The highlights of the Las Perlas was catching up to some of our friends that we met in the San Blas and Bocas plus catching our first fish trolling in our dingy. Our excuse for not catch many fish is that the water was so cold because of the Humboldt Current, which comes up each year for 2-4 weeks, straight from Antarctica burrrrrr. We also had the red tide, that apparently often follows the Humboldt Current so just imagine a blood red sea and that is what you see in the water. Not so good for swimming or fishing. So we only went swimming 3 times. We did get to go clam hunting with Kaija from Kaija’s Song who taught us which clams to eat and where to find them. Boy do you need a lot of clams to make a meal. Now that is our type of hunting and fishing, clams move very slow okay they don’t move at all. It was fun wading in the tide looking for the little fellows and getting off the boat but we all decided that that is one creature we will leave alone and will now truly appreciate canned clams. So now what do we hunt?
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| Interlude |
This end of the island is being developed for
condos and hotels, but they still let us wander around. So off we go into the jungle, not really, as
they have made roads for their heavy equipment but they have left lime, mango
and papaya trees still standing, all in easy access for our foraging. Then one night one of the boats beside us had
their dingy engine stole right off their davits, yup it was locked but they
still got it. So our beautiful little
anchorage was spoiled. That night all of the boats set up alarm systems or spot
lights just in case they came back for more.
But all was well and the next day we decided to have a BBQ on the beach and
forget about what had happen and continued to enjoy our island paradise all
arranged by our new friends on Liward.
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| Fish for dinner |
After doing our final wifi and foraging and restocking courtesy of Minnie
B and Limbo who brought out some more fruit and veggies from Panama City, we
left Pedro Gonzales. Off to San Jose
singing “Do you know the way to San Jose?”
We heard about this private resort that has
a restaurant and they let the riff raft like us come ashore to use their
facilities so we thought what a great place to have a last night dinner in
Panama and boy was it beautiful: between the parrots, macaws and the toucan
there to greet you and great food and an awesome view, all four boats went away
full and happy. The island is privately owned by the family who owns Air Panama
and one of the largest hardware store chains in Central America. But you would never
know it was private they treated us very well or maybe because we all dug out
our best boat clothes.
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| Can I take your order |
On the wetside we still have to get used to
the tides, as we were heading into make reservations for the dinner we misread
the swell going into shore with our dingy and got swamped, in fact there was
more water and sand in our dingy than in the sea. Well, lesson learned. We are still getting rid of the sand in
Trouble.
That night the swell came in which made for
a very uncomfortable nights sleeping, that is, if you could sleep. It certainly gave a new meaning to tossing
and turning. So at 7 am we pulled anchor along with Limbo and off we went in
search of some more diesel. Next island is
supposed to have the largest village so they must have diesel right?? Sort of.
As we are just going around the corner our autohelm acted up, so on the
phone to our reps. It is a mystery
again. We turn it on and off ‘it works” then
on and it doesn’t must be a loose wire or gremlins, okay we will deal with that later. We anchor off the town Karen and Rita off of
Limbo go off to find diesel while Don and Cheryl go back to the big boats and
empty some of the jerry cans into the big boats tanks. We get the call from the girls, they found
diesel. It was quite a search, you can
see some big fishing boats and power plant on the island so they must have
diesel right???. Karen and Rita asked
the fishermen, the people at the tiendas and finally found a gentleman who was
happy to sell us Diesel. So off Don and
Cheryl go back to shore, Don and Cheryl decided it was best if one of them
stays with the dingy as we don’t want to leave the dingy unattended plus the
tide is coming in so off Don goes with 5 jerry cans to find the girls and only
got stuck once in the mud on route.
Cheryl had some kids come to visit her on the dingy who wanted to go for
a ride but she only allowed one kid on the dingy who helped her move the dingy
as the tide was coming in. Don found the
girls and the diesel was purchased but we think they actually sold us the diesel
that they store and use for the generator plant. Well, mission accomplished and off we go to
Spirito Santos for the night. What a
very peaceful night no rocking and rolling.
We said our “See ya” to Limbo as they are heading around South America
and we pulled anchor and headed to the bottom of Isla Reye to get ready to
leave the next morning for Galapagos. As we had read and heard the Las Perlas
is defiantly a place to spend more time in, but it is time for Interlude to
move plus a weather window is calling us and all of our friends that are in Galapagos
are telling us to get our butts over there, so we said goodbye to Panama. That night we called our buddy boats and
found out the info for check-ins and the final weather report then we cracked open a bottle
of Champagne to welcome Interlude to the Pacific, to toast our next adventure
and to share a glass (okay a drop or 2) to Neptune. Tomorrow the big jump!!!!
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