May 2007




	May 6, 2007 Location: Bocas del Toro, Panama Nautical Miles Traveled: 0 Well, we’ve been anchored here at Bocas del Toro now for a month and what do you know, we still have no pictures of this beautiful place to post here. That will have to change soon. So what have we been doing here for a month? Catching up on boat maintenance and doing some planning for our refit later this summer. David has been busy washing and oiling the teak down below and catching up on provisioning. I’ve been catching up on engine maintenance and polishing stainless steel up on deck. It’s amazing how much surface rust stainless can accumulate when exposed to salt water. We’ve also been playing around with finding a more efficient way to rig the sheet line for our staysail and think we have it done, but we’ll have to get out of the anchorage and do some sailing soon to see if it works. And of course between all the provisioning, reading and dvd movies David and I have been enjoying the emerald green waters with our daily snorkel trips. A few days ago our friends on Blow Me Away and Kaijasong arrived and so I went spearfishing with Aaron and Gary, but no luck. Our last stop though was absolutely amazing. Sea turtles, huge groupers, nurse sharks, octopus and so much more. I did spot the largest bar jack I’ve ever seen but he was swimming right behind the nurse shark. While I was imagining this bar jack on my dinner plate my common sense took over and said that I shouldn’t spear a fish so close to a shark, just not a good idea. David is almost done with provisioning as we are planning on leaving this week for some gunk holing. We want to make a trip to the island and town of Bastimentos where we hear there are some great beaches plus we want to see Red Frog Beach. The red frogs there were used way back when for their poison which was placed on the tips of arrows. On small red frog, about the size of a nickel, has enough poison to kill 500 people! We also want to go visit Green Acres, the chocolate farm where a tour will take you from the planting of the cocoa plants to the processing and finally the free samples. And there’s a lot of other anchorages we want to check out as well. Unfortunately the weather forecast is for 100% rain for the next week, so maybe we won’t get out this week. And also on my list of things to do is get some new batteries for my camera so we can get some photos of Bocas to put here. A couple nights ago we had a really nice dinner out with Blow Me Away and Kaijasong. We all had the Jamaican Jerk chicken for dinner, I think it was the best dinner we’ve had here. Last night we meant to go to Crazy Charlie’s for the crab races but with the rain we never made it. May 8, 2007 Location: Bocas del Toro, Panama Nautical Miles Traveled: 0 After freediving three days ago I started to develop an ear ache. And when I woke up this morning it had gotten much worse as my right ear was in extreme pain and I couldn’t hear anything from that same ear. So I got dressed, dingied to town and walked to the nearby hospital. After checking in I was told the wait would be about six hours. I’m to impatient as it is and with my ear hurting the way it was I inquired about a private doctor and was told there were none on the island. But there was a private clinic at 6pm. The sympathetic nurse told me I could go to the emergency room and probably get seen sooner. So I did. After waiting an hour the doctor came and got me. When he looked in my ear he said “there’s something in there!”. I don’t know what it was or what it could have been but he did an excellent job flushing out my ear and prescribed some ear drops to help with the infection. My total bill was $2.00 for the emergency room visit and $3.00 for the treatment. At the pharmacy the ear drops cost only $4.03. Yes, this is US dollars and no insurance! You have to remember, the cost of living here is so low and there are no lawsuit lawyers or malpractice insurance to pay for. I was very happy with today’s service. That is until I got back to the boat. As David was getting in the dingy to go with the gang to celebrate Lyla’s birthday I was informed the head (toilet) wasn’t working quite right. So I spent the next three hours tearing things apart and cleaning the pump. Not a fun job and no need for details on this project. All I can say is I’m pretty disappointed that the Captain got stuck with this job. Next time I’ll have to save it for some unruly crew (Hi Steve ;) By the way, we’ve been getting quite a few inquires about the cost of living here in Bocas, so below is a small sample of costs; Emergency Room Visits $2 Green Bananas 3 for 10 cents Ripe Bananas 2 for 10 cents Tomatoes 10 cents per pound Excellent aged Ribeyes $5 per pound Breakfast - 2 eggs, ham or sausage, hashbrowns, toast $2.79 Lunch - fish or chicken, rice, fries and salad $4 Dinner - smoked pork chops, rice, fries and salad $4 Sodas 50 cents, beer 75 cents to $1, rum & coke $1 (rest. prices) Fresh Baked bread 25 cents and up Pineapples $1 Watermelon 25 cents per pound Internet Cafe - $1 per hour Fresh large crab delivered