By Judy Pinegar

Oops we lost some days…all three of us are now sick in various states… Ted being the worst now as ours started earlier. All three of us were scheduled for the boat ride to Cano Island to go snorkeling and hiking, but due to the rain no hiking was possible now, so Ted decided he didn’t want to go, then at the last minute John decided to take a day of rest, so I went snorkeling with a nice English couple, David and Rosemary.

David had been in the navy for England, and she followed him to many of his stations, even after they had a family. Then since retiring they have traveled all over. I ended up asking where in the world they had NOT been (and it was very few places), mostly in the Orient in unusual places. Anyway we there were lots of fish and the water pretty clear, I saw tons of little fish, some coral fish, a school of what looked like small sharks to me, some large flat incandescent  ones, yellow and black striped too. Sorry for the non professional description but my guide book isn’t very hot on fish.

Cano Island is a national reserve, one part of the 25% of the country that is protected!! There were some wonderful shells, but we weren’t allowed to take them, or the rocks. We stopped for a picnic lunch and a rest on a beach by a ranger station, the only place on the island that boats are allowed to land, and you had to leave before 3:30 PM too. It was a very clean, sandy beach (have I mentioned the one here at Drake Bay is littered with leaves and pretty murky, due to the rivers nearby and the way the tides work) framed by some neat black rocks (sorry no pictures I left it in the cabin with John). It was not raining while we snorkeled, the first sun I had seen (so of course I got sunburned, forgetting about my back while snorkeling)

I spent some time watching the Hermit Crabs, they are so funny, from tiny little spots you almost can’t see to plain shells to some really fancy and colorful shells. The crabs have to continually change their shells as they get bigger, but it sort of seemed that the personality of the crab matched the shell! When they hear or feel (?) that you are nearby they stop and become just shells on the sand, unmoving, but if you wait, or look behind after you walk they soon all come back to life. It is really fun to see.

That afternoon and the next day it rained ALL DAY, and we were glad we had postponed our trip to Corcovado National Park and the jungle walk, instead catching up on our sleep. Next up…our exciting time in the jungle!

Judy Pinegar is a writer and her articles have appeared in numerous publications.

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