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The cruising adventures of Sid and Manuela

Sunday, April 09, 2017

BATTLE OF THE BEASTS


Couldn't make up my mind which photo is prettier

Just a few days before Rita arrived when I cleaned boat and pulled the floorboards in the head out I saw 5 little bugs running around. Nah, called Sid and showed him to identify. He agreed as well that they are too small to be roaches. We killed them, cleaned up and that was it. The second last night Rita was on board something many clingy legs was crawling across my butt cheeks and freaked me out. My instinct was to swipe it away including letting out a bloodcurdling scream. I turned the light on immediately to see what it was but nothing on the floor. Do you think any of the other 4 passengers heard me LOL. In all our cruising time, I have to rephrase that, in all the years Sid owned the boat (39 years) the only critter problem we ever had was a few roaches in Mexico that I caught right away and ants in Venezuela but never an infestation. I was in town Sid called and told me to bring lots and lots of cockroach spray with me there had been an explosion of little baby roaches everywhere. He had been going through the whole boat and found the first mama in his closet under a t-shirt, it had 3 legs missing, yep the one I had swiped off my butt. I did a lot of research while in town. There are 3 different roaches here of which the German roach is the worst, the female keeps the egg until just before her offspring hatch and each egg has about 50 little ones. All of them once mature to lay eggs, I think they mate once but they can lay eggs for the rest of their life without a male. We were desperate to find out which type we were dealing with and after we found a few eggs we placed them in a jar and watched. 3 days later about 15 came out of one egg, relief it’s not the German. When I returned we both went through the whole boat, it looked like a tornado had hit it, every locker one by one was emptied. 


And still yet they kept crawling around after dark. I even had some in my bed, that’s when I declared war. We started going through the boat again and we did kill 4 big adults outside under dodger area. They were the size of Palmetto roaches about 1 inch long and found eggs in Sid’s tool cabinet which is close to the galley. Found them in the galley cabinet. One in a roll of paper towel. The life cycle of a roach is one year and a female can produce many, many eggs, just not sure yet how long before they hatch and how often she lays eggs. Sid even took the headliner down and we found 4 eggs up there. I think we got it all under control and every evening I spray around the clean galley counter and into the sink to cut them off from water, plus the bathroom sink. They can live without food for 40 days but only 7 without water. They can be without air for 3 days and come back to life. Hey their body even crawls around for 7 days with head cut off. No wonder they survived the ice age. Anyway by doing this we found every morning a few dead little ones. Then after 3 weeks maybe 2. We said we keep doing this until we don’t see anything for at least a week. A buddy boat returning to the San Blas brought more poison. By the way we use Baygon Ultra Verde awesome stuff, also some roach cookies are left in all corners of the boat plus some areas with a paste. 

We are wondering where we got the beasts as we are careful with what we bring onto the boat. We suspected from the veggie boats, but then we were told that another boat who was at the same time in Shelter Bay Marina, across from us on same dock, left at same time and had the same explosion same time we did. So who knows?! Here is a photo of the egg so if you ever have this problem you know what to look for.

Oh and when Sid went to fill up our sun shower that sits in a box on deck it was crawling with little babies, and I found a couple under the flower pots in the water tray, hasta la vista baby. Check in any area there could be water. We are very thankful it’s not rainy season right now. We will keep doing this sink spraying for 6 months to make sure they are all gone.
After a whole week going through boat roach hunting we finally returned to the Holandes.

Of course I brought pork ribs again from Price Smart and that was our first dinner BBQ’d on Reg and Debi’s grill. Since Reg didn’t celebrate Xmas with us he brought a turkey back and so the second dinner we celebrated a Turkey dinner also on Runner. Nice not having to cook and clean for a change LOL. We always have a great time with them. Sid was spending his mornings helping Reg to clear part of Bug islands. I haven’t seen the progress yet but will next time we are there and take some photos. I did my snorkeling with Deb every morning.
Of course wing and neck were saved for Manuela

Urs and Francine on Le Point Bleu showed up with our Chelsea boat clock that their watchmaker had repaired. He did a good job, hey what to expect from a professional Swiss Watchmaker that has been in business for 40 years. 

