Cleared in and resting at anchor

We took a leisurely stroll in Bruadair from Dolphin Bay to the town of Bocas so that we could clear in and get some groceries (almost all the cupboards are empty). Our visit with the port captain in Bocas was, well, easier than our trip here. It took 5 seconds for him to say hi, take our zarpe from Porvineer and welcome us to Bocas del Toro. Impressive. Our next stop was the Gourmet Super Store across the street, a well stocked grocery store catering to the expat community here. We found lots of great stuff but produce was slim pickings. We took our many bags back to the dingy and then back to Bruadair to put refrigerated items away including pork chops, a variety of cheeses, marinated chicken, butter and cream cheese. Then it was another trip into town where we visited two more standard local grocery stores. Also very well stocked and many bags later we were returning home to Bruadair to unload. I was happy to find Tabasco sauce at one of the local stores and for a quarter of the price that I paid in Cartagena. Provisions here in Panama are sooooooo much more affordable than in Colombia, for what we got today we would have easily paid double or even triple. So we're already liking it here.

We left the main anchorage near Bocas town and headed five miles south and anchored among some mangroves near Gallego Caye. We'll spend the night here tonight and then take the hour trip to Red Frog Marina to see their facilities and check on our reservation for September.

The Bocas areas is quite vast. There are numerous large bays and many more smaller bays and rivers to be explored. There are also a number of small villages inhabited by many different indigenous Indians and the waters here are for the most part very protected. We're hoping that we'll make it a bit east through a maze of mangroves next week into Panama's largest bay. More on that later when we make our trip. David's stowing provisions, I should probably help.

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