Re:
Provisioning in San Blas
While making our way towards the San Blas, we repeatedly heard from other cruisers that you can't provision there...better buy everything before you get there. This has certainly not been our first experience. After just a few days around Porvenir our stores overfloweth.
Here's what I've learned so far:
Local
boats drop by to sell lobster and
fish on almost a daily basis. I bought a large grouper and now we have
fish laid in for weeks. The lobster we have seen
for sale were all of
legal size and reasonably priced ($2 for a medium sized one)...unlike some venues where there are lots of small ones and at high prices.
A skiff from Miramar came by with an excellent selection of fresh produce. We loaded up because you don't find much produce in the local tiendas.
The local tiendas carry some basic, but important, stuff:
beer ($16 a case for Balboa), coffee, flour, rice, basic canned goods. As a bonus you get to mill around a Kuna village searching for tiendas among the tightly spaced structures.
Fits in with my
provisioning philosophy too: if you are going somewhere there are people then they gotta eat something...provision locally and fresh as part of the experience.