Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Yet another attempt at snorkeling yesterday and yet again, terrible visibility. I tried a few locations – all the same. On the way back I picked up John and we went ashore just after low tied to mess around on the sand where the river comes out. While there we met John from Taee. Turns out we’ve been in each others vicinity a few times. First time was back in Isla Grande the day before the kids arrived. We were at the same anchorage at La Playita for a while in Panama City. They’ve recognised our boat each time. I think I had a brief chat with his wife, Lucy, at La Playita. Now we’ve met up. We agreed an exchange of information later in the day as we have roughly similar plans, at least out to Tahiti, although they will leave for the Galapagos well ahead of us. The next few days we may well be in the same anchorages.

High tide was at 4pm so shortly before 3pm we dinghied a short way up the river, cut the engine and allowed the tidal flow to take us upstream using the oars to keep us (or at least try to keep us) out of the way of dangling branches, roots, etc. It was quite peaceful drifting upriver, the peace occasionally being broken by the squawking of parrots and calls of other birds. The river became narrower and narrower although the speed at which we were heading upstream never diminished. We eventually came to a point 2 miles in where the river being about 15 feet wide was jammed with logs and branches. We about turned and headed back under power as the river was still filling and flowing backwards. We tried another branch of the river but this didn’t take us too far. We had the GPS with us so one day I’ll be able to post our tracks up the river.

Back on the boat we again met John from Aiee so we could exchange notes. That was about it. We have started watching “The Wire” in the evenings as we have all five series with us. Good stuff.

Today our plan is to head around to the west side to a little bay called Concholon Bay and, if the holding is good, stay there the night. If not we’ll press on to Isla San Jose off to the west.

Looking further ahead we’ve decided to push ahead and arrive in Costa Rica a little earlier than planned. Whether or not we get there earlier is another thing but if we do it gives us the opportunity to be a little further north when Ella arrives (making their travels from San Jose shorter and easier) and perhaps gives us a good opportunity to have one of Helen’s friends (now living in Costa Rica) aboard while the cabin is vacant.

John and I headed off in the dinghy shortly after low tide to see if we could find a few lobsters. This time the visibility was terrible. Wondering if it was a combination of low light and being too close to low tide we decided to head back and come back later. The wind had been stronger so it was quite possible all due to increased murk in the water.

We had a few prawns left over from the previous nights dinner so we used those as bait and left a hook dangling. This resulted in the catch of a large trigger fish. They’re always quite interesting as they swim by using their dorsal fin and an opposing pectoral fin. My book says they’re ok to eat but we let it go. We really don’t know enough about reef fish poisoning here to take a chance.

On our second trip out to the rocks we found the water a little clearer but not by much. I did come across a lobster tucked really deep under a rock. Somehow I missed it with the spear gun but did chase it out of the hole it was in. It sat on the rocks while I tried to reload without taking my eyes off it’s position. For a split second I looked at what I was doing with the gun and when I looked back it had gone. That at least spurred us on to keep looking but to no avail.

After a quick bite to eat we headed off round to the south side of Isla Canas where we found a niceish looking bay with interesting rocks formations around including some caves we could explore.

We were a little nervous swinging between the rocks. Although we knew the chain would keep us away from what we could see, we did not know what was beneath us and we had arrived just before high tide. I went into the water principally to check under the boat but I took my spear gun as the lobster hunt was still to be satisfied. To the extent I could tell in the poor visibility there was nothing alarming near the boat but nor could I find any lobsters. Oh well.

The only other interesting thing of note is that another local boat came by with problems with their outboard. Like the boat the previous day they first asked if we had spare spark plugs. Even though I do they were hard to come by so I’m not handing them over. I did again offer sand paper, tools and spray but this didn’t seem to help this time. Their motor work but it did sound like it was having trouble with one of it’s cylinders. At least we tried.

We may go for a low tide exloration of our current location this morning but we definitely won’t stay. Our next spot is a couple of miles south of here where we can take the dinghy out about half a mile to where there’s supposed to be a good dive spot which we’ll check out with the snorkels.

Having found nothing in the village on Isla Casayeta we decided to visit San Miguel, the largest settlement in the Islas Perlas. With the winds above 15 knots we had a brisk sail down to Isla Del Rey where we anchored in the lee of a couple of small islands. It was quite choppy so we knew we wouldn’t stay long. We went ashore in the dinghy and dragged it up the beach as the tide was still rising. We soon met a local fellow, Jesus, who became our “amigo”. Despite a complete language barrier he learned we wanted to fill our empty gas can and were interested in buying fruit. He frequently indicated he could get us lemons and papayas. We insisted on getting gas first so he took us through these back alleys until we found someone in a small store prepare to sell us gas. Having agree to sell us 5 gallons the old dude in the store took 5 minutes to obtain a couple of large cans of gas. They then proceeded to siphon the gas from their cans not into ours but into bottles which we then had to pour into our can by way of a makeshift funnel. I think this was their way of measuring the gas. We ended up with less than 5 gallons as we could tell from the mark on our can but our attempts to explain this fell on deaf ears.

Jesus then took us round the town so to speak so we could visit the church. It was a poor town and the church reflected this but we took pictures as we went which we will post when we can. We eventually agreed to let Jesus obtain some fruit for us upon which he took us to a straggly lemon tree in between two houses and proceeded to knock four small ones down with a stick. He then climbed a papaya tree (someone elses we’re sure) and brought us down a couple of papayas. At the beach we tipped our amigo (the implied deal all along) and headed back to the boat with our plunder.

After lunch and a rest we again set sail for the north east side of Isla Del Ray. Our original intention was to anchor at Isla del Espiritu Santo. Just before arriving there we noticed a very calm spot called Punta Matadero. We took a closer look and decided to stop there for the night. From here we could see the anchorage at Isla del Espiritu Santo. In our guide book Isla del Espiritu Santo is noted as a popular anchorage and, probably because of this, we could see four or five boats anchored there. We’ll probably go there today but we were delighted to have Punta Matadero all to ourselves. I swam ashore, walked the beach then swam around some rocks to find another small beach where they had the perfect fresh water streamlet pouring down a beach comprising dark and light sand mixes together interspersed with large rocks. I could not resist building dams between the rocks and diverting the stream across the beach. The sand was fascinating as the two colours had different sized particles and would separate out in any new channel created forming very interesting patterns. John arrived in the dinghy after a while and joined in. The finale of any beach dam building is of course the final destruction whereby a small breach is made and the waters allowed to tear the dams down.

I then swam back around to the first beach to explore the other end and John returned in the dinghy. I was able to see a lot of fish but the downside was the water was quite murky and the visibility only about 10 feet. On the upside, the beach was one of the most litter free I’ve seen outside of those that have commercial interests and presumably have people picking up the trash.

We had a pleasant evening. We’re anchored close enough to the beach that we can hear the birds calling in the adjacent trees.