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.

Roatan Honduras

We left Cozumel Mexico with the intention of going to Panama...well best laid plans..we ended up in Roatan Honduras, We had some fuel pump problems, which hubby fixed underway, however we were taking the wind on the nose and really big waves, veering off made it much more comfortable..but also put us on a straight line for Honduras. A happy accident as it turns out. A divers island :)
We checked into the country ..$75 in fees and $250 for a month at the Fantasy Island Marina. We also built a bathroom for a local school ( if interested you can see my other blog www.rightowriteministry.blogspot.com) and got our lionfish hunting licenses. And it was mango season !

Cozumel Mexico.. a four month divng interlude

We have good friends from Canada who moved to Cozumel Mexico in 1991 and opened a Scuba diving shop. Being scuba instructors we have been there many times. We promised our friends that we would spend our first Christmas and New Years aboard with them.We had an awesome time. It was a 50 hour sail from Havana Cuba to Cozumel Mexico. Check in took a few days of running around because we had to temporary import the boat since we were staying longer then 2 weeks. The TIP was $60 and good for ten years. Since we spent so long here it would be tough to tell you all we did suffice to say we visited many friends, did lots of dives, drank many margaritas and generally had a good time.