San Blas Islands – Diving - Fishing - San Blas Surfing

The San Blas Islands or comarca Kuna Yala of Panama are both one of the most fascinating areas to explore in a Central America travel. The Kuna ethnic group has been able to maintain an autonomist system and government over its Archipelago and 226km of Caribbean coast since the 1920’s. As a matter of fact, the Kuna Indians are the only indigenous group who has ever kept their millenary culture and traditions out of every other tribe in the Americas. Kuna indians have been living in the Eastern side of Panama for at least two Centuries.

It is quite fascinating to see such as small region with approximately 400 islands of which most are deserted white sand beaches with crystal clear warm water. These Panama Islands are home to the Kuna Indians who manage them as a "comarca" and keep a minimal relation to the Panamanian government. You will find your self on one of the most untouched and virgin areas in the world making it great and special for a Panama cruise fishing charter.

San Blas has no anchorage so every night the yacht or sailing boat will spend on anchorage. You will be accommodated on one of our San Blas hotels once you choose on of the San Blas tour packages.

If you are inexperienced on sailing but interested on the matter, our sailing or fishing guides will allow you to steer, raise or sail always keeping an eye for safety manners. Panama Cruise sailing guides or fishing guides will lead you to the best shelter, snorkeling zones and fishing areas of the Kuna Yala comarca or San Blas. Besides from fishing and diving in San Blas you will find other opportunities for bird watching while cruising. We offer our clients to go on a up stream river tour in order to check out some birds and wild life on tree tops of this amazing area. A few hours before sunset, it’s usually when our fishing guides set up a net to play some volley ball with the Kuna Indians. They usually win as they are avid sportsmen and always stay fit.

Snorkeling in San Blas is very easy as there are zones with 3 feet of depth for the inexperienced divers and other areas with 100 feet of depth. Kuna Indians dislike and will not allow you to scuba dive in San Blas. In any case there is no decompression box in the area. However, if you would like to snorkel or spear fish in San Blas then you will have snorkeling, fishing or spear fishing opportunities for ballists, clown fish, parrot fish, myriad, jack, snapper, grouper, king crab, conck and lobster. If you are not into fishing, most fishing guides will do for you in order to offer fresh meals for the traveler.

The San Blas islands are protected by the “Cayo Hollandes” and other outer islands from the massive swells that hit during December - May. This means that the inner islands of San Blas are pretty much flat. This allows any panama traveler to swim on its turquoise waters and white sand beaches just as if it was a natural swimming pool. At this time (Dec – May) the Panama weather is sunny and very windy. You can expect 10 to 18 knots of constant north east winds which help to move around on sailing charters. All sailing charters include fishing equipment, mask, tuba, and flippers.

Sailing in San Blas Panama could be one of the most interesting things for travelers once they reach a Central America tour. The archipelago consists of almost 400 paradisiacal islands as mentioned before and all with close proximity to each other. Sailing or cruising distances at San Blas are usually about 3 hours per day. You could ask for more cruising time if energetic enough.

San Blas has a population of about 60,000 Kunas: 8000 live on the main land’s coast, 32,000 live on district’s islands and 30,000 live outside the district. They only occupy about 40 islands of the nearly 400. Each villa on the San Blas islands is ruled by a “Sahila” who holds the most authority at a village level. On top of them are three “Caciques” (high chiefs) who rule the whole nation.

Fishing in San Blas

Most of the fishing zones of the San Blas islands are near the Cayo Hollandes as it where the deep see fishing action is. However, most of the areas are topical barrier reefs, sandy beaches and deserted islands. Opportunities for fishing in San Blas are for Spanish Mackerel, Snapper, Shark, Barracuda, Tarpon, Grouper, Amberjack, Cubera Snapper, Amberjack, Permit, Snook, basically a great variety of shelf pelagic fish, shelf demersal fish, estuary fish and slope fish. However, if you are serious about sport fishing in Panama we recommend any other area mentioned on this website as there are no marinas and the continental shelf is not as convenient as areas such as the Gulf of Panama on the Pacific coast or Colon city on the Atlantic coast. This is a great area for snorkeling, diving, spear fishing, exploration and the most important relaxation.