I wanted to go ashore, but it was a tender port and they didn't open tenders to crew until 1:45. It was a 20 minute tender ride and I had to be to work at 3:00 so I figured by the time I changed and took the tender in I would have maybe fifteen minutes before I had to come back and get back into uniform. On top of that, I hadn't had lunch (I had to hand out tender tickets) so I decided to just go get some lunch and then go up to the sports deck to take pictures. I hear I didn't miss a whole lot – no restaurants, no shops, no tours.
The view from the ship was incredible, but the most interesting thing were the canoes that sailed out to the ship (we were quite a ways out) and sat on the side of the ship begging for money.
There were probably a dozen canoes with four to six people in each screaming, “Money, money, money!” People were standing on the lower levels throwing coins into the water and the kids were diving in and fighting over them. I think one of the cadets put it best , “I feel like a complete [insert your favorite British profanity] letting them fight over a nickel.” I guess standing on the sport's deck watching them wasn't much better, but I found it somewhat fascinating. I mean, San Blas is a small community without a lot of modern infrastructure, it is not considered to be poverty stricken. I was told by those who went ashore that every hut has a satellite dish on top. The other thing I noticed was that there were no adults in the canoes, all the people were boys between the ages of about ten and fourteen. I don't know if they were working for someone, or they were trying to earn money for themselves, or if they were truly begging for their families (based on the evidence, I don't think it was a latter but I could be wrong). Whatever the case, I did feel bad for them but I don't think that throwing a nickel or two for several dozen kids to fight over is going to help anyone.