right to your boat, $2 each These are average prices, some things out of season or in restaurants go up in price, dinners can reach as high as $15 per person if you order lobster. May 12, 2007 Location: Bocas del Toro to Bastimentos, Panama Nautical Miles Traveled: 13 After our morning coffee today we left the anchorage at Bocas del Toro and went for a morning sail. It actually turned out to be a morning ‘motor’ south into Bahia del Almirante as the winds were only two knots, not near enough to fill our sails. It was an enjoyable tour down along the west coast of Isla San Cristobal going between the small mangrove islands and watching carefully for the shallow corals, of which there were many. After a couple hours of putting around Bahia del Almirante we headed towards the town of Bastimentos at the entrance to Hospital Bight. While were motoring around for a few hours today David and I were absolutely shocked as we watched Ashley enjoy herself up on deck next to the mast. Never before has Ashley come out of the boat while the engine is running, she’s very afraid of the big iron thing under the companionway steps that makes so much noise. But today was a treat for all of us as we enjoyed the beautiful scenery of dense jungles, mangrove islands and tall mountains on this sunny day. Once anchored in 25 feet of water we did our quick dingy ride to see where things were. Bastimentos is a town of about 1500 people mostly of Creolo, or Afro-Antillean decedents. There are no cars or roads here but plenty of nicely paved sidewalks allow easy access through the town. We docked at the Red Rooster restaurant and bar and enjoyed a leisurely walk through town. There are a couple of small restaurants, mostly in the front patios of people’s homes, a couple of bed and breakfasts and even a new dive shop. But for the most part this is not a tourist town but rather a small lazy local town. For work the locals take the $1 water taxi to Isla Colon or Bocas del Toro. The remnants of a long pier once owned by the banana factories was used in the past to come and pick up plantation workers from Bastimentos. Now what remains of the dock is crumbling into the water beneath it and the posts covered in colorful coral. The rest of the structures here appear to be simple homes for the inhabitants. We did find one grocery store with basic items. It was a convenient stop as we had forgotten to stock up on sodas before leaving Bocas del Toro, but David’s find of the day was two very large and nice soup bowls for a buck each. I thought they were big enough for serving bowls but David insists they’re soup bowls, who am I to complain when he’s the cook. The waters here are beautifully clear with the water many shades of emerald green. All around us are shallow reefs with excellent visibility but unfortunately I have to refrain from any snorkeling or spearfishing until my ear infection clears up, but how tempting it is! We had planned on visiting Red Frog Beach from here but learned that it’s about a three hour hike through the jungles to reach it, not something that seems enticing when it’s 95 degrees outside with no breeze to keep one cool. We decided that for a shorter hike to Red Frog Beach we’ll raise anchor on Tuesday and motor down Hospital Bight and anchor among the mangroves in an area known as Short Cut. From there it’s only about a half hour walk to see the tiny dime size red frogs, frogs that contain enough poison to kill 500 people. The last few nights we’ve watched illuminating lightening shows all around us with it’s orchestra of deep rumbling thunder. And while sitting in the cockpit in awe of the magical light show we do not forget that we sit here alone on the water with a 50 foot metal pole sticking straight up in the air, our mast. It always concerns us when lightening shows up close to us, the damage a strike can do can be catastrophic. Aside from destroying all our electronics including any means of communications or navigation a severe strike can also melt wires, damage our inboard or outboard engines, start a fire or worse yet blow a hole through the bottom of our boat. Needless to say we don’t sleep well when lightening is in the area. May 16, 2007 Location: Bastimentos to Short Cut, Panama Nautical Miles Traveled: 13 We motored back to Bocas del Toro in the windless morning of May 14th where we anchored for an hour, needing to access the internet to order a new microphone for our VHF radio. The remote mic we have been using for the past four years in the cockpit finally gave into the harsh UV rays of the tropical sun which cracked the wiring and shorted out the mic. Once we placed our order for a new mic and checked emails we raised anchor, this time in the company of Kaijasong and Blow Me Away, and motored down Hospital Bight to an anchorage known as Short Cut. Here we anchored among the mangroves in 12 feet of water. Though there was enough breeze to slowly sail the shoals are numerous in Hospital Bight and being our first time we thought it safer to just motor. Once anchored it was a typical day of exploring by dingy, checking