Panama - day 3

We got up early once again on Thursday morning to get to the ferry that would take us to Contadora. I had emailed the company in advance to make sure we had reservations and they told us to be an hour early, so we were. It took five minutes to get our tickets and then we just sat around waiting. I think we all wished we could have still been in bed.

waiting, waiting

 We finally loaded on the ferry and were off.

Bridge of the Americas behind us

Panama City skyline. You can see Ancon Hill on the left.

We passed through a busy shipping lane with all the huge ships waiting to go through the canal. The boat on the top right is a Japanese whaling ship. For real. I didn't even know people got away with whaling any more!

We saw a whale on the way, which I guess is unusual for this time of the year. We also passed by some small islands that were being used for the show Survivor. After about an hour and a half, we got to Contadora.

There is no dock so all the local boats come out and pick up passengers to take to the beach. You can see our ferry behind us:

Someone from our bed & breakfast was waiting for us and took us on a "tour" of the island (it took about two minutes) and then to the hotel. We checked in and got our rooms.

Dan and Kevin had noticed someone on the ferry carrying spearfishing equipment, and it turned out he was staying at the same place we were (which was really not that much of a coincidence on such a small island, but still very lucky for us). Kevin started talking to him to get some tips on where to go and started to realize that this guy really knew what he was doing. For the past 10 years he had spent three months of the year doing nothing but spearfishing. His name was Eric and he was from France. He spoke very little English but was fluent in Portuguese, so with a combination of Portuguese, Spanish, and English, we (meaning Kevin) could mostly communicate.

Eric invited Dan and Kevin to go fishing with him that afternoon, but first we went in search of lunch. There were a few restaurants around, but all were very expensive. Kevin (who, by the way, was the only one of us who speaks Spanish and made the trip infinitely easier for us) talked to someone and found out where all the locals eat. It was a tiny place that only had one meal, meat and rice and beans. The meat was different each day but we ate there for every lunch on our trip. It was cheap and good.

After lunch and a stop at the tiny supermarket to buy water (the water is not safe to drink on the island), the boys went off with Eric and Malorie and I went to one of the beaches. There are eleven small beaches on the island and all of them were practically deserted!

We sat on the beach for a couple of hours and then went back to our rooms to meet up with the boys. They had hired a local boat and tried fishing at a few spots but didn't have much luck. Dan caught this guy:

We later found out it's not really edible and more of a pretty reef fish. Oops.

Dan also told me how he got caught in a strong current when they first started and it made me very happy that they had an experienced freediver with them. I was much less worried than I would have been!

Contadora is known as a place for wealthy people to have vacation homes, so that evening we walked around the island to see some of the houses and beaches. Even the nice homes didn't look as well-built as houses in the U.S.

We ended the night with dinner at our b&b. The German who owned the hotel was something of a chef I think, but I couldn't order German food when we were on an island and there was fresh fish available! I had red snapper and it was pretty good. Then it was off to bed.