Location: San Blas Islands
Day 29 on Vela began with our second day in the San Blas Islands. I woke the troops up with a rousing speech by Joey Diaz (google it if curious) 30 mins later than usual, and Fargo was busy cooking a hearty breakfast of bacon, egg, potatoes, bagels, and more. After breakfast was consumed in full, we had a local island tour which the guides wanted to do several hours early however, tom and smash fought them off as long as they could until we were taken and learned much about the history of the Sanablanians (I could see the gears in Dylan’s head-turning during the talk). When we first arrived, we were greeted by many saleswomen selling beautiful hand-sewn tapestries and other goods. I think they liked us in the end, as we bought out half of their stock. After the island, we went on a boat tour closer the mainland Panama where we saw locals fishing and the intertwined roots of a large stretch of mangroves. After the tour, we returned to the boat and finished off our rescue diver videos after having a lovely pasta salad for lunch. We consolidated our knowledge after the videos were watched by finishing the knowledge reviews while we were underway to a new part of the San Blas. We cruised for roughly 2 hours and anchored in a location called Holandes Cays, where everyone, excluding Charlie, due to the bone situation, swam. After our swim and ocean shower Steph taught an oceanography class on marine provinces, which included many provinces that we would be passing during our voyage. The day finished with dinner, followed by a leadership lesson taught by Ula and Tedward, where we learned about how leadership has changed through history and played a game where we had to guess who each leader was by asking questions. It got very competitive.