Ô les Crocos, ô les Crocos, ô les Crocodiles

…no, they have not left to “les bords du Nil” but to “oh wie schön ist Panama”!

We have seen our first crocodile in the anchorage of Nargana in front of “Diabolo River”. As there are no saltwater crocodiles here it must have been out for an evening swim or just arriving from the Nil.

Nargana is a village on an island close to the coast, where you can get “almost everything” as we were told by a longtimer: pasta, rice, beer, flour, was there anything else you could need?

We did some shopping and ventured up the river with our dinghy. It was very nice, especially the nice smell of all the flowers in the djungle.

The Kuna-indians are paddling up the river with their dugout canoes to pick up fresh water, do their laundry in the fresh water or cultivate bananas and other fruits in small semi-cultivated lots along the river.

The kids loved it. Paul and Felix went with Florian from the austrian boat “Viveka” and his parents and they did even do a real Tarzan-style liana swing with jump into the river.

After this visit to the river we went again out to the islands, where the water is clear and there are no crocodiles.
The kids continue to play with their friends Zoe and Maxime from Zorba, Helena and Nijma from Avalon and Florian from Viveka. We had been invited by the locals of “Elephantes” in the Western Lemon cays to participate to the birthday party of their one year old daughter, which was incredible to see. The Panamanians like to party and they like to host foreigners as if they would be part of their closer family. Unfortunately all Europeans had stomach problems the day after…

Now some photos from our life in the islands:

Sailing between the islands under a sun shade and with the dinghy just lifted out of the water with a halyard – Capt’n Fridsi’s style changed from racer to tramp…

Timmy in a heart of starfish collected by the boys

Flotte Lotte anchoring between the islands of Cocos Banderos

a boat between palm trees

the kids collect huge quantities of Bernard l’Hermits and play with them – This is Felix’ darling “Bändsel”

and here is a slightly bigger crab which is the captn’s pet!
No my look betrays me it finished in the casserole…

 

and to finish with a blok-buster video of our surfing queen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6ZXIBVcbZQ