A rare thing these days, now days they just change the battery on a watch. Check out Urs and Francine’s business all their watches are designed by them and hand made a rare thing now days too. Les Millionairs http://www.lesmillionnaires.ch/en

We had fun snorkeling with them and stumbled onto a sunken boat. We were here when it hit the reef I think 3 years ago.









Nurse shark




While in PC 5 different boats still in the Pool asked me if I could buy some stuff for them, four pounds of butter and phone charger, another Sim and phone cards, another seasonings and yet another cigars and medications they ran out of.  With being stuck in Banadup due to too much wind, plus our “cookies” fight (roaches). 2 of the boats headed into different direction for protection from the wind, so when the wind was back to normal, we had to make a decision where to go first to deliver the goodies. Butter was definitely taking away space in the fridge but the meds were really important. We were just going to head that way to deliver meds when that boat dropped anchor next to us, perfect. The butter boat texted as well that they were going back to the pool so that solved the problem. When we finally rendezvoused and freed my fridge of butter, the lady knowing we had to still go to do laundry in Nargana, insisted to do laundry for me on her boat. I wasn’t going to take her up on it as it is lots of diesel and power use to run a washing machine plus running the water maker. She was so grateful she kept insisting so I brought two loads over mainly sheets. That was very helpful and we could stay a bit longer here. She told me not to tell anyone, there for no names mentioned.

 I did wonderful snorkels with Debi, one time as we snorkeled back to the dink, I was just passing a beautiful big rounded, orange coral head when I felt something staring at me. I stopped and investigated. I finally saw an eye and looking at it a bit more I saw a camouflaged big octopus, wow. I approached a bit closer but he did not move an inch. I got the attention of Debi and Diane who joined us that day and when they arrived I went a little closer to the octopus. They usually pull back and hide. This one had no interest even now that he was surrounded by 3 big faces with weird masks. He even did some tug of war with both Debi and my fishing net handles. After about 5 minutes of that he had enough crawled slowly over the coral head and descended to the sandy ocean floor and leisurely headed to the next coral head but could not find a hole to get in. He moved to the next and crawled underneath to the dismay of many fish including a beautiful Top Hat. They were agitated and not knowing fish talk, they must have yelled and screamed at him, he crawled out again while the fish moved back in. He headed across the sandy bottom in search of another hole. We could not resist to follow this beautiful creature as he all of a sudden opened up in to a giant fan in the color of the coral we had seen earlier. Wow amazing. He staid fanned out for a while then kept crawling along. The second time he did show off again he was more the color of the sand, telling us he definitely had enough of us molesting him. What a rare things to witness and of course “WHERE IS MY CAMERA WHEN I NEED IT!!!” I think he knew otherwise would have not showed off like this.
 



Not far from the other wreck is this of a big freighter





Having too much fun

And found dinner


On one of the snorkels I told Debi that I wasn’t feeling all too well and that I was constantly tired for no reason and it got progressively worse. Our last evening in the pool Gris Gris organized a fun potluck on BBQ Island with interesting Vegan dishes. The following day we sailed to Nargana as more heavy winds were predicted. We desperately needed to get Laundry done and top up on diesel, gasoline and propane.

