After an eventful arrival we were double pleased to have reached our first stop and we decided to stay one week.
Tropical islands
My first impressions of the West Holandes:
It is beautiful here. There are lots of reefs and sand. Ooohh boy, don’t even get me started on sand. They have the best sand. Like, when people talk about a white sand beach, this is what comes to mind. (Capo lloovveess it, it feels very nice on the but).
We have been doing a lot of snorkeling since we arrived. There are lots of reefs to go to.
The reefs here are beautiful and full of life, there are lots of oddly shaped corals. I find it hard to put reefs in words. I mean, you can go into details as much as you want, but you really have to be there to understand the experience. So I’ve tried to bring it to you in a few pictures.
This is the kind of place where you stay in the water all day long. It is like a swimming pool!
There are all sorts of ocean life we saw: a big triggerfish, a big nurse shark (bigger than me), a ginormous barracuda, a huge tiger grouper, loads of anchovies (they were like a cloud)… .
My dad and I were going to get litter sand for Capo. While I was getting ready my dad was waiting in the dingy. I was just about to get into the boat when my dad saw a huge tiger grouper looking up at us. He said that it is really strange to see them out in the open, as they usually like caves.
On predators and prey
When we got back from getting sand, dad got into the water with the speargun to see if he could find the tiger grouper or another type of fish for us or Capo. And he was successful! He got a small yellow tail snapper, from now on called a cat-snack. When he cleaned and gutted the snapper I was still lazing around in the water. He threw the inside of the fish in the water and a few minutes later a big triggerfish turned up. Then dad cut off the meat (filets) and threw the head and fishbones back in the water. A few minutes later I saw a dark shark like shadow coming my way, so I flew out of the water. Turned out the shark was just a nurse shark, phew! But the nurse shark stayed around for a long time. Not much later I saw a ginormous barracuda.
I have a name for each of our three buddies: we have nursey (the nurse shark), trig (the triggerfish) and barra (the barracuda).
Capo’s love at first bite
We fried the snapper. Capo fell in love with the fish, at first bite. He is really hooked on the catch of the day. He would do anything for it!!! Slowly, he is discovering the joys of boat life. As we are the only boat in the anchorage he is starting to relax. The taxi boats with their whining engines in Portobelo really freaked him out. And with more peaceful snoozing during the day, he is adapting better to his new habitat, the boat life.
Capo has become like Deon’s cat Misty during the night. He walks around as if he owns the boat. He doesn’t do the front deck yet, though. But as he ventures outside during the night, we moved his litter box outside to a no rain zone. It helps a lot with the unpleasant smells. Mom and dad don’t die every morning.
Sea circus
There was this guy who came in one day on his boat and anchored in between Exodus and the reef. That wasn’t very smart because in the afternoon we have lots of wind and not much protection or space to swing around. If your anchor drags you are right on top of the reef.
So that afternoon the wind was blowing and this guy’s boat dragged and got stuck on the reef. He started a plan to get himself loose that we had difficulty understanding. It involved throwing a buoy next to his boat, grabbing a halyard (which is attached to the top of the mast) and climbing on his dinghy. And pulling the halyard from his dinghy. He went on and off his boat and dad went over to offer help but was ignored. He then managed to get the yacht off the reef by pulling the halyard and making the boat tip over, but immediately got stuck again, as the wind was blowing and nobody is on the yacht to steer. The next try his yacht got loose and started spinning around like crazy because he had switched on the yacht’s engine in gear and by keeling over the autopilot disengaged. He was still hanging on to this halyard with his sailing yacht on the leach spinning wild circles around and around while the wind was pumping. Now for those of you who live on boats will know how crazy a dinghy can spin if it has no driver, imagine this on a yacht. Again dad offered help, as we thought his yacht will smack right into Exodus, or mortally injure himself, or sink his boat and his dinghy. None of those sounded good. Dad tried to talk but was ignored. The yacht got stuck on the reef again and while it was stuck the guy tried a lot of things but didn’t do the most basic thing which is to take the anchor and put it out in the water and use the anchorwinch to pull the boat forward. No, he just kept on puling from his halyard and refused help 3 times. Later we heard from a friend of ours that the guy understands english but that he thinks that he knows everything about sailing and he has supposedly been sailing since he was 8. He has been in San Blas for one year and landed on the corals several times. From the way he carried on, we thought this was his first time ever on a boat, and he had read this thing in a book or something. Later that evening some friends came to help him. I was happy to see the next morning he had left.
Onwards
We had to move earlier than expected because dad predicted a huge storm and strong winds from Friday afternoon. So we left Thursday afternoon. It took us at least 2 hours and a half to get to our new anchorage at a different island that offered better protection against strong winds.
Freedom sailing Gitane
And freely farting Capo