Happy Birthday Eric!
23 February 2011 | San Blas Islands, Panama
Mark
Today (February 22) is my brother Eric's birthday. He is up in the freezing cold of Maine while my other brother, Dave, is down here with me soaking up the beautiful Panamanian sunshine and enjoying the warm Caribbean waters. Today we had planned to go to Ogopsibudup and dive the deep ridge we found there last year, but when we looked, some other boat had taken our anchorage on our island. (Some people have a lot of nerve!) Since there is really only room for one boat there, we sailed instead to the Iguana Islands, a set of three tiny palm studded islands with surrounding reefs. We anchored of the most Easterly where I had placed a waypoint on the chart last year, but I don't remember actually visiting here maybe we just planned it and didn't go? Anyway, we anchored nicely in 15' over sand and took dinghy in to explore. Lisa was still drowsy from the NyQuil she took for her cold, so she hung out on the boat while the three of us went in. Deb walked the island in true flotsam queen fashion, finding all kinds of treasures. Dave & I decided to check out the snorkeling / diving possibilities. The barrier reef was actually off lying by some distance with a shallow lagoon between the island and the reef so we decided to check that out first. There was quite a current running, but we went along with it and found some pretty nice coral and small fish. We went through a cut to the outside and found a much stronger current and somewhat less interesting coral. We swam back to the beach, at times kicking near capacity to fight the current. We decided to try the rest of the inside reef and so walked half way around the island where the current was directly toward shore and swam out against it. When we reached the breakers, we turned and had a sleigh ride with the current along the inside of the reef. We found a cut outside and literally shot through it like a person spitting a watermelon seed. As we flew through, Dave spooked a 2' grouper who immediately found shelter from the invaders. Outside we were in a wonderland of coral and fish with very little current! It was maybe 30' deep and a beautiful wall all the way down. We came upon a 5-6' nurse shark swimming in the depths. It was the first time I had ever seen a nurse shark swimming free like that except in Shark Ray Alley, Belize, where they hand fee them. We just hung back and watched her go. Swimming along the outside wall was fantastic until we turned the corner to head back to shore. Then we were in that $%*^&(( current again. It really was a struggle this time as we were more tired. At one point I had to stop and stand up just to rest. (Fortunately by then we were only in 5' of water.) We decided there was no way to get the hookah or the women out to the beautiful wall. On the way back to the boat, we took dinghy over to the next island to check out dive possiblities there. The encircling reef looked promising and we also found a beautiful spot to anchor the big boat so close to shore that we could hookah right off the boat. So we went back and moved Always & All Ways to the new location. The anchor dropped in 15' but by the time we had 150' of chain out, we were swinging in 50'! Kellet and another 50' of chain and we were set. After lunch, all four of us took off from the boat to hookah. The hookah was quite hard to start (previously it always started real easily), but once running, it never missed a beat. After getting weights adjust near the shore we followed the outside of the reef as it curved away from and around the island with NO CURRENT. The coral was amazingly healthy and diverse. Depths gradually fell to about 25' with water clarity good, but not excellent due to some stirred up sand. Still, visibility was probably 50' so no complaints. We swam nearly half way around the island before deciding we should go back. We were all tired, but a beer while laying in the tramp to dry off in the sun helped. Maybe tomorrow we can get to Ogopsibudup.