A caribbean sleepover on a deserted island

Some Caribbean craziness sure went down on the San Blas islands. How on earth do you wind up staying with a seventy something year old Russian ex Soviet soldier on a tiny island? No idea, but my friend and I had been on a soggy boat for six days with a sleazy captain and were both well up for a change of scenery and company.

As we sailed past yet another island on our last day in the San Blas, this man was fishing from the shore and was calling out for us to come and have some tea and coconuts. Captain Mike yelled 'Go on then you sods, go over for a swim before we leave'. I suppose when a stranger screams out for you to come and try his tasty coconuts the instinctive response would be 'NOWAY!' It seemed that the rest of our tour had their instincts in tact, however my friend and I were up for it! It was the Carribean! You NEVER turned down a coconut!

We swam over and he greeted us with cups of smokey Russian tea.'I am Slava, you must stay here!' he said and pointed to his t-shirt which had little red letters sewn on the front; 'S L ? V ? '. There seemed to be considerably more sun on his island than there was back on our boat. Maybe it was the absence of chronic negativity seeping from Captain Mike’s pores. Maybe it was the absence of Captain Mike’s bum crack poking out from his pink mini sarong. We took the sunshine as a sign and agreed to sleep on the island, in Slava's shack for a night or two, while the rest of our tour continued their journey back to Panama without us.

Slava showed us the best places to swim and snorkel. What a legend!

Slava put up hammocks and fed us fresh lobster, tuna and endless coconuts as he told us war stories from Russia. What a great host!

Slava went fishing and we went inside the shack and found a black book with illustrations of how to break someone’s neck, how to snap someone's shins and how to punch through glass! What an ASSASSINATOR!?!

After a bit of serious deliberation by the Caribbean sea we decided to confront Slava about the book. We didn't want to sleep on an island with a killer but well, we were a little stuck.

He told us that he was hiding from the Panamanian Mafia. Fantastic! Apparently they were after his head because of a dodgy real estate deal. So he was practising ninja on an island. Although very impressed with his cast away style hiding, we'd had a scary sleep and decided to take off the next morning. We caught a fishing boat to Panama and left Slava, his kung fu moves and his coconuts behind.