Exploring Bahia Santa Elena

The second day, we decided to do the dinghy drill and explore a bit. So bright and early, before it got hot, we had DITTY in the water and went across the bay to one of the beaches for a short hike. When we got there we saw a lot of interesting things, from the hundreds of hermit crabs, each with their own different shells carried on their backs, to the 3 foot completely preserved skeleton of an eel that had washed ashore. There were signs of lizards and snakes and in general it was a pretty neat place to hike.

Then we took the dinghy to the mouth of a river that empties into the bay for a self guided jungle river trip. It was too shallow, in our opinion, to motor, so we broke out the oars and rowed perhaps a half mile upstream thru the lush mangrove forest and canopy. There were all kinds of butterflies and birds, and fish were jumping at the many insects. Fortunately we had plenty of DEET on and so did not suffer much in the way of bug bites.

That evening, we invited Bruce and Marianne over to RHAPSODY for cocktails. We got the boat all spruced up and made some shrimp and clam pate to go with the rum drinks. Marianne and Bruce brought a great tuna/veg dip and some mixers of their own, and we had a good time chatting about the boating life, our histories and plans, and getting to know each other as we were all treated to yet another picturesque sunset.