An overnight sail brought us to Bluefields about twenty miles south of the Bocas by three in the afternoon. We promptly celebrated by running aground, one minute in 40 feet and then aground. Thirty five anxious minutes later we freed her in what has now become a once a year annual event. The next morning we ghosted along past the Zaptillas and down the Boca channel past Bocas Town spotting Audrey Paige and Willow so we headed up and dropped the hook. Intending to come for three or four weeks before heading back to our intended cruising grounds the San Blas, we ended up staying four and half months getting throughly bocatized. The cruising grounds here are divided into two large bays covering about 30 square miles each. Each bay is a gunkholers paradise. In places the water is murky and not necssary a swimmers paradise but it will do. Occansionally there are just too many jelly fish to go in anyway, probably because the locals have decimated the turtle population.
The hub of all activity is the town of Bocas a former banana port. Chiquita the big player here has moved its shipping dock across the bay a short way to Almirante. In its absence the town has exploded with tourism but still has few buidings over three stories and the big chain holiday operators have yet to show, but it is just a matter of time. In the mean time it has become a back packers haven.
The Smithsonian operates a volunteer program and the areas beaches are a magnet, being acessible and laying so close to the Costa Rican border. There is also a quickly growing population of American expats. The area was also the scene of the infamous Wild Bill murders last year but more on that later. The town boasted a variety of shopping and you would suffer for nothing here with two gourmet shops and a variety of mechanical services. All of this made it hard to leave especially with a wide selection of restaurants.
We had our first ever visit from our busy daughter Nicole and right on the heels of that young Josh Brodie and girlfriend Ivanka dropped in from Nicaragua pleasantly surprising us and giving me a chance to play big Kauhuna for a week. Added to all this was a number of old eastern Caribbean friends who had washed up here as well as new friends you always make on the road.
In April Deb went back to Canada for a month to deal with some family issues the biggest one being the return of our youngest son Nicholas from four years abroad mostly in Japan. While she was away I did some boat work and got Sea Cycle ready to run down to the San Blas for a month before we laid her up for some land travel in South America. As soon as Deb was back we caught a weather window and headed out.It was an unusually calm and we managed to day hop down the coast which for most of the year is untenable with the trades. We even stopped in to see Billy on AnnVeraLynn who was also taking advantage of the weather and had stopped in Rio Miguel which marks the end of the road heading north east from Colon and is a wide open anchorage. Eventually we visited Portobello to reprovision and managed an entire month in the San Blas before running back into Shelter Bayand hauling SeaCycle on the hard.
to be continued
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