Bocas del Toro Panama: Funky Town

As with many writing exercises I didn’t quite know how to sum up our stay in Bocas when I began. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is the best summary I can imagine. We loved it.

We arrived safely in Boca del Toro at the Boca del Toro Yacht Club and Marina without any remarkable incidents. Our only glitch was some occasional hiccups from or Raymarine Chartplotter. Just to show how seriously I took it, here is a picture of me reading the directions! Just as I thought! Port is left and starboard is right.

Here is (or is it ‘are’) the crew:

(L to R: Harry Reppert, Marj Goss, Paul Goss, and John Eichinger).

Hardware Stores

Without any real stories to tell, I’ll show you a few photo galleries. We have all heard that cruising is “repairing your boat in exotic locations.” Usually that involves finding the local hardware stores. It’s probably a good thing that I enjoy this Easter Egg Hunt. I found four in Bocas. They are all local meaning there were no Ace Hardware or True Value stores amongs the lot.  In fact the only US chain that even showed a sign was Home Depot—it had a logo on a local buying club, but no actual physical presence (or nexus as accounts like to say). They were far better stocked than the ones in La Cruz, Mexico, but not very useful for marine hardware. There were a couple of small marine stores mostly oriented toward outboards.

 

Restaurants

Bocas is a tourist town. Unlike cruise ship ports where the tourists tend to be gray haired, Bocas caters to eco tourists especially surfers, kayakers, and divers. Restaurants are very casual as befits a party crowd.

I must say that by far the best meal of the trip was had at 9 Degree Restaurant so named because Bocas is at latitude 9 North. I had the seared Ahi and Marj had the grilled Salmon.

Streets

The streets of Bocas left no doubt that we weren’t in Kansas anymore. In fact we weren’t even in the Pacific. This is the Caribbean with its more vibrant colors influenced more by its African heritage.

        

The Park

Dugout Canoes

We saw all sizes of dugouts being handled by crews of all ages. The largest were over twenty feet long and the smallest merely eight feet. Most were paddled, but we did see a few being sailed. It looked like a neat trick in a boat with no chines and no amu!

 

The Waterfront

Given that the water in Bocas is warm and the tide less than three feet the town embraces the ocean in way foreign this Mainiac.

Friends

Part of the reason that we chose Bocas del Toro Yacht Club and Marina was because it was recommended by our friend and former commodore Paul Cahill. Image our surprise when he met us at the dock with the dock master and grabbed our dock lines. As you will learn in later posts, we kept Virago at BYCM for almost four months and were most pleased with the facility and staff. Thanks Paul for the fine recommendation.