Cental America
And Back
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We were low on supplies when we arrived and bought drinks, eggs and chickens from the small store. The chicken was the best we have found in Panama, maybe all Central America. Like real estate, three things make them good; fresh, fresh and fresh.
Dois and I planned on leaving a couple of days ago, but one of the locals, Domingo, an almost famous cruiser's friend, came by our boat looking for help. Domingo is an old character and talks a mile a minute, so I understood him to say "he needs a light to search for his chicken". Huh? He seemed to get it that we had no clue what he was talking about, so he left and came back with an old Icom VHF radio. Dois wired it up on Ashika to discover it was not going to be revived by us. Domingo left, downcast, his radio is all he has to communicate with. Before leaving he invited us to his home to get some fruit and a gift for us. We decided to dig out our spare VHF radio and give it a new home in Bahia Honda.
Dois wired the spare in place of the old one, in one corner of Domingo's kitchen. He had the non-functioning radio wired up to a solar panel on the roof and there was a light that was also getting it's power from the sun (light in the kitchen, not light for a lost chicken... ohhhhh) that needed some wiring fixing too. Domingo was so gracious, he kept trying to find more fruit and vegetables to go with the handmade cutting board and matching plate he had for us as a gift. He is such a lovely man. He introduced us to his wife, who was in the process of washing one of the grandchildren in a bucket in the front yard. Speaking of front yard, beautiful. We should all be so lucky.
Today we stowed all our booty and headed for the Island Park of Coiba (say Coiba, we were saying it by pronouncing the i as e, but no, it's just the way it looks) about 12 miles west. Coiba is the largest island in the Pacific Americas (about 25 n.miles N-SE), with maybe an additional 20 islands included in the Island Park. One of the bays contains 324 ACRES of living corral reef. The Island was a prison colony from about 1918 and was therefore left untouched by hotel conglomerates, fishing enterprise, logging concerns and so on. When they moved the prison to the mainland, scientists discovered that Coiba, left to it's own devices, was still evolving. Most cruisers avoid these islands because the Park charges by the day. But for about $30 a day, we have a huge, pristine, biologically diverse island all to ourselves, well sort of. We arrived at the park office and there were two large cruise ships busing people in high powered rigid inflatable boats to the various beaches. But we are fairly certain they wont be gunk holing around the more remote coves and bays with us. In fact, they were all gone by dinner time.
See you on the other side.
Pieces
Peace.
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