Bocas Del Toro,  Bluefield Lagoon

There are two destinations on this side of Panamá, the San Blas Islands and Bocas del Toro.  Some folks go to these locations and stay for a long time.  We tried to get to San Blas but we’re thwarted by mechanical issues.  We will try again after we return to Shelter Bay for a bit.  So with our boat repairs completed, we took up the challenge of Bocas del Toro 130 miles up the coast.

We made it to Bocas.  Bocas is noted as Panamá next upcoming tourist destination.  We intended to sail from the Chagres River to our next anchorage, Euero.  You try to pronounce it, let us know how well you did!  We found Euero a bit rolly, very poorly charted, and with lots of coral reefs, so we moved on looking forward to an overnight sail to somewhere else.

Our options were very limited.  We were planning to sail 50 miles from Euero to beautiful Isla Escudo de Veraguas, but we would arrive there in the middle of the night.  We intend to stop here during our return trip to Shelter Bay in a few weeks.

Our third planned stay was Laguna de Bluefield.  This bay, probably named after the Dutch pirate Blauvelt who ventured in these waters in the 1600’s, was about 80 miles away.  It was 3pm.  If we sailed slowly, we could be there around sunrise.  It was time to ready ourselves for an unexpected overnight sail.  80 miles, 16 hours to sunrise, which means only 5 knots on average.  Our boat loves to go 7.

We arrived in Chiriquí Lagoon just around sunrise after a slightly challenging night of really, really slow sailing.  We also managed to avoid shipwrecking on Isla Escudo de Veraguas, although I’m told that’s a great island to be stranded on.  As the sun continued to rise, we made it into Bluefield and set anchor in 50 feet of water.  That’s probably as deep as we have ever anchored.

Before we even had the anchor set, we were approached by two parties in dugout canoes looking to sell us bananas and coconuts.  By 3pm, we had our 7th or 8th canoe visit.  The canoes were looking very similar.  We did not need that many bananas, and we were running low on cookies for the natives.  Welcome to Panamá.

Tomorrow, we look for another anchorage a little further away from civilization and banana salesmen.

And Happy Valentines Day, everyone.