Sunday eve 05 June.
 
Took the dinghy at first light to find the river which the guide promised to be attractive. We had seen canoes emerging from the shore the previous day  so had some idea which direction to head. Even so the route would not have been found without  guidance from more conoeists heading up stream for drinking water. A solitory dolphin was fishing in the bay as I rowed across. The mouth of the river was almost silted up so that the dinghy scraped along and the conoeists were punting their dugouts through the mud.  Once in the river the depth improved and it was most attractive with palm lined banks and occasional large mango trees. A quick recky ashore found clearings for the coconut palms and the soft muddy ground peppered with 2inch diameter crab holes. I turned back long before the water fetchers who must spend a good 2-3 hours each day on water duty.

We upped anchor after breakfast and continued cautiously westwards -the channel between mainland and islands is mostly around 10-15m deep but with many shallow spots -some of which are flagged with poles and others not. A couple of times we had to apply quick reverse as the depth dropped from 10 to 0m in no time. Fortunately no crunching today. 

We couldn't resist the alure of a deserted island with sandy beach and palm fringed shore. This time my anchor improvisation failed completely so manual anchoring would appear to be the order from now on. We rowed over to the island and swam and snorkled in idylic conditions. This couple of hours alone justifies all cost and suffering to date.
We lunched back on board and afterwards our paradise was  set ablaze by couple of men who were clearing the dead palm leaves -even paradise has to be managed it seems.

We have moved on and anchored off another village- this one little larger and connected to the mainland with a footbridge (not mentioned in the guide). A group  of 5 young boys welcomed us by climbing onto the boat and making themselves at home. The youngest of the group -about 2 years old- was thrown aboard by his brothers and looked very dubious about his new surroundings. However some orios improved his confidence and he was soon climbing all over like a monkey.

After a few gentle hints we told them to vamos and they took to their canoes  so we could dinghy over and explore the village.