Somebody mentioned on the radio that Corazon de Jesus had now water and there was a lady doing a great job on laundry. We don’t mind going up the river for that as it is fun but Sid had a boo boo on his finger and I was not feeling well at all, I decided to test Taty out. We brought here 2 loads just to see how well she does the laundry and told her no rush that we would be here for a while. The main reason we came here is Super Bowl for Sid. He said ever since he started watching Super Bowl in his life he hasn’t missed one yet, don’t want him to miss one ever. Anyway, the second day we went by Taty to see how it was going, she said she was still bleaching, OK we said no hurry. Later on that day it hit me “bleaching” oh no she was not bleaching all the discolored pillow cases that are going to be rags including some of Sid’s T-Shirts. While I brought her the rest of our laundry I picked up the ones washed and still not feeling well I left them in the bags on the floor to deal with it when I felt better. Sid went into the bags and I heard him say: wow…….wow…….. wow. So I ventured down below and couldn’t believe my eyes, he had all his pants laying on the counter one next to another pointing them: “Look there was a stain here, gone, and look these pants I fell on my ass that never came clean again, snow white. But when he took his favorite T’shirt from 1980 out, he had tears in his eyes and said: Look my favorite shirt looks like new ,I was going to toss it to the rag pile. Then opened up more T-shirts’ with same results, he was like a child opening up big bag full of Xmas presents. As a thank you I bought two bleach bottles and brought it to Taty, gave her a hug and the two bottles of bleach telling her a thank you and present from Sid and I handed her another present from me a necklace with matching earrings. As much fun as the river laundry days are I think our laundry days are changing to bathing and fun days up the river. I love a happy Hubby. Amazing what we cruisers get excited about huh?!!!

A couple other boats showed up and we all went up the river for a bath and to get water:





A few days earlier we had a fun party on Waisalidup with the same group plus a few other cruiser. The crew of Joanna was given a couple of airbags the girls call the Vigina Bags, well they do kinda look like it. We all had a good laugh trying them out:


My not feeling well got progressively worse to the point I had to lay down every 5 minutes was short of breath, nauseous, it was time to see a doctor for bloodwork. Nargana has a new clinic, conveniently we were anchored in front of it. It was Saturday and the doctor was just going to go home, he told me that the lab unfortunately is only open Monday and Tuesday (later I found out Mon/Tue for Nargana folks, Wen/Thurs for folks from Isla Tigre, not sure about Fri/Sat. But he wrote me a prescription to do a blood, urine and stool test on Monday, he was suspecting I had parasites. Coming Monday I went in early at 7 as it is on a first come first serve basis. Everybody including other patient were super friendly and helpful and made me feel welcome.
Had the pleasure of using the Clinic's bathroom

All clean though

Tuesday I went back and got my result. I still don’t understand how I did not have any symptoms whatsoever for what he called an acute UTI, but that’s what it showed I had. I was worried it would be something far worse than that. The treatment is 7 days of antibiotics then another urine test to make sure we got it all. We decided that right after Super Bowl we would wait for the veggies to come in which is Mon or Tues then head to the neighbor islands to do the Antibiotic treatment so that I could also get some Internet stuff done, as the signal is much better there than in Nargana. Sid watched Super Bowl ashore with 7 other boats and I enjoyed a quiet evening on the boat playing my guitar, after all I still was not feeling well.

The Veggies came in on Tuesday and since the sky was overcast and where we wanted to go needs sun to enter the reef so we prolonged it to the next day which was a good thing as Sid started getting a bad stomach, it got worse by the minute then he was up all night long visiting the head. He had food poisoning and knowing that you can get it between 4 to 34 hours of eating bad food we did not know where he got sick, on the boat or at Super Bowl. The only thing he ate different than me was the fried chicken he ate at Jonny’s and a kuna bread that was in a ziplock bag in the galley. I inspected it and OMG some of the bread had black mold on it. I read up on it online and not a good thing. Sid was violently ill for 3 days but refused to go see a doctor, why do men do that?
I went ashore to find some Pedialite but found out all medications have to be bought at the clinic’s pharmacy. There I was told I needed a prescription from the doctor, for Pedialite? The doctor was just about to leave the hospital but offered me a seat. He said Pedialite was not for adults but he had a better product. Wrote me a prescription. Sid was not getting better, I suggested to go see the doctor but he wanted to wait till Monday. On Saturday I went to the doctor again to get a prescription for tests for Sid on Monday. Since Sid was so ill he wrote on the prescription urgent that means the lab guy will have the results done by one the same day and we had an appointment to see the doctor for that.

