Santiago Bay

A funny thing happens to cruisers when they reach a destination they like. It becomes more difficult to leave every day. Once the alertness that must be kept during the passage making and the stress in getting the anchor down and set is over it is time to relax for a bit before venturing out to see what cool things the new location has to offer. Here, in Santiago Bay, as with most anchorages, there are good and challenging things both.
Good: The protection we get from the mountains around us usually keeps the rolling to a minimum. While we love the feel of the ocean under the boat, having to use handholds to get from one place in the boat to another…while we are anchored…gets old pretty fast.
The small number of boats here has given us the chance to get to know the folks on them better than at a popular anchorage where there are a lot of boats.
The water here is teeming with life so we have lots of fish and birds around all the time. We’ve also seen a turtle and, one day, a mama Humpback Whale was in the Bay all day long with her new baby.
Challenging: We seem to have regressed on our beach landing ability and have wiped out enough times that our confidence levels are a bit compromised.
There are no water taxis here so everything must go to and from the beach by dinghy (see above).
We have no internet access here so must go to the beach and ride the bus to town to get to an Internet Café to send/receive email.
There are no laundry, propane, fuel or grocery services close by so all of that must be managed via dinghy to/from the beach and taxi or bus to town and back. It is pretty much an all day project.
What all this means is that once you have done all the research and located all the needed facilities the place has started to feel comfortable…like “home”…and the desire to go somewhere new dies down. It comes back again but sometimes it takes a while. Fortunately, everywhere we go it is still sunny, warm and beautiful with soft sand beaches and swaying palm trees. Santiago is no different.