Day 51 30.08.15
We woke up, I had slept poorly again – tossing and turning unfortunately, and hearing some weird noises, sounding like a washing machine being dragged through the corridor outside our room. It turns out it was pelicans and other birds hopping up and down our roof.
For breakfast I enjoyed banana pancakes and a pineapple juice looking out into the Caribbean Sea. Wonderful!
We headed out onto our water taxi to Bocas del Toro, seeing as our hotel is on Isla Bastimientos and we are a little further away from the “main land” of Bocas del Toro. Here we quickly ran to the ATM to get out money as here everyone pays everything in cash and then headed towards the peer where the catamaran was waiting for us.
We got on and just relaxed while either sitting on the nets of the catamaran taking in the sun, or sitting on the side in the shade trying to spot animals.
We even set sail and cruised along different bays, stopping at dolphin bay to spot the dolphins. We were unlucky that day, but headed on straight to the next bay to go snorkelling to see starfish. (I think we went to starfish bay, but I’m not 100% sure). We jumped out and marvelled at the wonderful reef that we could explore situated right underneath the mangrove roots.
The colours all seemed as though they had sprung from a Dr Seus novel. I think it might have been the other way round and Dr Seus might have snorkelled here to be honest :)… The purples, yellows and greens just so exuberant and everything was covered in starfish. Either the ones that everyone knows, or the small thin black hairy ones, several fish right under the mangroves and even a little hermit crab.
Swimming back to the boat we had to be careful as the path was covered in jellyfish. Especially the large one with metre long tentacles looked very dangerous, even though we were told that even if they stung it wouldn’t hurt that much and not be dangerous.
We had lunch (a turkey and chicken sandwich), which was exactly what we needed. Then we set sails again towards the next bay. We all dried of and sizzled in the sun until we reached it.
This bay was more known for its plenty of fish, and we sure weren’t disappointed. Unfortunately, the pictures don’t really depict any fish, its hard when you can zoom in with your go pro…
We saw several fish, also a really pretty dark blue on with shiny spots, which the locals call disco fish. Also long thin fish with tube like snouts. There was just so much to see. At one point I was surrounded by a huge swarm of fish circling around me like crazy.
The only small damper, were the sea lice that liked to bite every once in a while. Not a pleasant experience.
I then got out and changed for a different mode of transport – the green tube or ring. Great fun just floating about.
I even got to know our captain a little better. He is Marcel and comes from Germany (I knew there was a familiar accent straight away :) ). He has been living here for 15 years now, prior to that having sailed around the world, crossing the Atlantic four times! It was fun speaking German again.
We headed back to Bocas where in a small supermarket I got some ice cream and stocked up on bug spray before heading back to the water taxi stand.
We rode back and after some lemonade I went and had a shower just in time for dinner. This time I had ordered my lobster with spaghetti and Caribbean sauce. To die for!!!
I slept well, probably because there was a thunderstorm over Isla Bastimientos and I always sleep well through rain.