His blood work was excellent but he had a bad case of amoeba. Doctor gave him a 3 day very strong Antibiotic treatment and wrote him another prescription for another stool test the following Monday. He seemed to get better but the diapoopoos didn’t go away. He got worse and worse and by Monday the test showed he still had amoebae and he was only 164 lbs as he had lost 20 pounds in just 2 week. Doctor also said that there was puss and blood in his stool now that his stomach was infected. Yikes, not good. On our dinghy ride back to the boat we debated whether it would be best to head for Panama City. Doctor told me that they have a big problem here with amoeba, he said just swimming in the river if a little drop gets into your mouth you can get it. We have been swimming in this river numerous times. He said especially children and elderly people are affected. This going through my mind I thought since they have so many cases they obviously know how to treat it, perhaps even better than in Panama City. I texted a friend of ours who is a doctor and explained what he took and what he is taking now and to get her advice. She came back with all good on the medication and that she thinks since they have a lot of cases here they are probably more knowledgeable to cure it. So here we still were in Nargana and Sid on his second Antibiotic treatment this time on Flagyl for 7 days plus Doctor gave him some Probiotics plus meds for the sever cramps. In the mean time we both were tired of eating chicken soup, Sid was barely eating and mainly sleeping. So hopefully this round of antibiotics will kill them this time. He had to take Flacyl every 8 hours for 7 days, a probiotic every 12 hours, a painkiller for cramps and another one every 8 hours but not together with the Flagyl and a liquid to coat his stomach also every 8 hour plus after every meal. My cell had alarms set for 00:00/02:00/06:00/8:00/09:00/10:00/16:00/18:00. This was a loooong 7 day with not much sleep. Hoped this would stop those little F^#*=rs.

Sid lost 4 more pounds, it was pitiful and worrisome to see him wasting away like this. Finally the day came for another poop test, Sid told me he had a bad feeling about this. I hoped he was wrong, but only he knows who is feeling bad. In the mean time this was Carnival week and when I arrived at the clinic at 7 there was no sole there except the cleaning man. He told me not open till 8. So I returned at 8 and tried to drop the sample off but was told: Oh the lab guy is not here, he is on vacation until April. I was told though that I could go to Isla Carti or Isla Sidra, guess I had no choice and organized a water taxi to Carti the following day a $40 round trip.

Always was curious about Carti, besides was told the shopping there was better and more variety of veggies. So I was actually looking forward to it. I was told to be ready at 5:45am, the Lancha showed up 5:40 wow on time. It is a 1 ½ hr ride but it took over 2 hours as on the way we stopped in 4 anchorages down the island chain to pick up more passengers. It was a wild and very wet ride, the wind was still blowing 20/25kts. I managed to stay dry as they provided some plastic tarps to hide under.

In Carti the driver forgot to offload me on the island and headed straight to the port. I didn’t think anything of it thought it’s probably easier letting them off first then me having to climb over them. There he looked at me and said aren’t you getting off. No, remember I am going to the Clinic. He rolled his eyes as he had forgotten, he said we only will be in port for 20 minutes until all the passengers arrive. An hour later I am still sitting in the lancha. The lancha driver tried to hail another boat down for me to take me to Carti for $5 (it’s $1 for this trip thank you very much) would have taken it but some operator error the motor started screaming and the boat in high tempo took off and headed towards the dock ramming into a tide up lancha with people on it. Luckily nobody was injured, but I said politely thank you very much I will wait. Right after that a man fell into the water, hitting himself on the line of our lancha. Everbody screaming he was drowing but nobody jumping in after him. Then I saw his hands grabbing the bow on the lancha I was in before slipping away. I was just going to jump into action when a guy waded out the water and pulled the drowning guy ashore, minding you the water was only waste deep. Then not 3 minutes later the lancha behind us tide to the dock wanted to leave. He was filled with people luggage etc and was hard aground. Now that was a sight. Imagine 2 foot waves coming in lifting and pounding the boat to the ground. 4 guys in the water trying to push/pull the boat into deeper water. 8 or 9 guys on the dock were pulling the lines. They then loosened the line on the boat I was sitting in, that was interesting, and then they tried to squeeze the boat by along side the dock and my lancha. It took them a good 10 minutes to finally get the lancha into deeper water. 


