Commodore
January 13, 2023

Friday 13 January – Seeing Phoebe off in a tiny plane all to herself

Phoebe had to be at the airport by midday, so we headed back to Nargana and anchored behind the town where we had been with Luke and George, in a slightly more secure spot than when we picked up the Kirbys. Incredibly all went pretty much to plan even with the huge dark clouds over the mountains, we only had to wait 20 minutes. It was very sad to say goodbye to Phoebs, we have so loved having her on board, but at least we see her again in 4 weeks in the Galapagos, when she comes over with Daniel.

After dropping Phoebs off we went for a wander in the town and found a few pieces of fresh provisioning, not a lot available. We then crossed the pedestrian bridge to the island Corozon de Jesus and had a a little wander. it appears that the Mormons are very big here and build a lot of the bridges. Met a lovely old lady who I was happy to buy a Molas from, my cheapest yet, from. There were a lot more traditional looking houses here with their palm leaf roofs. The Congressa building was impressive with it’s flags flying proudly. We went back to the office that Eben had taken Rowan to, to pay for going up the Diablo river, the lady laughed at him this time and said he didn’t need to pay! We had a lovely pootle up the river navigating our way carefully through the tricky entrance of the river mouth, filled with up ended trees. We saw some lovely brown iguanas and then sadly saw a bright green one tied up on a locals boat, we asked if he was going to eat it and he just laughed and said no! I do so hope it wasn’t going in the pot!

Back to PolePole, we got the anchor up and returned to our first spot at Coco Banderos, amazed to find it empty for a while, until another monohull joined us. Our plan is to leave the channel tomorrow and head south to the more remoter islands so that Matt and Stella can have a sail.