Eastern Holandes Cays - 09° 35.390’N & 78° 40.490’W
The spot where we anchored in the Holandes has been nicknamed ‘the swimming pool’. It's an extremely popular destination for those heading west from Cartagena and vice versa but, by doing so, any cruiser misses out on all that we’ve seen and experienced over the past two months. The eastern part of San Blas Islands are, to our minds, what the region of Kuna Yala is all about with its many traditional villages and islands. However it is a lovely haven and, as we were anchored in only three metres of incredibly clear water, we were able to see every grain of sand beneath us.
The smallest island is named BBQ Island where the cruising community has a get together every Monday evening for ‘pot luck’ sundowners but, unfortunately, we weren't around long enough to participate. We did, however, do some great snorkeling and saw our best collection of reef fish since Bonaire as well as beautiful sting rays gracefully jumping out of the water. Our stay was very short - we now have to get to Colon for provisioning and we have arranged to meet our friends who have brought my camera back from the States before they push on further westwards.
From here, we visited the western Holandes, the Lemmon Cays and another gorgeous spot, Chichime. These are the islands that will be easy to return to as they are only 40 nautical miles from Colon. We felt we would do them more justice once we’d taken a break back into civilization and stocked up a bit.
And so we left San Blas, journeyed to Isla Linton and laid anchor in the pretty little bay of Puerto Lindo…….