Would have been soo much easier having the people get off then move lancha into deeper water then people back in. Anyway after over an hour waiting the passengers finally arrived and I was able to be dropped off in Carti.

What awaited me was my bag and backpack, wallet all which I had in a plastic bag everything was soaked even my phone, luckily it did not hurt it but I was so glad I left my computer at home. My bag was on the bottom of everybody’s luggage and under water. The other thing that awaited me was just shock and claustrophobia. OMG these people here literally live like ants one top of each other, barely room between the bamboo huts, some out of concrete. There is no area for kids to play, people are sitting in front of their door with 2 feet to the next hut and people walking by they have to move their feet out of the way, no privacy. 



I managed to find the clinic and the Lab guy already expecting me said to come back at 10:30 which was in an hour. I asked if I could use the bathroom, he replied there is none as they have no water. Oh this is gonna be a good day! So I wandered along the narrow alleys and did find the famous wonderful veggie place except all they had was onions/potatoes/plantains/over ripe bananas and all the local root veggies plus apples for 50 cents each, no veggies or fruits. I ended up eating an over ripe banana and bought the 4 left over apples they had. I asked where the nearest bathroom was, they looked at me like I was crazy. Guess Kuna’s don’t pee. So I left and followed another alley which ended on the islands western end. An old lady came towards me and pointing on to my bag asking what I was selling. Nothing, I am buying and I am in desperate needs of a baƱo. She pointed to the left so I followed that little footpath to find this:
better than no bathroom at all


I had enough of this town so decided to walk back to clinic and wait there. I did find some more Baygon Ultra green for my roaches in one of the 3 tiendas I saw on the way. (By the way the only thing that really works well for roaches, we have been clear now for a couple of weeks, still keep doing the spraying just in case).
Waiting for my Taxi back to Nargana


Back at the clinic the lab guy smiling said listo. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, Sid still, as lab guy said has mucho, mucho amoebas. I broke down right there. He said no worries I will talk to the doctor. The doctor opened the door for me right away and only knowing this is Sid’s 3rd test coming back with positive and not knowing, neither did I, what type amoeba we were dealing with, he suggested that he needs to have intravenous Antibiotic. He wrote everything down the Nargana Clinic should know and sent me to the nurses station (they call a clinic pharmacy here) with a prescription for 7 days of Flagyl 3 times a day, 2 ampule each am/pm of probiotics and also every 12 hours a mineral supplement like Pedialyte but made for adults.

I was done with this town and texted Jonny, that’s the launcha owner, who said text me when done and I send taxi, that I was listo for the taxi. No respond so I called him with answer there will be a taxi later on around 6pm WHAAAAA….!!! Told him no way need to go back ASAP. He hung up on me and about 20 minutes later texted taxi at 15:30. It was only 10:30, so I took a lancha back to the port in hope to find another lancha there. There I was told oh around 14:00 maybe but definitely at 15:30. If the driver would have not forgotten to drop me off I could have been on his lancha back, I was not happy. So I ventured back to Carti, my brain going a hundred miles an hour what best to do with our situation and since I was not able to get there on time I whatsapped (gosh love whatsapp) Edie on Panda that relayed via VHF to Sid to head to clinic and get IV started (Lab guy had told me that doctor had contacted the clinic).
I felt a little relieve that Sid would get started immediately on the IV. Since I was hungry I braved to eat in one of the only 2 restaurants. Choice soup cooked with local river water or fried chicken and rice cooked in local river water, I opted for the fried stuff but told her to hold the salad. How was lunch you ask? Tasted like fried chicken and main thing curbed my hunger as I didn’t have breakfast earlier.

