The wind returned a little so we were able to hoist sails and gently sail to our next destination in Las Perlas, Isla Ampon. Isla Ampon is a small, uninhabited (by humans at least) island covered in mangroves. It is set in a ‘C’ shaped lagoon surrounded by Isla Casaya and Isla Casayeta. Our guide book says there is a village on Isla Casayeta where cold drinks and staples can be found.
As there was no other interest I took the dinghy alone close to Isla Ampon to take a close look at the mangroves at high tide and to snorkel amongst the roots. The water was murky but the sea life was quite interesting. I saw a lot of small puffer/porcupine fish. I am used to seeing only one at a time but I managed to see three at once here. Perhaps this is another difference in terms of behavior found on the Pacific side. I also saw a few shoals of pretty large fish and large eel.
After lunch on the boat I set about moving the wind generator cut off switch and installing the ammeter. The previous location for the switch was in a breaker box for the solar panels. It is housed in a really out of the way place that requires removing a lot of stuff from the transom locker to access. This means that unless we’re really desperate we live with the electrical noise from the wind gen when using the SSB. The job, which as ever was quite sweaty down in the transom, took a couple of hours to complete. The positioning is still not brilliant but all we have to do is raise the transom hatch and reach in to flip the switch so it is now much easier.
Once this job was done and I’d cleaned up we decided to head round to the village on Isla Casayeta. We took the cut between Isla Ampon and Isla Casaya but as it was low tide we ended up having to wade part of the way. As we approached the village we saw a few small fishing boats pulled up on a slope. We dragged the dinghy ashore to explore the village. It was quite small and we found no stores to buy staples. On returning to our dinghy some chap talked to us about ‘Perlas’. These are the ‘pearl’ islands so perhaps he was trying to sell us some pearls. We weren’t interested so we bade him farewell.
That was about it. We did some reading and relaxing and finished the day with a chili than John made, some wine and a few TV shows.
We’ll move again today. Not sure where yet but probably not too far away.
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