This was our last day in Guna Yala. Fortunately, we had arranged to spend most of the day in San Blas and wouldn’t be leaving until the afternoon. That would give us time to visit a couple more special spots before heading back to Panamá City.

This was our third morning on the boat, and we had begun to develop a bit of a routine. We enjoyed another breakfast of cereal, coffee, and wonderful fresh fruit.

After breakfast, we set off for a couple of nearby excursions with Marcelino in the dingy.

Our first destination was a natural “pool” in the ocean, where the sandy ocean floor rose so that the water was just a couple of feet deep.

This was also a great place to find red cushioned sea stars.

We enjoyed exploring the shallow waters to find star fish.

Our next stop was an adorably tiny island surrounded by yet another exceptional coral reef.

This was our fourth snorkeling trip of our visit, and we once again enjoyed diving down to get better looks at the marine life.

We were all excited to see how Julie’s confidence had grown. She started the trip using a pool noodle to snorkel, but now she was diving down like the rest of us.

And the marine life continued to amaze us. We all loved seeing the incredibly bright young yellowtail damselfish (which apparently don’t get yellow tails until they are older).

This was also the first time that we spotted any lionfish.

It turns out the rarity of lionfish was a good thing, since they are an invasive species from the Pacific. Marcelino told us that there used to be contests in San Blas to see who could kill the most. However, the big stars of this snorkeling trip were not the flashy colorful fish. It was simple minnows. But they came in the thousands!

We made our way around the island and explored the small beach a bit. Marcelino found the shell of a huge heart urchin.

These fragile shells look a bit like a puffy sand dollar, which is also a type of urchin so I guess that makes sense. (Nerd facts!) Maybe the heart urchin was San Blas’s way of giving us a little bit of love on our way out. It was a wonderful morning, but it was time to go. We climbed back in the dingy and returned to the Yoli.

We showered on the back of the boat and packed up. Juliana and Marcelino had another incredible lunch prepared for us.

The octopus had been marinated and sautéed in oil and spices, and we also had some fresh fried fish that was delicious with key lime juice. After lunch, Alejandro, Juliana, and Marcelino opened a bottle of champagne, as we all toasted “iddomalando,” celebrating both Team Hubbard’s amazing time on the boat and Alejandro and Juliana’s first successful charter in San Blas. To take a group photo, Marcelino called over a friend from a nearby boat, highlighting once again that Marcelino knows everybody. Rather than saying “cheese,” we all yelled “Yoli!”

We can’t say enough good things about the crew. The experience they provided was simultaneously luxurious, authentic, and adventurous. Plus, they were personable and engaging, and we enjoyed their company as much as we enjoyed the experience they provided for us. One of the last things I did before leaving the boat was to put my watch back on, and it was as if the rhythm of time restarted. In writing this blog, I have referenced times and days in San Blas, but that’s a revisionist reconstruction using the time and date stamps from the photos. In living it, we had lost track of time, days, and concerns, confident that the crew was taking care of everything. Putting my watch back on, I started to think once again about schedules and logistics. It was unavoidable, but after our time in San Blas, the recompression hurt just a little bit.

Around 3 pm, a motorboat picked us up, and we waved goodbye to the Yoli. The rest of our trip back to Panamá City passed without incident. We checked into our hotel and cleaned up, enjoying the full facilities of an on-land bathroom but missing showering on the back of a boat. We enjoyed a final dinner at Casa Catedral, another restaurant in a beautiful old building (decorated with old cars for some reason).

We goggled at the prices for seafood on the menu – more than $50 for the spiny lobster, and we doubted it would be as good as those we ate in San Blas the night before.

We did make one little mistake this final evening. We had been waiting to buy some souvenirs until we our final night back in the city, but by the time we finished with dinner, everything was closed. Perhaps we were still readjusting to the passage of time. Oh well. I guess this just means we need to come back!

-Will