A wathsapp text came in from the clinic which they had sent 20 min prior. Poor Sid went right after lunch to clinic and they knew nothing about it, so now clinic was asking to see the notes the doctor sent. I took a photo of it but of course could not send it out I had no signal. So I went back to the clinic to see if the Lab guy could text with the Clinic. The clinic’s staff had left already and only the doctor was still there so he called the clinic to explain. This is when I found out not just the clinic here has no IV Antibiotics on stock neither did the Nargana clinic. This was devastating news, what now:

1.      even if we wanted to sail back to Puerto Lindo and go to doctors in Panama City we could not leave as the winds were howling again and for another 10 days to come.
2.      We can’t leave the boat alone and there was nobody around to babysit Paradise while we were gone. Plus not knowing how many days or weeks the treatment goes there was no way to leave boat alone.
3.      Sid was to weak to travel alone and not knowing how long treatment would take.

My taxi back finally showed up at 15:00 but I was sitting again for 30 minues then they came back that they could not find the other passangers. I was the only one on board and since the wind was blowing hard he took the scenic route along the mainland. So far this has been the day from hell, actually my worst day in my cruising life so this drive home was so beautiful I was able to relax and take in the beautiful scenery. I got to see Isla Machina the home of Mola Maker Venancio plus the beautiful mangrove area where about 7 boats were sheltered from the wind. Isla Sidra home of Mola Maker Lisa, plus saw the river entrance which leads to a beautiful waterfall. Haven’t done that trip with Lisa yet. Plus many other inhabited little islands but mainly mangrove covered coast line. I was home on the boat at 17:15 yeah and it was good to be home.

Big giggle when I thought of Sid’s saying: That his new career is to make as many people as possible jealous of our life style. I told him I think it’s time to change your career, don’t think anybody is jealous of the amoeba and especially delivering poop to another island LOL.

We decided to wait and talk to the doctor before we decided what needed to be done. Finally sitting with the doctor (third different doctor, this one is the boss of this clinic) and him looking at the results he smiled and said this is good the very bad amoeba is killed. He held his hand up showing all 5 fingers saying out of the amoeba here 2 are very, very bad. The one he had was something plus E-Coli and the  other is called Lamblia. The other types can be dormant and you may not even know for months or years you have them and the now amoeba Sid had was dormant and just came out. He wanted to know, as the other doctors did, if Sid had eaten local food or drank local food and when we told him about Super Bowl he too nodded as if to say yes that’s it, especially when he heard Sid had drank out of soda cans that were iced down in local water. So I asked him how long it takes for the bad amoeba to create havoc, he said 2 days. That answered my question.  This doctor said that I don’t have to go back to Carti for the poop test the lab guy is on island and is on call and will come in. Great news.

Relieved but still not happy he still had amoebas we went back to the boat. It was good news that the bad ones were killed but Sid was still very week and very skinny as he had lost another 4 pounds. The food I am cooking is especially for his conditions lots of soups, starches like rice, potatoes. I was hoping to lose some weight but wishful thinking with all the carbs, besides main thing is to get Sid back on his feet. Just as I was doing dishes I heard the not so good bong, we were afraid of running out of water and we just did.

While Sid was sleeping most of the time I took time off and explored the outer islands of Nargana.


