Bocas Archipelago - Punta Laurel Bay and beyond



Brio at anchor near 'the farm'



From Bluefields we motored (again not enough wind) south of Cayo de Agua and into a small bay on the south side of Isla Popa called Laurel Bay, arriving at about 4 pm. We had intended to go further that day, but we had not left Bluefields until about 1pm and as it gets later in the day it is much harder to judge the depths of water and see the coral heads and reefs that are all around. Getting into Laurel Bay was a little tricky, but between Ivan's sooper dooper polarizing sunglasses and the chart notes we had, we got in without mishap although there were a couple of moments when the depth suddenly reduced and we had to pick our way around a shallow spot. The bay was delightful with five dwellings visible on the shore including one half-submerged house and one house on an islet that we called 'the farm' because judging from the noises we heard, the family there kept pigs, chooks and dogs. As with most of the places we stayed during our tour of the archipelago we were the only yacht to be seen. No sooner had we arrived than a gringo came over to us in his runabout, introduced himself as Ken, from Florida, but now living in a house he built on the point overlooking the bay, gave us an avocado from his garden, but as he was on his way out to dinner he couldn't stop long to talk.

When the stumps fail

The following day we explored a narrow creek that led into the bay that Ken had told us about. We were able to go a long way up it using the oars as paddles as it was too narrow to row normally. I ( Louise) caught a glimpse of a cayman at one stage and we saw a few birds that looked like and behaved like kingfishers.

A wider section of the creek we paddled up

After visiting Ken at his house the next morning we rowed back to our boat to head off, but rain forced us to wait until the afternoon. When we finally left we had to navigate our way through a lot of shallows to reach the Sumwood Channel. It was quite tense, particularly as we found that our Autohelm GPS did not give the same reading as our Garmin Chartplotter GPS. To navigate I was constantly looking at the coordinates on the Autohelm GPS and those on the chartlet in the cruising guide, so didn't get to enjoy the scenery. We only touched bottom once! The Sumwood Channel was a little easier and from there we steered past lots of mangrove islets and into Porras Lagoon. The lagoon is home to dolphins and we were lucky enough to see a few as we entered it. We stayed the night near a small village in the lagoon, hoping we could buy some fish from the shop. There was no shop there, but we were directed to a small fuel depot and the man there sold us a decent sized snapper from the freezer in his home. So we got our fish, but unfortunately as it was frozen, it would be the next night when we ate it!

House on Palos Lagoon Cut

We got off to an early start the next morning and motored through a small cut to the next lagoon, Palos Lagoon and from there out into Bahia Almirante, which although was nice deep, clear water, once again there was no wind so the motor stayed running. We headed over to Isla Colon and, checking out a few different anchorages along the way, anchored at Starfish Beach around lunchtime. There were a couple of other yachts anchored here, including a small one near us called 'Leaf' of Freemantle. Owners Adam and Hannah had bought her in the US, prepared her for sail in Canada and were now doing as we were and making the journey home. They had started with next to no experience of sailing, but they seemed to have picked it up very quickly, albeit with a few lessons learned on the way.

We had a pleasant time swimming over to the shore and looking at the big orange starfish and walking along the beach. Unfortunately the popularity of the beach has resulted in local tourist operators setting up beach chairs and playing loud Carribean music for the day trippers which was quite annoying by the end of the day.

The next morning we made the short hop back to Isla Carenero and tied up at the berth in the marina where we will leave the boat for the next 7 months.