Yesterday morning we arrived in the San Blas Islands. The last two days to the San Blas we had little wind and the speed was going down to 3 knots but that was okay. Otherwise we would have arrived at night anyway, so we just waited till some wind came again, and it came! Well, together with thunderstorms and very hard rain. We had been having some lighting the last two nights but always pretty far away and without thunder. Then the sky turned black and the wind picked up as the lighting and the thunder came closer and closer. Bruno decided to stay safely inside and look after the little bird that flew into the cockpit before it got dark.I was reefing my main in the pouring rain when a huge flash landed in the water about 300 feet away from Guppy. The thunderstorms were all around us so there wasn’t anything we could do other than just wait til it would be over again. As it finally got light, I could see the little palm tree islands again, same ones as I saw last year, and it felt reallynice to see something I already knew. Last time I came in with rain and a lot of wind. This time I came in with thunderstorms and even more rain but less wind, as it had calmed down a little. We were really tired so we went to sleep as soon as we dropped anchor. At night the lightning and thunderstorms came back again so I couldn’t sleep as well as I had hoped for, but in the morning everything was gone and the nice sun that I remembered from last year came back. Iwent snorkeling and cleaned up the mess in Guppy. I think I will stay here a few days before I head over to Panama to get through the canal for a second time in my life.

Laura