Met the owner of this resort, said it will be reopened again for guest flying in in helicopters. $350 a night. Hope he gets read of the no-see-ums that attacked me just standing in the water










This anchorage is not a place to make water, although a few boats do, after this amoeba stuff definitely not, besides it’s a strain on the membranes. So we decided for a couple hours to head out of the Nargana bay and anchor on the other side by a lonely island. 

it's Man of War season again, this one was the size of a foot ball



some of these islands have graves like this one

Maybe even spend the night. It was nice to be out there but unfortunately while making water the winds started piping up again and it got rolly, still OK but it would have been a miserable night. So we headed back to Nargana and anchored for the night. Since the one Tienda told me that veggies would be in that evening we decided to shop in the morning then head to Green Island to make water and for Sid to do his treatment there. No veggies were delivered but I did not want to wait an extra day for them besides high winds were predicted and we wanted to be hunkered down for that.

What a great feeling and to be out of Nargana, especially for Sid who was getting depressed, no kidding. Even running out of veggies I think we have enough food to make it back for the 4th poop test. When we got back I went to the clinic to get the prescription for the test and this time the first doctor we saw was in the office again. He immediately wanted to know how Sid was doing, so when I told him he has another test, he said no way am I going to call the lab guy in, he is on vacation. Didn’t help that the other doctor said he would call him. Very disappointed I walked out and went home. Realizing I still needed a prescription I went back and got that, and told the doctor to please check with lab guy that I was willing to pay him $50 to come in and do test. The $ worked and I did not have to make that dreadful trip back to ugly Carti.

Finally Sid was cleared of all the amoeba, we did one more load of laundry with Taty, loaded up on Veggies and raced out of Nargana. The one thing I have to mention, the usually muggy Nargana during our 5 weeks stay we had super clear weather and beautiful sunsets, even had dolphins come by in the morning and at sunset, so that made it less depressing. Actually Nargana grew on me. If you want to meet all the boats in area you just need to anchor in Nargana, pretty much every boat came by several times to provision.

This photo I took from the upper floor of the school, doesn't even look like being in San Blas



The clinic

Spacious Alleys, much, much nicer than Carti

Beer break for the men





Taty's house




Hair dresser


A Colombian Trade boat that come in every other week



Before we left we venture one more time up the river to wash a few things and to take a nice fresh water bath.

The new water pipe for Nargana, they now have water in town as well. Only took 30 years before they fixed it after an anchored boat tore it up




Plenty of frogs in the water

Trying to find leaks in the tubes, can't find them on tip so maybe on bottom. No luck. Eventually Sid found the whole, so no more pumping the dinghy three times a day

My Laundry machine






We headed to Pandadup for Sid to recuperate and for me to catch up on Internet. We had never been here but fell in love with this scenic, well protected anchorage. I think we spent 10 days here and Sid even managed to go up to the top and fix the anchor light and took some incredible photos of the anchorage.













Not as ahhh from the cockpit level but still incredible

occasional Ulus sail buy


One of my favorite thing to do around 3 or 4 o'clock




Paula and Franco found us here, they were looking for us as they had Swiss guests Claudia and Vanessa





We finally headed back to the Holandes, wind was down and Sid felt good enough to head out. Although he still was very weak and tired easly. This will take some time to get back to his normal health.

Arcadia followed us with the Swiss girls, I had promised her to take her snorkeling here:








Franco



Probably one of the best things he could do was going with Reg onto the island and help him clear paths through the island, getting his muscles back to strength and his mind off not feeling good. 
I finally went to see the path myself and wow Reg did and incredible job clearing it and now Sid. Just amazing I would say 1/3 of the island is cleared with a path. I think this summer I will get my daily walk in on this island.
Reg the Bushman








The Kunas used to pile these conch up a long, long time ago









Deb and Diane on Takes me Away


Deb and I did our snorkeling again.

Meet ET, isn't he cute?

Love the way the black stripe goes through the eyes

Big ocean trigger and look how clear the water is. Being here makes you forget about time and everything around you, it's just peaceful

on the reef's edge

Aahh look at this friendly white coral face









Yes Lyon Fish are excellent eating
Found all in same cave. We take a scissor and cut the spines off right away as they are poisonous

Most of the boats felt sorry for Sid and invited us to dinner to fatten him up. I loved it, no cooking for a while. We had a fun party on BBQ island for Debi and some other March BD babies. The funny thing was while still in Pandadup I organized a surprise party for Debie, another reason rushing out of Nargana to make it. Then realizing that my BD app calender lied to me her BD was not on the 12 but on the 26th, sigh, so we relaxed the 10 days there.

