Monday, 18 January Nargana island

Today we scooted over to Nargana island which is just off the mainland. It's quite a big village with 400 people, some stores selling vegetables and provisions and International phone boxes. Our friend Michele is flying out on Friday to join us for a couple of weeks and we needed to let her know we are here and will be waiting at the airport. We've been without internet since Cartagena and won't have it again until we reach Porta Belo 40 miles on from the San Blas, or Kuna Yale as the indigenous people call their land. Politically and geographically Kuna Yale belongs to Panama. However, they were granted autonomy to govern without interference. Each village has a chief and sub chiefs, committees and a s trict set of laws to maintain the way of life making them one of the most unaltered tribes in South America (although I believe Panama is more correctly Central America).
We bought our Cable & Worthless phone card (no SIM cards available today) and chatted to Michele. We're realy looking forward to having her as a guest and have been busy preparing for her visit and planning where we are going to go and what we'll be doing. I spoke to my parents and while I sweated in the midday sun, they described the snow that's covering the UK and how people have been advised to stay indoors and not to travel. David spoke to his brother in law to let them know we are OK. And then we used our last few cents of credit to recall Michele and ask her to bring us an electric jug kettle. Ours died this week and we don't when we will next come across a 220V appliance as this is seems to be unique to European countries. An Englishman needs his electric kettle to go with the English PG Tips tea bags Michele is also bringing.

After our phone calls and lunch with the local school teacher we went back to Jackster, picked up the anchor and sailed on to the beautiful Kanlidup, or Green island, which is much prettier than Nargana village. The water here is crystal clear, warm and invites you in to snorkel. We swam to the beach and then walked all around the island. No one lives here. There's a hut for the people who come out to tend the coconut trees and lots of spiders and crabs in the undergrowth.
We slept peacefully with water lapping on the hull, windows open to catch the breeze and looking up at a starry sky.