John's Blog Updated. Original post with photos: http://travel.reservationkey.com Latitude: -10.51235 Longitude: -138.68654

Today was another fun filled day of adventure. Our friends on Phambili and Evergreen decided to hike 17km to the next village, Omoa. Francois went and Bruce joined in at the last minute. The big problem was how everyone was to get back to the boats. Since my legs were sore from yesterday's hike I volunteered to drive one dinghy and tow another dinghy behind me the three miles to Omoa. After spending a few hours scrubbing off lots of growth that had accumulated during our passage on the bottom of our boat, I took off.

I had a great trip over, going slowly and exploring all the little coves. The cliffs are incredible. They rise up from the water near vertical and around every corner is another jungle filled canyon. This trip was made more memorable by the fact that it was pouring rain the way it pours only in the tropics. Even though I was only wearing my swim shorts I was not cold and the fresh water rinse was a nice treat. About halfway to Omoa, in the pouring rain, with another dinghy in tow, a pod of about 50 dolphins surrounded me. It was a really great moment.

When I arrived at Omoa, it was still pouring rain, and the whole bay was muddy brown from the run off. At first I did not see the harbor and I was thinking they would have to swim out to me since there were huge breakers at the shore. But then the clouds lifted a little bit and I was able to make out the new harbor. I towed the dinghy in and went to work securing both of them to the wall. After a few minutes I realized I was going to need to make a better arrangement because the surge kept pulling the dinghies under a cement lip on the wall, and then crushing them when the water rose up. They easily could have become punctured if they stayed that way. So I then took a really long rope and tied it diagonally from the cement dock out onto the breakwater, which held the dinghies off the wall.

I then called up Tommy on the radio and found out that the group has just arrived in town. They had a very tough hike, with pouring rain more than half of the five hours it took them to make the trek to Omoa. The road started out nicely paid, but it went only about one third of the way. We had heard that the government paid for the road to be completed the entire way, but somehow it never was completed.

A medium size cruise ship was in port today so there was more activity than usual. Many of the local vendors brought in their handicrafts to sell. Apparently this island only sees cruise ships three times a year. So we were very fortunate to see the cruise ship. I even talked to some Americans from Laguna Beach. They said they had expected the boat to be all Americans but it turned out there were only about 20 percent Americans on the boat. Most of the others were from France. Unlike cruising in Mexico, here we are seeing a lot more nationalities, which is great.

Last night we had a mini-seminar about best cruising areas in French Polynesia on a French couple's catamaran. Arno and Carol had arrived only hours earlier, after a 17 day passage from the Galapagos. They left France about 18 months ago. Michele, a German, with 35 years of experience cruising in these waters was the presenter. He also is a dentist, with a complete surgical set up on board his catamaran. He spends time around the islands volunteering dental work, specializing in correcting cleft palate in infants. Tommy and Fiona, South African/British/Canadian, from Phambili were there, plus American Dennis and crew Mark from Evergreen. Michele gave us tons of information and it was very encouraging to hear about all the great places we have yet to explore. These include an island filled with wild horses, a great spot to visit tropical fruit farms, an anchorage with the best restaurant in the Marquesas, an island with the third largest waterfall in the world (have to wear hard hats because of possibility of falling rocks), a river where they have it set up for bathing and massages, a family farm on an atoll with great diving, plus so many more. I can't wait! It sounds like the real fun part of our trip may just be starting.