out a couple of snorkeling areas and of course happy hour on Blow Me Away. As very little happens until we have our morning coffee we waited until 10am yesterday to do some more exploring. We went with Kaija and Gary with their dog Doc from Kaijasong and dingied over to a small dock normally used by water taxis bringing tourists to this part of the island. Once on land we walked a trail through the jungle to the other side of the island being careful to avoid the fire ants, army ants and leaf cutter ants that were also using the trail. It was a short walk, about a half hour, before we arrived to Red Frog Beach, a national park. And it was beautiful. A large secluded beach all to ourselves with the softest sand we’ve experienced overlooking the brilliant blue and torquoise Caribbean Sea. Our goal for this trip was to find the elusive and tiny red frogs, so small that they are about the size of your thumbnail (take a look at your thumbnail, it’s smaller than you think!). Hundreds of years ago before the Spanish and English ever came here the Indians used the poison from these red frogs on the tips of their arrows to kill animals and rival tribes. These tiny little frogs have enough poison to kill 500 people. So we walked down the beach, keeping any eye out for red frogs but distracted by the tracks of the leather back turtles that have been coming up out of the water to lay their eggs in the sand, a single leather back turtle will lay between 80 to 140 eggs. Looking at the tracks these have to be some seriously large turtles. We made our way to the end of the beach and walked a wooden platform up the side of a small cliff where Gary and I took a seat to rest and chat. Kaija and David were busy searching the bush along the walkway trying to find red frogs. These red frogs are only found on this small beach, no where else in the world! And it didn’t take them long to find a couple. You don’t realize how small they are until you actually see one, and their bright red skin with black spots are very easy to see against the green and brown foilage, once you see one. Lots of photos were taken then a trip back down along the beach landed us at the only establishment here, Flip Flops. Here we enjoyed a good couple drinks, caught up with Lyla and Aaron from Blow Me Away, shared a couple stories then headed back to the boats. Naps, some snorkeling and happy hour at Kaijasong ended the day. Gary and I did a lot of water exploring today but no luck with bringing any fish back to the boat. Everyone is getting together this afternoon to play Baja Rummy and Pigs (don’t know what that is). May 17, 2007 Location: Short Cut to Green Acres Farm Nautical Miles Traveled: 9 While today was a short trip in miles to Green Acres Farm in Porras Lagoon it was a long, slow trip. We had two routes to choose from, the easy one and the challenging one. The easy one would have taken us back up Hospital Bight towards Bocas del Toro then down Almirante Bay to Porras Lagoon, good depths and charts the entire trip. But we decided to take the more challenging and scenic route, one of which there are no nautical charts but just an aerial photo of the area. Once we raised anchor Blow Me Away and Kaijasong nominated us to be the lead boat. We headed further down Hospital Bight with the island of Bastimentos to the North of us and the island of Cayo Nancy to the South of us winding around mangroves and uncharted shoals and corals. Using the aerial photo we made our way to the very narrow cut, known as The Gap, between the two islands. Once at The Gap, lined with dense jungles reaching high into the hills, we proceeded with caution keeping one eye on the depth sounder, David stayed on the bow the entire trip watching for color changes in the water indicating shallow depths (not easy for David who is color blind). The small and narrow cut was beautiful, the shores lined with dense foilage and a couple small docks with paths leading back into the jungle. The top of the jungle canopy was various shades of green, yellow and orange, the call of the howler monkeys and parrots filling the air as we entered their turf. As our boat draws almost six feet and we were expecting waters as shallow as six feet it was hard to enjoy the beauty around us while we tried to navigate. Once past the cut we got into some deeper water but now we had to pick our way through over 90 mangrove islands using only a photo. It’s not easy to have one eye on the depth sounder, one on the photo and another looking ahead. The two boats behind followed us successfully through the mangroves in the Bahia Almirante though Blow Me Away did run aground in the cut. After getting through the mangroves and coral shoals it was easy motoring all the way into and to the southern end of Porras Lagoon. Here we anchored off of Green Acres Farm, a small cocoa farm where we plan on taking a tour tomorrow. This was also next to Karl and Mary’s new property, we knew them in the Rio Dulce when they were sailing on Camrika. We enjoyed the rest of the day just kicking back and visiting with everyone during happy hour