Las Perlas (The Pearls) Archipelago is only 30 miles southeast of Panama City but feels like a world away. The islands were discovered in 1513 by Spaniard Vasco Nunez de Balboa. He chose the name Las Perlas for the large pearls found in the waters.
The famous 56 carat La Peregrina pearl was found in Las Perlas. This 500 year old pearl is one of the largest, perfectly symmetrical, pear-shaped pearls in the world. Found by a slave in the waters off of Las Perlas it has passed through the hands of Queen Mary Tudor of England to more recently Elizabeth Taylor.
We had a great sail from Panama City to Isla Chapera. Fortunately we had enough wind to sail. We had the wind from all directions from 5-20 knots. We got to try a lot of different sail configurations in our short 6 hour trip.
When we left we had light winds on our stern. For the first time, we were able to fly the genoa and jinnaker wing on wing. (Thanks Mike for the rigging help.)
Another first for us aboard Karma was the sighting of a whale.
Las Perlas is made up of 90 named islands and over 100 unnamed islets. Three seasons of the hit TV series "Survivor" were filmed on one of the uninhabited islands. These islands were mostly undisturbed until the late 1960's when a resort was built on Isla Contadora. Contadora has several resorts and vacation homes owned by wealthy Panamanians. In 1979 the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran briefly took exile on this island.
We spent a couple days anchored off Isla Contadora taking advantage of their wifi to finish up our taxes. It was Carnival time in Panama City so there were a lot of vacationers on Contadora trying to escape the craziness of Panama City.
View of the anchorage from Restaurante Romantica.
Lara and Isobel from s/v Sunrise joined us for a hike around Contadora.
One of our BIG purchases in Panama City were kayaks.
As you know, we are gearing up for southern Chile. While in Panama City we had the opportunity to meet a couple who had just sailed from Puerto Montt after spending a season cruising the fjords. They were very informative and shared a lot of good information. One point they made that we had not thought of was having a back up means of getting to shore. The water is very cold and you can't just swim to the boat or shore if something happens to your dinghy. They had an old inflatable dinghy they kept as a backup. After some thought we decided it would be fun to have kayaks to explore and keep in shape, I mean get in shape. We had a great time with our kayaks while in Las Perlas.

Now we can get fit while we enjoy happy hour!

Doesn't this rock look like a cow?

Isobel even got in on the action.
We were really surprised by Las Perlas. It was our first non-Caribbean island experience. Who knew that all islands weren't palm tree strewn? It really reminded us more of being on a lake then out in the ocean. The water temperature was 68-72 F as compared to 80+ in the Caribbean. The color of the water is also completely different. It is also a beautiful shade of green. Another big change is the rocky terrain with lots of trees and elevation. Las Perlas were beautiful and our short visit there really reinforced we are ready for a change.