09:16.35N 78:07.55W

We decided to move on to Mono Island as we are keen to get further north, we decided to take the inner route. The weather at the start was a little cloudy and grey so not much help to spot shallows,

 

A reminder of how dangerous these waters can be

Once inside the islands and reefs the weather perked up and the seas were calm.

 

Kuna are great seamen and sailors traveling long distances in their ula’s, it’s great to see them sailing along.

 

We found a few reefs / shallows not quite where they were meant to be and one not charted at all which Lulu dinked - the waters here aren’t as well charted as further north in the islands so care and a good lookout is needed. Approaching the anchorage found a shallow off position on the chart and suddenly we only had 1ft below the keel, luckily we were going slowly and it soon got deeper again but it gave me a heart stopping moment. When we got to Mono Island Schloss Ort and Lulu were already there so we anchored, soon Honey Ryder, Quicksilver, Sisu, Pisces and Mora joined us. The local Kunas from a village a couple of miles arrived to ask for their anchoring fees - another $10.00 each boat so they made an easy $80.00 out of the 8 boats. After we launched the dinghy and kayak, Steve went for a row and I went exploring with Sharon and Chris from Quicksilver who have a double kayak, we went up into a lagoon north of the anchorage, the water’s edge was lined with mangroves - sadly most of the lower branched had bits of plastic hanging from them probably predominantly washed here from afar but some i am sure is local waste as the Kunas have no means to dispose of rubbish so they tend to burn some but some just gets dumped! In the evening we were going to go ashore on Mono island for sun downers but it was found to be very buggy so we all went on to Schloss Ort for a very pleasant evening. The next day we had decided to stay put, make water and catch up with some laundry, it was again a grey day. After doing the washing we had managed to get most of it dry before it began to rain! We visited Honey Ryder and Quicksilver for a while - we are planning to move on tomorrow and they are staying put for another day or so.