Deep boarding

We met at Under-sea Panama for our deep boarding/snorkeling tour that left at 10:00am. It was a very cloudy day and sprinkled a bit on us as we rode out to the islands.

We stopped on the boat ride out to see the sloths that live on the islands. These sloths are different than the ones we saw in Costa Rica (two-toed instead of three-toed).

We also stopped in one of the bays to watch the dolphins. These dolphins are smaller than the ones we are used to seeing because they do not venture out of the coves between the islands and due to the decrease in swimming space, they do not grow very large. Our tour guide only spoke Spanish, so we had a bit of a difficult time interpreting his explanations since a lot of the words he used we had never heard before, but I think we got the gist.

We then headed to Zapatilla island which was our snorkeling destination. They let us jump out of the boat and snorkel around the reefs by ourselves for a while which was awesome. The max depth in this area is 20ft so you can free dive to the bottom and check out all of the coral and fish. It was really beautiful; it had stopped raining and the sun had come out so the water was illuminated. Our snorkel time was cut short though because one of the men in our tour group became violently ill and couldn't stop puking in the water. The guides decided it was best to move him to land so we headed to the island. Once on the island, we had time to ourselves to explore, swim around and lay on the beach. The water surrounding the beach was so shallow that you could walk all the way to the little islands surrounding it.

While we waited on the island, the tour guide divided us into groups of 6 for our deep boarding adventure. Deep boarding is like snorkeling except that you are being pulled behind a boat and are in control of your own board, which you can steer to bring you up to the surface for air or down and around to see whatever there is.

It was a really fun time although I wish we could have gone more than once because once I felt really comfortable with it, it was over. Once we were done deep boarding, we had lunch and then headed out for some hiking around the island.

There were supposed to be caimans (like small alligators) on the islands so we walked around looking for them in the swamps- we didn't find any.

On the other side of the island, there was another pretty beach. Sea turtles use this beach for nesting so the eggs had been marked with red tape so that people knew they were there and didn't step on them.

After we were done with the island, we headed back towards Bocas. There had been some storm clouds growing as we were headed back but we were not prepared for the absolute downpour that was unleashed on us in the boat. The driver stopped at one point to try to wait it out which was insane because everyone was getting pounded by rain. One of the couples behind us gave us their towel to cover our faces since the rain was hitting us like needles. We were thrilled to get home and take a warm shower.
We had gotten back relatively early so we got a little dressed up and went out for a nice dinner. We went to "Casbah" which was a Mediterranean restaurant owned by a British guy. We had a delicious appetizer tray with tabouleh, hummus, olives, etc and then shared some Greek chicken which was stuffed with figs and goat cheese. It was amazing!

Everyone in town had insisted that we go to "Aqua Lounge" for their Saturday ladies night party and since there were free drinks from 9:30-10:30, we decided to go. The bar/hostel was pretty awesome; water was incorporated into their whole outdoor area (water trampolines, swings, etc) and I could see how it would be a ton of fun during the day. It was pretty much dead when we got there, but we hung around and ended up meeting some people from Houston that were a lot of fun and we stayed and danced until 2:00.

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