Thursday 7 November 2013

Starfish Beach

There were indeed plenty of starfish at Starfish Beach. Did you know that if you take a starfish out of the water it will die?  So we were told by plenty of signs along the beach, urging people to leave the starfish alone. (The signs were in Spanish, so we were proud of ourselves to be able to read them.)

Starfish Beach was a lovely spot to sit for several days.  There were no jellyfish in the water, so we swam lots, off the beach and off the boat.

Starfish Beach from our boat.  The beach wasn't very deep, but it went on around the corner on the left side of the picture and on around a few more corners, all the way around the island to open ocean - we didn't walk that far.

The first day we walked the beach, we saw over fifty starfish. On the weekend, when piles of tourists showed up, all the starfish went into deep water and hid. (Wouldn't you?) These ones were collected in the water by some enterprising tourist and everyone stopped to have a look.

We had coconut water in the coconut, beer, and Bob Marley every day from beach bars like this one. Oh, the Caribbean...

Life's not too bad, really. (The Captain and myself, in case it's been so long you've forgotten what we look like.)

One of the highlights of our stay on the beach was that the Captain was granted a wish.  Long, long time has he been wanting to go waterskiing, and our friend Stuart from IO of Cowes had the dingy to do it (and the 50 HP outboard.) Nigel, we thought of you.

Stuart and his super dingy.

"Ready" says the Captain.

Set...

Go!

And on one ski. (Did you know that if you click on the photo it will open a larger version for you?  That is a very small Captain dot in this pic.)

Good times were had by all. (And some even had sore arms.)

By the end of the weekend, we had run out of rum, meat, fruit, and a few other essential items, so it was time to head back to town to stock up. Fortunately, we had a little bit of breeze in the right direction and no reef to worry about, so we sailed!

We even made it all the way up to 3 knots once! (For those who don't get it, this isn't very fast.)

Our impromptu sailing buddies - IO of Cowes on the left and a catamaran that I didn't know with a pretty cruising chute up.)
Back in Bocas for the moment.  We will be heading out soon to explore another corner of the archipelago.  We are also watching the weather and planning our next move in a couple of weeks to Providencia, Colombia.

 Looking back over town from the north anchorage.
P.S. Providencia is nowhere near mainland Columbia.  It's actually much closer to the Nicaraguan coast.
P.P.S. Photo credits to Susie Broom from IO for all starfish pictures, all water skiing pictures and the one of the Captain and me.