come with a mound of white rice. I knew fish was served every day at both lunch & dinner, but the reviews said that most people, even if they didn’t like fish did OK, so I didn’t request to have something other than fish. Just in case I had issues with the food I had packed some peanut butter crackers so they came in handy. (as did the Oreos) Honest, we don't normally eat Oreos every day)

Then, we snorkeled from the beach there and were delighted it was really decent snorkeling as well. There were some friendly damselfish that kept photo bombing Greg’s Go Pro and kept coming up to me and checking out my fingers.

 sea cucumber

Our afternoon excursion was the visit to their farms. We walked on the airport runway until it ran out and then followed the wet and muddy path past the farms. We saw a couple of birds. There was also a farmer that wanted to be buried in “mother earth” on his farm and we visited his grave.

 boat ride to the mainland to visit the farms

 arrival at the village

 school kids practicing their sports on the runway of the airport

 a futbol field of course!

 Yuca plants (Cassava)

 Greg on the path

 nursery of plants

 farmer at the nursery

 grave site

 me on the bridge

 returning via the runway

 passing by the village on the way back to Yandup

Dinner was crab & chopped veggies again with some root vegetables that were very good. The only desert that wasn’t fruit was served tonight….Jello. (yes, we had one pack of Oreos left).

We had a nice sunset at dinner: 

We packed up after dinner as we needed to wake up at 5:00 A.M to get breakfast of bread and jam before taking the boat ride to Playon Chico. (hey, it was better than 2:45 A.M.)

It was a very nice day and we again fell asleep with the sounds of the waves. I forgot to mention that every night you could hear the drums from Playon Chico Village. They were soft, but in the background and didn't continue very late. We said we wished we'd booked one more night.

Greg is almost done editing the snorkel video and I'll include the link in my next post.