Carnivale over, we left Panama city and its very busy waterways headed for Las Perlas islands, about 40Nm from Panama.

Our first day out we caught our only fish for the trip. Hard to believe as there were fish everywhere!

Bill demonstrated the art of filleting the tuna for sashimi.

The islands were lovely.  Contadora, is the closest to Panama City. It is the most populated island, a popular getaway spot for Panamanians.  It was a very pleasant spot to anchor and explore.

Contadora has a colourful history. The abandoned hotel with its beached ferry were apparently owned by a Colombian drug lord. Once his plane exploded mid air with him aboard, his wife was no longer able to afford running the resort. Such a shame to see the graceful old wooden buildings in ruinThe bird life, especially around the southern islands was incredible. Huge flocks of black birds would pass the boat in formation, congregate on the beach for about 30minutes, then leave again. An amazing site.

We never tired of watching the pelicans flying past and then diving for dinner.

To our great excitement we spotted whales off Elephante Island. It was rather scary but wonderful to have these giants frolicking in the water around the boat. We slowed right down to watch the whales and the huge schools of rays which swam past the boat.

We were all very keen to visit Isla San Telmo, the location of the wreck of a 1860s pearling submarine. The sub was abandoned in 1869 following many deaths due to decompression sickness.  JoAnne and Bill had been wanting to visit this treasure for years.  Low tide was the perfect time for viewing the sub. It is a such shame that this important part of history is just rotting away in this isolated location.

Anchored on the south coast of Isla Del Rey, we explored the Rio Cacique River by dinghy. Beautiful and fun, but didn’t spot any crocs or other wildlife.

JoAnne, a ham radio operator finally proved that our SSB worked by chatting with some ham operators in Virginia. We are looking forward to using it to communicate with other cruisers as we head out into the Pacific.

We anchored near San Bernando Islet, on Isla Pedro Gonzalez, looking forward to the walks ashore amongst the herb plantations described in Bauhaus, our very good pilot book. Unfortunately the beachfront has been taken over by the Ritz Carlton, so although we could anchor there and take our dinghy ashore, access any further was forbidden.

It was great to meet up with Karen and Chris on Skabenga for beach walks, drinks, dinner and hilarious card games….

We’re now back in Panama city to await our French Polynesian visas and to do a final provision before our much anticipated trip to Galapagos.