The party was a hoot, Neel on Milagro plays the guitar and came over and asked if I would bring mine and if I would sing a song with him. He rewrote the lyrics to a Neal Diamond song, he sang first than my part was to answer his part, it was funny. We had a fun evening both playing guitar and people singing along.
The food on these potlucks are always amazing





The two BD girls Don and Deb

A lot of socializing was done between all the 20 boats, just watching all going on was exhausting. Then one day a faint warning call on VHF something about a crocodile echoed in the anchorage. The following morning we found out a German woman on a French boat that was in Green Island was attacked by a crocodile in the water as she was snorkeling along the shore. The crocodile bit her face, neck, arm and leg. Was at the time in the hospital in good spirit recovering. The local police ordered a search for the crocodile to be destroyed.
Needles to say I will not do this here anymore as this is the neighbor island of the croc attack

Back in 2000 we knew of one crocodile over in Esnasdup but that was it. Now they are seen pretty much on any island that has mangroves including the Pool. And not 3 days later, I heard a commotion behind our boat, looked and saw 4 people on a German boat pointing in the water, so thought. Ah!! Maybe a nurse shark or a ray. Not seconds later Chinook called Paradise that there was a crocodile heading from their boat to ours it was half way. Yikes, we looked but with the glare in the water from the sun we didn’t see anything. This was about 5 pm the woman was bit around 4.30 pm.  2 crocs have been spotted here on occasion, alone or together but mostly at dusk. There may be a many as 3 crocs here. The one in Esnasdup was seen and photographed all the way on the reef which is north of the island, so they do move around. The following day needless to say Deb I and I went snorkeling as far away from where the croc could be. Takes the fun out of it. Now the Green Island Croc nobody knows if it could be the same as the one in Esnasdup, but we know it can’t be the one in the pool. 

Just about 1 1/2 hours earlier Sid and I were cleaning the bottom. Yikes. Love watching Sid stand on the bottom cleaning the keel:





While checking the anchor out I came across this cute little thing




Then his friends came to say hello


We left the pool on March 6 and for the first time we went to Coco Banderas which is supposedly THE most scenic part of San Blas. We know too that in heavy winds it can get rolly. We anchored wind was not bad about 10-12 knots but the anchorage was a bit rolly so we only spent one night and headed back to Pandadup where we are now. Good thing we moved because the wind piped up to 18 plus knots would have been miserable in the Cocos. 
Right side of island

and left side







We will return there when the weather is calmer as it is very picturesque and different again. For now our favorite spot is Pandadup were Sid is catching up fixing things and I am catching up on this blog.

In the meantime Sid is doing a lot better still gets a little tired as the day goes on but his appetite and healthy color is coming back. I know I am gaining weight so I assume he is too LOL.

 
So not sure when next update is, depends on Internet and or on weather (heading to an internet spot). In the meantime while we rough it out here we hope you are enjoying a beautiful and warm spring. 

Here a few other photos:
Some of the best sailing we have done in our 20 years of Cruising are here in San Blas



Fixing the Wind Generator again
Being out of pretty much everything on the boat I had to come up with something special for Deb and Diane's BD. I stuffed Artichoke heart bottoms then added Escargot Provoncal around and baked it in the oven. It was yummy will do again
Sometimes we need comfort food PIZZA

Kunas closed the road cutting off all tourists to leave or to visit. Protesting the corrupt Kuna Congresso and that the promised schools have not been built yet
All this empty space and this boat had to park on top of us. Anchor was straight down. Luckily he did not stay, guess me starring at him with a questionable look on my face, made him move somewhere else

I love my life 

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