{"id":804,"date":"2013-03-26T08:26:58","date_gmt":"2013-03-26T15:26:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.171.78.101\/wordpress\/?p=804"},"modified":"2023-04-13T04:49:16","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T11:49:16","slug":"adventures-in-bocas-del-toro-panama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/adventure-updates\/adventures-in-bocas-del-toro-panama\/","title":{"rendered":"ADVENTURES IN BOCAS DEL TORO, PANAMA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ADVENTURES IN BOCAS DEL TORO, PANAMA<\/p>\n

by Renee Vinyard<\/p>\n

I am excited to write about my cruise aboard the \u201cFinisterre\u201d with TW instructor Mike Heath and his wife Kay. \u00a0I flew to Panama City (PC) with my friend Tom in late January.\u00a0 We visited the very impressive Panama Canal and marveled at the wealth and beauty of this Pacific Ocean-side city but were also surprised by the poverty that still lingers in the older parts of town.\u00a0 We ate some great food and stayed in old military housing built for the American Officers and canal workers.<\/p>\n

After a couple days we took the one-hour flight from PC to Bocas Del Toro on Isla Colon.\u00a0\u00a0 My luggage didn\u2019t arrive with us, but was delivered the next morning to the Red Frog Marina at Isla Bastiamentos near our first anchorage.<\/p>\n

We had many unique experiences while\u00a0\u00a0 anchoring off the outer islands in the area of Bocas, such as listening to the sound of shrimp eating on the bottom of the boat at night and having pizza cooked in a cob oven while watching the Super Bowl at a remote island bar called Los Secretos.\"2\"<\/a>\"3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Snorkeling was very good with beautiful coral and colorful fish.\u00a0 Tom and I had never snorkeled in Mangroves before. We saw the largest Brain Coral we had ever seen in the Zapatillas islands. We are planning a trip to the Maldives next so I booked a Luxury accommodation in the Maldives, Naladhu Private Island Maldives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

THE BAT CAVE: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If ever you travel to Isla Bastiamentos, Panama be sure to go on the Bat Cave tour.\u00a0\u00a0 It cost each of us $8 (plus a well-deserved tip).\u00a0 It was one of the highlights of our vacation.\u00a0\u00a0 We were met at a child laden wooden dock and loaded into a traditional Nogobe dugout canoe called a \u201ccayuco.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cayuco leaked through a number of small holes and the a manual bilge pump. The\"5\"<\/a> creek or quebrada would rise with heavy morning rains, but today the level was perfect for the huge cayuco.\u00a0 We traveled first through mangroves up into the lush, fertile jungle.\u00a0 Half a mile upstream in we entered a diverse for noisy kingfisher deftly following the twists and turns.\u00a0 We also glimpsed the Montezuma Oropendola.<\/p>\n

We arrived at the wooden dock; climbed out finca for growing cacao and bananas.\u00a0 With\"6\"<\/a> his great use of clear Spanish and enthusiasm there was no barrier to understanding him with our minimal language abilities.<\/p>\n

\"Mike<\/a>

Mike & Kay with Nogobe Children<\/p><\/div>\n

We wore water shoes and \u00a0\u00a0traipsed into the mud, aided by well-designed low tech structures such as rounds cut from a huge tree and a bridge made of vertical poles for hand\u00a0 holds that held three logs close together to form a walkway or la Puente-bridge.\u00a0 Off we went into the jungle to the \u201cBat Cave\u201d<\/p>\n

.The cave was beautiful with stalactites and stalagmites. At times I was up to my neck in cool clean water.\u00a0 The bats flew around us never making contact.\u00a0 There was no odor or significant amounts of bat guano in our paths. \u00a0 We could see well as we were all wearing headlamps.\u00a0 At the back of the long snaking cave was a waterfall into a dark rocky room.\u00a0 I loved rinsing my hair in the waterfall.\u00a0 \u00a0There was no touching bottom near the waterfall. Needless to say we all felt washed off and refreshed as we entered back into the jungle for our cayuco ride back.<\/p>\n

\"Zapatillas<\/a>

Zapatillas Islands<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Young<\/a>

Young Mangroves<\/p><\/div>\n

*** Mike and Kay have been traveling since October 2012 in the Caribbean, on Finisterre.\u00a0 In prior years they have spent many months sailing in the Pacific and Caribbean.\u00a0 \u00a0I know them from our small town in Northern California, Ukiah. They were great host and I feel very happy that we are friends!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ADVENTURES IN BOCAS DEL TORO, PANAMA by Renee Vinyard I am excited to write about my cruise aboard the \u201cFinisterre\u201d with TW instructor Mike Heath and his wife Kay. \u00a0I flew to Panama City (PC) with my friend Tom in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,20],"tags":[43,44],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure-updates","category-destinations","tag-adventure","tag-sailing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3302,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions\/3302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}