Events According to Crew Member Cassidy

We spent the last week in La Paz and another indigenous village called Puerto Lara. Unlike La Chunga, Puerto Lara was a Wounaan tribe and wasn't nearly as nice. There were streetlights, a car road, and satellite dishes. Sad to say, that village has been corrupted. Oh, we met up with three other boats from the cruising community and they also came up Rio Sabana (Puerto Lara) with us.  Having some awesome adventures with our new buddy boats.

Last night we came back to La Chunga with the other three boats and ran into a bunch of issues. First, on the way to the mouth of the river, there is a 6-mile mud flat and only one way to get in. It is really difficult with the muddy water because we can’t see how deep it is until we are on top of it. Anyway we were following our last track with three other boats right on our tail and everything was going well until a fishing boat came by and said that we were headed right for a net and we had to go around the black flag that was half a mile into the shallow bank.

With a lot of effort we managed to get past that and get back onto the original track. A few minutes later we noticed another net about ten feet off to our side. We ended up following it until it got to shallow then all four boats had to turn around (very difficult). We followed it back the other way and were just able to pass (one by one) tightly around a small fishing boat. If we went anymore than 5 feet from him, then it would be too shallow to cross.

We made it up the river with only a few log problems, but nothing much. Each boat safely anchored out from the village dock. Last night we had to take the dinghy and pull a few logs off of our front. The current here is pretty severe and it was difficult to pull against it, but eventually we got it.

Then this morning, a mere hour ago, we started dragging. We had drug almost all the way around the first river bend before we noticed it. Apparently, we had built up so much debris and it added so much weight and friction that the anchor slipped. The thought is that we dropped the anchor on a rock bed, too (we only stick in mud). It was a challenge to get all the debris off the front, pull up the anchor, not run into the tree line, not get any of the debris into the propellers, not run aground, and get another anchor to prevent from drifting and more.

Eventually we didn't have to send out another anchor, but it was still a hectic morning. In an hour, all the boats are going into the village and there is going to be a welcoming celebration for the other boats. I'm really excited, we have been proclaimed as friends because we came on our own and came back with more tourists. My tattoos have faded and I'm hoping to get another one before I head back to the states.

Cassidy