Zapatilla Cays and Area, Bocas Del Toro, Panama

A few hours by sailboat or an hour by water taxi from Bocas Town lies Basimentos Marine Park. This park is actually two small cays, Zapatilla Cay 1 and Cay 2. If arriving by personal vessel the park ranger will come to your boat and collect $10 per person which is good fro the duration of your stay. Both islands are protected turtle nesting grounds. You will see sticks with ribbons attached marking areas of possible turtle eggs. Please respect these and do not walk in these areas.

Zapatilla 1 is sand and coconut trees. There are no restuarants or people inhabiting this island.

Zapatilla 2 has the ranger station, some bathrooms for tourists and educational facilities for learning about the turtles and marine life.

Starfish Beach- Bocas Del Toro , Panama

A very short boat ride from Bocas Town, in the Bocas Del Drago Channel, you will find Starfish Beach, The beach has no road leading to it. Options for getting there are personal boat, water taxi from Bocas town, bus (from the park) in Bocas that lets you off at the road end and then a 20 minutes hike or a water taxi from that location.
For spending the night on a personal boat it is well protected. After sunset all the tourists are gone and it is very quiet. During daylight hours it is full of people, music and water taxis. The beach, as it name suggests is full of starfish. I recommend a visit.

Trip from Bocas to Panama City

Sometimes you just need a little vacation. Even if you live on a boat in paradise ! For us these "mini vacations" mean something has broken and we need to travel to either repair or replace it. It is fascinating to me that usually these repair or replace businesses for boat products are never actually near water ! Oh well. Bocas is about a twelve hour boat/land trip from Panama City or a one hour plane ride.
The first option was $6 water taxi and $28 bus ride. Left the marina at 430 pm and arrived in the city at 530 am. We too the night bus thinking we could just sleep for the journey but that was not to happen. They woke us up at three different times and MADE us get off the bus to have a break. Once you re-entered after breaks people invariably showed up with smelly food and little children were no longer happily sleeping.
We decided to fly home. This was $100 and very pleasant. Kudos to Air Panama they were on time and super friendly.
In the city we used a great man, Roger, to drive us around to where we needed to go.
The city was very crowded and traffic was terrible.
The Albrook Mall was awesome. They boast over 700 stores and the prices were fantastic.
Never believe online hotel pictures. We paid a little extra to stay at what we thought was a nice hotel with a pool, Spa and Casino. The pool was up five flights of the building next door, not actually in the building with the rooms. It was dirty, deserted and cold. The Spa was indefinitely closed up. And the anticipated and advertised poker room in the casino was also closed. Oh well.

Helping Schools in Panama -Bocas Del Toro

We collect school supplies and give them out to communities in need as we travel. We do this with help of friends and family back in Canada. Our blog page for that is Right to Write Ministry . This week we had the pleasure of touring three schools here in Panama. These schools students are from the Ngobe - Bugle peoples of Western Panama.
The first two schools we visited get some help from a wonderful organization here Give and Surf . They currently have volunteers building two new classrooms.
But help is never enough. Once they build the classrooms they will have to come up with $500 a month for at least a year to pay the teachers. The government will not contribute until they think the school is viable and has a certain number of students.
Classes are given for pre-school and grades 1-6 (all in one classroom with one teacher).
The third school we visited it government supported, when they get money.
There are very few students in grade 7-9. After grade six many boys have to leave to work and help get money for the family. And many girls are lost at this very young age to pregnancy. Or in to continue past grade 9 the student must travel into Bocas Town by water taxi. And simply many families cannot afford this "luxury", so they stop attending.
The government is supposed to provide money for lunches for the children daily. But often this does not happen. The one school had not received any money at all this year, it is July ! Mothers take turns making lunches for the kids with what they have or what is donated.
My husband has put together a video of our visit. It can be seen  at this link.

Admilrante-Changuinola Panama (Bocas Del Toro Region)

Travel from Bocas Town :
watertaxi to Admilrante is $6 and takes 25 minutes
Admilrante to Changuinola is about 40 minutes by land, can taxi or bus
Admilrante to David is four hours by bus $20
Admilrante to Panama City is 10 hours by bus and $28 ( twice a day 8 am or 7 pm)
flights from Bocas to Panama city or David are about $75 plus tax each way on Air Panama

While Bocas Town has a nice small shopping area, you must go to the mainland for major provisions or repairs.
 In David, there is a PriceMart, similar to Costco or Sams Club. There are people here in Bocas who for a 5-10% upcharge will shop for you there.
In Changuinola, there are larger grocery stores and some machinists.
Changuinola is also the home to Chiquita Banana. There are banana trees everywhere.

Bocas Del Toro Panama

Bocas Del Toro Panama is the region,It is below the hurricane zone. We are in Bocas Marina at present. Bocas town is a nice small area with lots of provisioning possibilities. The town itself is full of hostels, surfers, divers, grocery stores, restaurants and hardware stores. It attracts many of the younger surfer crowd and has a very "bohemian" feel to it. From here you can take a water taxi or plane to the mainland and then bus fairly cheaply to the interior of Panama or Costa Rica. The Bocas Marina itself will order anything West Marine or Marine Warehouse carries it the USA and ship it here for you. There is also a gentleman that organizes containers to be filled in Miami and shipped here every couple months, you pay by the square inch, not weight. And a wonderful boat full of fresh veggies and fruit is her every Saturday morning.

Albequerque Cays

From Providencia Columbia we sailed overnight 80 nm to the Albequerque Cays. These are two very small reef protected Cays that do not really exist according to Google Earth....go ahead look it up..they are blacked out. We happened to meet another boat in Proveidencia that had been here..loved it and gave us the GPS way points to gain access inside the reef. They were stunning ! The one island has a few Columbian fisherman who come and go form San Andres and the other had about 7 Columbia Navy men on it. They looked at our boat papers and invited us to stay as long as we wanted. This place was paradise found. Brain corals as large as our boat, Lots of fish. Could have stayed here forever ! Also had dolphins escort us in and out of the reef.

Providencia Columbia

Leaving Roatan we sailed for 2 days and 12 hours to Providencia, Columbia..hand steering as the autopilot broke. Providencia is no where near mainland Columbia. It is a quiet and beautiful little island. There were about 12 other boats anchored there..there is no marina or facilities for boats. We got to be good friends. This place is a hikers paradise. We hiked, swam, snorkeled, dove and hunted lionfish. We also happened to be there during the black crab migration, where thousands of crabs come down the hills into the water to place their eggs. It was quite something to see. It cost us $150 to check into the country and was valid for 6 months. With cheap beer, cheap food and no  marina to pay for, you could live pretty cheaply here.