Commodore
February 6, 2023

Monday 6 February – first Pacific snorkel

Las Perlas is the island of pearls, famously home of the diamond, La Peregrina, that Richard Burton bought for Liz Taylor for $37000 in 1969, the pearl has a long history. La Peregrina had been owned by some of the most powerful dynasties in European history, and had appeared in portraits by artists including Peter Paul Rubens and Diego Velázquez. Liz Taylor lost it briefly and discovered it in her Pekinese dog’s mouth. It was sold after her death for over $11m! The island is also home to reality TV programs, particularly Survivor.

We hopped into JeldiJeldi in the morning to go snorkelling and had a great time in clear waters and good light. What a lovely surprise to find so many fish, and really big parrot fish. All sorts of new fish types we haven’t seen in the Caribbean, very colourful. We had a lovely view of an eel lying on the coral looking very snakelike!

On the way back to PolePole we visited a beach nearby at an adjacent island that we had spotted tents on in the binoculars. It was very shallow waters and we have to remember the huge tide range here. It was a lovely bay, we had a walk up to the shacks and found it had a bar with accommodation in tents, which must be unbearably hot. We walked over to the other side of the island only about 500m across and it was another beautiful bay with big trees covered in pink flowers. Really pretty.

In the evening we had an Arc BBQ and the prize giving for the leg we didn’t do. it was good to finally meet so many people we will be sailing with. Amazingly an English woman has a sister also nicknamed Widge! Lots of good stories were flying and there was a big Swedish presence, 5 Swedish boats in the fleet, two with kids. They’ve organised beach olympics tomorrow which is going to challenge us!