i figured i should go in and check with the airline desk and confirm a flight the next day. after i walked across the runway, yes there is a crosswalk across the runway and a get at each side to discourage random animals from hanging out on the runway i found a backpacker/beach bungalo hotel/bar and the owner speaking only espanol. with a little back and forth i got yes there was a flight due in at 630 am manana.
i headed back to palapa to get things organized for seth's arrival. i figured i would head to shore for dinner "out" at this large palapa bar by the runway. of course by the time i got in had a beer i discovered it was closed. back to palapa for yet another raman dinner!
i finally did get a text from seth and after recharging was able to send a text back confirming the meeting location. i was still very skeptical of any aircraft arriving litterly at dawn so i did not bother setting an alarm. fortuantly i was acnhored right next to the aproach and amazingly was awoken at 630 by a landing airplane (a very small airplane)
as i headed in to the shore i noticed a text from seth "holy s--- odds of surviving this flight 50/50" followed by "live or die live or die"…. "live"
aparently they had moved seth around in the plane 3 times trying to get a configuration they where ok with and just barly got off the ground. after that the landing was a piece of "cake". its a good thing i did not send seth any parts to bring.
after a dingy over to the local tienda on another little isand we got under way. the tienda was a bit diapointing, one can of corn beef hash, no cigarets, no eggs no produce, but we where able to get sim cards and refil cards. it took about 3 hours to get back to the kirk anchorage so we where ready for another celebatory round of beers when kirk came by (again with pockets full of warm replacemt beer).
we where told we had missed the big smoke off the previous night where the actually managed to get a decent number of fish. fortunately as we where all enjoying beers in the cockpit a kuna canno pulled up looking to sell us fish. they had 5 small tuna and kirk snapped them up for sushi. everyone dispersed briefly to get all the sushi equipment and ingredients from various boats and then kirk headed downstairs to do his thing. we had amazing spicy tuna rolls complete with kirks gormet soy sause and wasabi. this turned into another all night party on palapa with everyone eventually making it home.
we where pretty wiped out the next day just seth went down for a nap another kuna came by this time with a boat load of decent size lobsters. i got for for 20$ prob over paid but it was my first negotiation. while seth napped i cleaned them boiled them and then put them away in the refer for later.
around happy hour i announced the lobster api surprise to seth who was quite happy and put out a call on the radio for happy hour. i was very happy to hear no response!! i broiled the lobster in bite size bits in bacon fat in the toaster over. gave it great flavor and combined with a stick of melted butter was to die for!! we where so glad we did not end up having to share with anyone. kirk did some by briefly latter on but we called it an early night with kirk and seth planning a fishing competition in the am.
the next morning kirk beat seth out to the reef but came back only with a 6 inch snapper. seth headed out for hours with both the new Hawaiian sling and kircks spear gun. after hours seth returned with something that looked edible and reported the fish where faster than the sling and it was only suitable for lobster (which he had seen none of). we discovered later that this guy was not edible either so we attempted to chum the reef with it looking for bigger fish, alas this was a bust as well. it was looking very bleak for dinner that night but fortunately while kirck and the girls where making a final trolling attempt kirks kuna dude arrived with his beer and coke order. he also had a bag of 15 chicken legs which kirk got for 15$ and dropped off on palapa for bbq.
i still had teriaki marinade left over so we marinated the chicken with this then added a bbg sauce with serachi latter in the mean. as usual the sauce was so good people where having extr rice just to get more sauce. was another great palapa meal!
the girls invited us over for brunch the next day for fritatas and bloody marry's. we where out of clamato and bloody mary mix but they where able to improvise with tomao paste (good trick). there boat was an amazing 70 feet steal ketch from the 70s. they had done extensive rework of it, several years in the yard in fl and they where getting ready to haul again in panama. the boat was amazing but to seth and i it seemed an overwhelming amount of maintenance requirement. every little spot where we saw rust they where going to have to grind down primer and paint over. not to mention maintaining the hydraulic steering and windless systems. in any case was a very cool boat to be on with a raised poop deck with a great view.
we followed this up with a full day of proper beach bochi, we almost made it around the island but aborted rather than risk injury and run out of beer! we finished the evening off on palapa planning to leave the next day. we both had to check out in porvinar prior to going to colon and columbia repectively.
we did both managed to get underway the next day. we had to clear out as well for our impending trip to columbia. this was painless and we had a great sail back to salsa. we tried to talk kirk into pressing on to the fried chicken island but he convinced us to stop for the night. we still had lots of chicken so kirk suggested a chicken pressure cooker stew. he brought is pressure cooker and gear over to palapa as i can not seem to find the one don donated. the stew was great along with more rice. kirck actually makes it with salt water and the flavor is perfect!
the next morning seth and i got an early start for the 6nm sail over to an island closer to the mainland to get fuel and also fired chicken that he had been raving about. we got 50 gal of ful for 5.25 delivered to palapa in jerry cans. we also got another case of rum (11$ per bottle) and more corn beef and more raman and rice.
kirk was correct about the quality of the chicken and the price and temperature of the beers (1$ per and palapa cold). we made the mistake of getting an extra fried chicken dinner and gorging ourselves on fried chicken and home made french fries (even better than in and out). we tried to go out but the one "bar" was out of rum so we decided to head back. kirk was so stuffed he could not even hang with us for a drink. it turned out this evening the kuna's where having some sort of massive island wide dance party on the dock off our stern. we where happy to enjoy the music form the boat which went on until 3 or 4 am when a huge squall blew threw.
the next morning seth treated kirk and i to his famous fried rice and spam. we had already had the fried rice with hash which was delicious. seth's trick to the spam is to really dice it up and fry the crap out of it to make it have more texture. very good. kirk tried to talk us into staying another day but we where getting antsy to move on to more civilization so we got under way to another little island for our jump off to columbia.
we had a nice motor down to this island and anchored in between the island and two reefs in 45 feet of water again. seth did some final lobster diving but returned empty handed. we had another raman dinner and then went to bed early planning to get under way at 3am. Alas this was not to be..
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