Sun & Sand

Not much to report here; I've spent the past two days enjoying the water. Yesterday I followed a trail to a beach on Bastimentos Island...a trail which turned out to be completely muddy and slippery after the mid-day rain. I had to take off my flip-flops and go it barefoot, holding on to whatever branches and roots were available to keep from falling. But the beach was beautiful and the water is so warm!! I enjoyed myself for a few hours, reading, swimming, lying in the sun, and watching other tourists emerge sweating from the woods to rinse off their mud-caked feet. Luckily, a boat came to take us back.

Today I took a boat tour to some of the islands' most picturesque sites. We had a bit of a rough start when our boat stalled in the middle of the bay and wouldn't start for five minutes or so. We went to Dolphin Bay, where we watched (surprise!) dolphins play and jump in our boat's wake. I was tempted to jump in and swim with them until I saw the reason they were there--the water was teeming with big pink jellyfish! Then we did some snorkeling around the reef at the site you see above, and later went to Red Frog Beach, to swim and hunt in the trees trying to see the tiny and elusive (surprise!) red frogs.

Tomorrow I leave the Caribbean coast behind: I'm off to Panama City to check out the canal and other area attractions, and from then on I'll be moving north along the Pacific coast.