April 04 – April 30, 2026; 20932 nm and 2597 days after departure from La Rochelle

After three weeks of more or less being alone in the eastern San Bas islands it was nice to be back at Banedup. The first week happened to develop into a party week. The Sunday we arrived, Debbie had invited Paul and Suzette from Altaire and us for dinner (see feature pic). Altaire had surprisingly returned from their original plan to sail to Europe and we had just arrived in time to join. A great start to celebrate our birthdays. You might remember that Debbies (and Dogans) and mine were on the same day and Paul’s was only a day later. That counted for celebrating together! As you can imagine, we had a lot of fun and a lot to catch up on. It was great to be back with friends! And for the first time in ages we returned to Altimate at a time when we were normally cosy bedded and already lost in our sweet dreams.
Taka Tuka family, Bernie, Daniela, Julia and Janis had also arrived at the pool for a few days and had planned an easter potluck at Morrodup already the next day. Of course we were in for that too. Again it was wonderful to catch up with friends, especially when you thought you probably wouldn’t see them again. Like always it was a fun afternoon with good food, laughs and chats. The party week kept going on. The next event happened on Altimate. The giant king mackerel filets were still occupying our limited fridge capacity. Of course we were thrilled (and proud) to have caught that mackerel but for the two of us it was a big challenge to consume it all. Even though we had already eaten a lot we still had kilos of fish filet. But hey, what are sailor friends for? Exactly! They are there to help us finish our mackerel! So we invited Debbie, Dianne (who had also arrived at the pool) as well as Paul and Suzette for a fish dinner. Fortunately they were happy to help and did a great job! Yet, even though each of us ate what felt like a pound of fish fillet (plus of course side dishes), there was still a decent amount of fillet left. The Altimate crew was thinking : NOOOOOOO! No more fish please! Fortunately once again, our sailor friends stepped in and helped us. We were very grateful that Dianne and Altaire were willing to sacrifice themselves to take care of our last fish filets. Actually they appreciated having lunch for the next day and were happy to take it. But for us it really felt like a sacrifice. However, we were for sure done with fish for a while!

Only a day later we were again nicely surprised when suddenly Macera was back in the anchorage. Ilka, Dogan and kids had planned to follow us to Cartagena. They wanted to sail to Europe to spend time in Dogans home country Turkey. Unfortunately, but fortunately just in time before leaving the country, they found out that their kids passports were soon expiring. Leaving was postponed. They went to Linton until new passports were issued. It took a few weeks but now they were ready to move on. So cool to see each other unexpectedly again. We really thought we wouldn’t see them again any time soon. Maybe sometime in Europe, but for sure not in San Blas. So another potluck was organised to celebrate the reunion and, of course, our shared birthdays!!! Isn’t that fun?! Celebrating a birthday in many small bites – I liked that!!! We hadn’t even been back a week and yet we were able to enjoy another special day. What a week full of surprises! As happy as we were to see Marcera again as sad it was to see them leave. Having lost a few weeks while waiting for the passports they only left three days later to catch up some time. Off they were to Cartagena for a better angle to sail first to Turks and Caicos and then further north. After that last potluck the days went back to normal, we found time to snorkel and tried to revive our beloved volleybeer.

Even though there were many boats in the anchorage we didn’t get much response regarding volleybeer at first. Too many charter boats, no volleyball players. So we strolled around the island visited Ildi and Sven who were building their own dinghy from scratch and went to the south side of Banedup. There, the “Swing bar” as well as the nice volleyball court looked very inviting. With some tourists, charter boat captains and Gunas (who were happy to play and, even better, knew how to play!!!) we enjoyed our first volleyball match. So slowly volleybeer started to become a daily meeting event. The only different was that we had moved to the other side of the island. Meanwhile we had also slowly gotten in the typical San Blas pool groove. Taking it easy was the spirit. Originally we wanted to cruise around and not stay for weeks in the pool. But, somehow it just happened we were in that nice lazy happy flow condition. Snorkelling, cleaning, reading or sewing there was always something to do but it was always relaxed and ended with a nice volleyball evening. One day, Debbie had once again opened her hair dressing salon on Runner. Dianne and me took the opportunity and had the luxury to get our hair cut from someone who knows what she’s doing. We had a girly morning with some gossip and more important, with proper haircuts. Life can be so much fun!!

Time was passing pretty fast when having fun. Therefore it shouldn’t have but was kind of a surprise for us to realise that in only four weeks we would already fly out to Paris. That meant in about two weeks we would leave the San Blas probably for good. (Somehow nowadays you never know what will happen and we have all learned plans change, right?) Anyway we are super excited and thrilled to fly home. Seeing friends and family AND of course celebrating the wedding!!! My humble self is overexcited and is counting every single day until we leave. Even our friends in the pool were getting excited as I couldn’t and can’t stop talking about the wedding. Am I crazy? Maybe, but I don’t care!!!
Another exciting future happening which constantly delights us, is the upcoming crossing of the canal and sailing the Pacific. Since weeks Norbert is busy checking out wind and weather conditions as well as check in procedures, anchorages and and and for the Pacific. All that is so crazy exciting!!! Hopefully the world keeps turning normal in the future with all the shit (excuse my language) which is going on.
For now we keep enjoying our last days here! Enjoy whatever you do, too!!!