A RELAXING INTERLUDE

Our interlude anchored at Isla Linton was wonderful.   In a short time we began to meet some of the cruisers at anchor and I can imagine we would have known more or less everyone had we stayed a few days longer.  A girl on a neighbouring boat even painted a watercolour of Spiip and brought it around.  The local restaurant serves good inexpensive food and dangerously cheap beers (6 for $4.50).  The crowd is very different to the eastern Caribbean – younger and largely from Spain and France.  Lots of sailors are offering trips from Columbia to Panama to keep themselves afloat.

Sunday we scrubbed the decks, literally!  A six-monthly job, we attacked the teak with scrubbing pads and a layer came off like papier mache.  It felt like we were exfoliating the decks.   

On Monday afternoon we had to move back to Portobelo, a more accessible location for the arriving rigger and insurance assessor.  Happily the water in the anchorage is much clearer now with the lack of rain and we are able to swim here.  We explored up the river and into the mangroves with the dinghy at sunset and saw lots of birds and some capuchin monkeys.  Still no sloths!  On our return to Spiip we found a whole flock of tiny birds had taken up residence and were very reluctant to be shooed away.