San Blas and beyond

San Blas and beyond.

 

The weather was beautiful leaving Isla Isabel on the way to San Blas. The sail was peaceful and relaxing all the way to just before we went through the breakwater of San Blas harbor. This is a small, very small harbor up a natural estuary (river). It is shallow and the entrance is a bar crossing that has breaking waves even at high tide. On top of that, the sand bar shifts and it is recommended to anyone that is not familiar to call the Capitania de Puerto and ask for a local guide as they know the depth and location of the channel.

 

Well, guess what, it was a holiday, our Spanish still is not the greatest, people line the beach, breakwater, river banks, etc and the wind is now at about 15 knots on our port beam, the wind and chop are shoving us a round pretty bad. It's at the bottom of low tide, and you could surf the breaking waves over that sand bar at the entrance. We have never been here before, never came through such a small breakwater entrance, can't raise anybody on the radio for a guide, so we decide to...wait for it...that's right, we decide to just go for it. This is supposed to be a great place, it'll be worth it.

 

We head for the entrance, the wind and chop pushing us side ways, breakers just off our port and a breakwater just off our starboard. I was so close to the breakwater that a guy with a fishing pole started reeling in so I wouldn't run over his line. People are staring at us, I'm watching everything (my neck hurt afterwards) and I look down at the death meter and see 7ft, holy shit, I start doing redneck math (I had my shoes off), our depth transducer is about 18 inches below the waterline, maybe a little more, that makes it about 5 and a half foot deep. Our draft is 5 and a half foot, SHIT! Not much else to do then keep going right? Right, we never ran aground but shit I was nervous, but hey, never let'm see you sweat, right. We head up the river a couple miles (while watching the depth meter show 7-9-13-10-8-7-CRAP) to where the cruising books show a marina with and anchorage area dredged out. We round the slight bend, see a few sailboats to the right (nice little Marina, about 15 or so slips and boat yard area). Right near the entrance we see birds on the water, wait, their not on the water, their in the water, as in standing on a sand bar and I can see their legs. Ok, not going in there, we take quick look around and the river current (about 2 knots) pushes back down river a bit. We got it figured out and anchored in a low tide depth of 7 feet with enough room to swing so we don't wind up on the sand bar or the mangrove trees when the tide changes and the water starts to flow up river.

Now for the bugs, every thing we read said the bugs, mostly Mosquitos and Hey hey nays (I think that's how you spell it, also know as no-see-ums), were prolific around sunset and sunrise. No problem, Becky had bought some screen net material and elastic to make bug screens so we were prepared. Plus we had a few kinds of repellant. WE GOT EATEN ALIVE, even me who rarely gets a bug bite, it looked like we had chickenpox.

 

 

We did walk into town and look for the Capitania's office, it was closed. We also went by the local cultural center and the church of the famed bells of San Blas. We were told that this is the best place to find beadwork done by the local Indians so we went in search for the market area. Small market no where near the size of the one in Mazatlan but neither is the town. Speaking of the town, it is quaint and has hotels and shops. What we saw was mostly Mexicans on vacation, and I think we were 2 of maybe 10 gringos in the town. There are also jungle tours you can take up the rivers here to see the wildlife, like crocodiles, but we chose not to, we were bitten enough and left after a couple days. All that said, San Blas is worth the stop and the marina, although small, was nice and there is another spot to anchor outside the harbor if the swell is right (it wasn't for us). So, for us, been there, got the bug bites, we will be bypassing San Blas next time.

 

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