Sound Effect went ashore Wednesday to visit the town of Portobello. This is where treasure was transshipped to Spain for many years, and home of extensive trading for years after but now is a sleepy laid back village with a history. More fort remains on the town side as well that we briefly toured.
The most famous feature now is the "Black Christ" This statue's origin is not actually known, but we read about the most probable origins in a book we borrowed from a fellow cruiser to read about the history of the famous town.
We had a fruit drink at Captain Jacks high on hill where you can get wifi and mingle with other gringos.
We met a father , son, grandson combo who had arrived that day from Grenada aboard a newly purchased catamaran. They had planned to sail all the way to Hawaii, but were having second thoughts as the boat pounds when going to windward which they had been doing for the previous month.
We tried to assure them that it would get better from here on but they had decided to haul the boat and leave it at Shelter Bay for a season and try again some other time.
We left Portobello, on Thursday morning and sailed to Linton a much talked about anchorage and found at least 40 boats anchored. We went through Linton, out the back through a small channel and on to Isla Grande where we are anchored with only two other boats. We will leave in the morning to go about 40 miles to Porvenir, the beginning of the Kuna Yala (San Blas)