So far the record is seven years – I met a German who said had spent seven years in the San Blas and not left the islands even for a day. There are said to be 365 of them and the climate is perfect all the year round (you do get a few rain squalls in the summer but they soon pass).

Mind you, that’s not for me. I wouldn’t want to stay in the same place… although I’ve just realised I’ve been at Bug Island for a week now. Originally, I had plans to move the anchor to a better spot now that there are only nine boats in an anchorage which will comfortably accommodate 50. But somehow I find I can’t be bothered.

It’s not really called Bug Island. The Guna people of the region call it Banedup and there aren’t really any bugs. The anchorage is “The Swimming Pool” because, being surrounded on all sides by reefs and islands covered in palm trees, it is as calm as a swimming pool.

Part of the island’s attraction is Ibin’s Beach Bar and Restaurant, a collection of ramshackle huts – some on stilts in the shallows (some of the tables are in the shallows too, but not on stilts.) People come from all over the world to get married on the beach at sunset, party until dawn and then crash out in the camping hut. It’s such an institution, it even has it’s own entry on Google Maps:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Banedup/@9.5831643,-78.6738236,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!1m7!3m6!1s0x8e54f98970b98ed1:0xdfdee27232697c5!2sBanedup!8m2!3d9.5831643!4d-78.6712487!16s%2Fg%2F11mvmzdhmd!3m5

!1s0x8e54f98970b98ed1:0xdfdee27232697c5!8m2!3d9.5831643!4d-78.6712487!16s%2Fg%2F11mvmzdhmd?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDMxMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

But after the revellers depart in the high-speed lanchas back to Porvenir (which is just big enough for a miniature airport) the sailors take over again. The other night 18 of us gathered for barbecued lobster.

So, like the wedding guests, I wasn’t up very early the next morning – but that’s e beauty of life in the islands: I had plenty of things to do, just nothing that I abasolutely had to do. There are still three weeks before I fly back for the family skiing holiday (that’s if Donald Trump doesn’t invade Panama first.)

For instance, I needed to find out what was wrong with the battery for the electric dive system. This is a floating pump connected to a 10m hose and a diving regulator – a lot less bulky than SCUBA gear on a small boat. Yesterday, I spent the best part of an hour cleaning the weed and barnacles off the bottom before the battery expired. Now I just needed another ten minutes to finish up, but after four hours on charge, the LED status showed four red lights. Surely, that should be  four green lights. I started looking for the instructions.

Looking for things on a boat really is one of the most useful activities. To begin with, I looked in the chart table. I keep the instructions in two plastic folders – one for mechanical devices, one for electrical. But now so much stuff is electrical – and the instructions are so much more extensive that they’ve taken over the mechanical folder as well.

Besides, there were instructions in there for stuff I threw out years ago. Also, it seems that Arnold the Rat had paid a visit because a lot of it was in small pieces – and what was eggshell doing in the chart table?

Anyway, no instructions for the dive system.

I did find some rubber wedges that really ought to be in Toolbox #5 under the foot of the starboard berth – and that in turn led to some elasticated Velco I’d forgotten about which might do for immobilising the Aries when the Remigo outboard is on its bracket. I really should look for things more often. It’s important to know where stuff is – who knows when I’ll need to find the headsail luff feeder in a hurry?

Also I found the sieve – a bit late, admittedly – I bought another in Puerto Lindo. But I never did find the instructions for the dive system. It was only after a whole afternoon of unexpected discoveries that it  dawned on me they might have instructions online.

That’s how I learned that four red lights means “fully charged”. They don’t do green lights (where’s the logic in that?) So I went over the side again to finish up the bottom (although I have a sneaky suspicion the weed was re-attaching itself as soon as I looked the other way). Never mind, I sawed a bit off one side of the boarding ladder to make it level and then decided to reward myself with a beer at Ibin’s – I could order fresh bread for breakfast tomorrow at the same time.

The beer turned into a beer and a Piña Colada – although, as cocktails go it wasn’t much to write home about on the family WhatsApp group. This meant I had to stop at the beach bar opposite the anchorage for a proper one.

And now I’ve woken up at three o’clock in the morning finding that I never actually went to bed and the washing up’s still in the sink.

Never mind, tomorrow is another day in Paradise…

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