on Blow Me Away, where we had a great time catching up with Karl and Mary. May 20, 2007 Location: Green Acres, Porras Lagoon, Panama Nautical Miles Traveled: 0 Linda and Dave gave us a wonderful tour of their 35 acre property where they have numerous cocoa plants. Their property is nicely manacured with numerous jungle plants and trees, orchids, pineapple plants and lined by a nice creek. Our tour started at their house and took us through their property while they told us about all the different plants, where they came from and even some of the medicinal properties that they had. We saw beautiful green and black frogs (slightly larger than the red frogs), bats sleeping in trees, squirrels but no oselot or sloths. After touring Dave and Linda’s property they took us to their small processing area where the cocoa beans are dried, roasted, ground and turned into chocolate. And of course after the tour we just had to buy some to take back to the boat. As it was a nice breezy day I took advantage of the semi cool air and got a lot of stainless steel polished, but there’s so much more to go! May 19, 2007 Location: Green Acres to Boca Toritto, Panama Nautical Miles Traveled: 5 While Green Acres Farm is at the South end of Porras Lagoon the small village of Boca Toritto is at the North end. By the way, the more common name for Porras Lagoon is Dolphin Bay as there is a large family of dolphins that live here. Not a day has gone by without seeing them come by the boat. We took the dingy in towards the village and stopped by the only small restaurant, owned by Sapriano. Sapriano was born here in the village of 150 people but when he was 19 he joined the National Police. After 25 years of service Sapriano retired and moved back to the village where he opened his restaurant and tienda. Taking a stroll through the village did not take but 5 minutes. Landing at the public dock and walking up a small hill brought us to the primary school (grades 1 to 6). From the school numerous paths led off in different directions to various houses and pastures. We took off on one path and saw lots of horses, goats and cattle, four teens playing baseball, and lots of people peering out their windows to see what a couple of grings were doing in their village. The people were friendly answering our hellos, but the children came out to us to say hi, show us the mango trees and warn us of the agressive wild boars. After a few minutes looking around we went back to the restaurant and enjoyed happy hour and an excellent dinner. The remainder of our stay here filled with the usual activities of snorkeling, unsuccessful spearfishing and Baja Rummy. May 21, 2007 Location: Boca Toritto to Cayos Gallego, Panama Nautical Miles Traveled: 7 Leaving Porras Lagoon we headed East 7 nautical miles to Cayos Gallego, a group of mangrove islands surrounded by coral patches. This was decided to be our last stop before returning to Bocas del Toro as, according to the guide book’s aerial photo, the corals looked to be promising. After anchoring I did some exploring by dingy and unfortunately the corals were not as spetacular as I had hoped for. They were though better than some of the places we had been as the formations and marine life were interesting. We were pleasantly surprised to see very large leather back turtles swimming around us in the anchorage as they would come up for some air then dissapear in the water below us. Happy hour, card games and movie watching filled our days here, and even boat got some attention as we polished stainless steel, cleaned the hull below the waterline, charging batteries and making lots of water. Last night Gary and Kaija hosted a pizza party. Gary made two wonderful pizzas and David made one too. After David cooked our pizza we headed over to Kaijasong where we also met up with Aaron and Lyla. Once we arrived Gary lit the oven and once it was preheated he put the first pizza in. After a long time Gary went to check on it and no flame, but the propane tank was still full. After some quick investigating it was determined that his propane solinoid was shot from old age and corrosion. The solinoid is a safety device that allows the propane to flow from the tank to the stove, without it there’s no propane, hence no pizza, no coffee, no meals. I went back to Bruadair and got our spare solenoid and after an hour Gary was back in service cooking pizza. Great night, great company. May 24, 2007 Location: Cayos Gallego to Bocas del Toro, Panama Nautical Miles Traveled: 6 After a nice 10 day stint doing some exploring it was time to head back to Bocas. Damon is heading back to California for three days for some quick business, and of course to bring back some boat goodies. We anchored closer to shore than we would have liked because of the better anchor holding but unfortunately we’re close enough where the bugs can come out and chow down on us at night. As soon as I return we’ll move the boat back to the outter line of the anchorage where it’s bug free and where we’ll get a better breeze.

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