BlueFields

Needing to finally get away from the dock, we pushed off in inclement weather, but stayed inside the outer islands to make ground.  We headed East towards Bluefields, named after the Dutch pirate Bluevelt, who made this area his home in the 1600's.  To get there we had to maneuver thru small islands and reefs  that were not visable with the cloudy skies.  Darned good that we had Waypoints given to us by another local cruiser that had been verified as accurate.  The passage was a tad tricky and I would have been stopped by fear early on as I could not "Read" the water by sight.  Without sunlight and only in cloud cover, the water is all the same dark grey.  You cannot read into it the colors normal in good sunlight.

CLICK ON ANY PHOTO FOR 'LARGE' DISPLAYS.

Anyway, we got thru it, hard ,rain and, all to BlueFields.   Our charting system worked well and we felt confidence using it and my piloting skills.  Shortly we were anchored near a little village on the north shore of the lagoon.

40' Log canoe, or cayuga.  Longer than their houses, cut from one tree trunk.... now very limited.

Not long after we dropped the hook, a lone gent paddled over to ask for medicine for his rash. I think he had Pitariosis Rosea a fungal infection caused by sweat and sunlight but who knows.  We gave him a partial tube of Hydro cortesone cream we had aboard. and he paddled off smiling.  He understood our instructions on it's use and once he got the tube, his English improved too!  Hmmmm?

There seems to be pattern here,

that as soon as you drop your anchor and every hour of the day, another local cayuga paddles up to ask for something.  Mostly they are kids.

A couple 2 or 3 to a boat.

They think we are Santa..........and probably think each cruising boat is the same...........here to drop off candy etc.

However, one guy came up selling fish.

He had ONE nice Grouper type fish, with quarter size scales!  Ocho(8) bucks he wanted for it.  His little ones were not offered or bargained for.  I told him no, cinco(5).  He said no Ocho!  I went below and brought up 2 nice special circle size 2.0 hooks  to add to my $5 offer.  His eyes lit up. Yup, these hooks are probably not available here but cost $3 each in the US.  So, we made a deal, 5 bucks and 2 hooks.

I thought he needed tools for his trade more than money and I was right....it was not about getting the best of him or his fish, but bargaining in a way the he got what he needed and our gift and we got something back.
I then asked him if he would like the head of the fish?  His eyes lit up again (fish heads make great soup) so we did that too, then went below and brought up a cook Walmart $6 Bangladesh cotton T shirt.  He was smiling big time after the fish head, but when I said, "mi amigo, por tu" (my friend; for you.) and handed over the shirt, he grinned real wide and paddled off with his bounty still smiling and waving kindly.

 The little village was an a sand spit of land just off the shore and it led to a larger village just west.  The surrounding area was hilly and covered with virgin forest and or stripped land for cattle grazing.

I actually loved the place except that for a gringo, if we ever felt we needed to get somewhere, it would be hard to do.  A half day's hard run across the Canal del Tigre (canal of the tiger!) ferocious? just to get to a little town.  This area had no roads coming in at all.

We rested for a day then left early the next morning for Escudo de Veraguas.