The Islas Perlas are famous for their black pearls, the jewels, not the ship. We didn't see any sign of either but we didn't go anywhere much as we were already a bit behind schedule thanks to hanging around in Balboa waiting for the tide to be high enough to allow us onto the slipway.

The island of Contadora which looked a bit built-up for our taste and in fact is used for international summit meetings

This is more our preferred sort of anchorage at Espiritu Santo.

Our dinghy, newly patched up after all the damage in Cartagena. We came up here through the mangroves to find a fresh water stream 

Topping up our water supplies to make sure we set off across the ocean with as much water as possible. With totally full tanks we carry 1000 litres. When we are being reasonably careful and by doing the washing up in seawater we can make this last for 3 months

The beach at Espirtu Santo with Alga and Brio with whom we seem to be sort of travelling.

A rather fine termite nest that we found when we were wandering ashore. I much prefer my beasties to BE ashore. On board we are already getting a bit too traditional with weevils in the pasta and some sort of moth larvae in the flour. Both Hornblower and Aubrey would be a bit surprised at the pasta but not the weevils.

After a false start, finding there wasn't enough wind to sail, we anchored at the last Perlas island of San Jose. Once the wind came up we finally set off across some 

REAL OCEAN