When we climbed onto the boat (and paid our boat driver freaking $10 - another hidden cost gggrrrrr), we met our company for the next 5 days... So:
- Sym: captain and owner of Gypsy Moth, British, one of ten!! Cool man, strict about not using too much water and electricity on the boat, great captain! Super happy to have found his namesake (me) haha...
- Amy: wife of Sym and owner of Gypsy Moth, Welsh, 30?!?! (We were all so shocked when she revealed this - literally looks closer to 40...) Good to chat to! On a diet...
- Hallie: 2 year old daughter of Sym and Amy, very much a brat but it's due to, in my opinion, "modern parenting" (she needs a fat slap to set her straight!!), despises her baby brother, bites chunks of his hair out, goes through our things... Not cool!
- Maddox: 1 year old son of Sym and Amy, cutest little blonde bundle of sunshine!! Stole everyone's heart on the boat...
- Brett: Only other guy on the boat, Ozzie from Melbourne, dating Aoife (say "eeeefffer"), works from contract to contract to enable him to travel for months at a time.
- Aoife: Brett's girlfriend, Irish living in Oz now, waitresses in order to have the flexibility to save money and travel, gorgeous!
- Renee: Ozzy girl, traveling through Central and South America with her friend Kylie.
- Kylie: Ozzy girl, traveling through Central and South America with her friend Renee.

K! So our first day- we were exhausted! Haha... Had not slept at all so we were pushing on 36 hours of being awake... Amy cooked us some chicken and we had chicken wraps for lunch. At this stage we were docked by one of the San Blas islands - not much going on there- it's where the immigration peeps hang out... After lunch we all passed out while we sailed onto the next island! Felt better after having slept a bit! Once we anchored at the next island, we basically had the afternoon to swim and snorkel and do whatever- we were docked for the night! The San Blas islands are absolutely gorgeous! Honestly exactly what you see in photos and postcards of the Caribbean... We jumped into the water and swam across to the island... Tons of sand flies unfortunately so we were getting bitten like crazy (apparently the bites can appear many hours later which would explain the continuous itching through the night) so we found a spot to just chill in the water and literally just admire the beauty surrounding us! Sym, Amy and the kids came to join us.. There was no fee at this island but we had to pay to use the loo... ;) We honestly sat in the water for hours and then made our way back to the boat... We just sat out at the front of the boat and the sunset show began! It was incredible! The colours in the sky were unbelievable and it just got better and better the more time went on... Eventually everyone was back on the boat and we popped open some champagne which we brought and just toasted to a pretty good life!! That night, Sym cooked us delicious salmon for dinner and we had such a fun evening at the back of the boat just getting to know each other and laughing tons... We played a dice game (basically like "bull s***" but with dice instead of cards) - too funny because Sym is so competitive and he got solidly beaten! We were all well ready for bed by the end of the day so off we went... What a stunning start to our sailing adventure!!

Lesson of the day: Buy water at the supermarket the morning after you haven't slept, not pretzels!!

Moment of the day: The mind blowing sunset in the San Blas islands...