Jen's East Coast Adventures

BOCAS DEL TORO, PANAMA
February 10 - 26, 2006

So, in what is now becoming a yearly ritual for me, I tagged along after my big sister and her friends on a surfing trip down south. They headed down a few weeks before me, but I joined up with them in Bocas del Toro (translation: mouths of the bull), a group of islands in the gulf coast on the north-western end of Panama.


Unfortunately the only practical way to get around to the different surf breaks and snorkeling spots is by boat, so you always have to pay to get shuttled all over the place, but hey, dems da breaks. First day I get there, we went snorkeling, so we rented to boat for the afternoon and had it take us to a few different spots. This is the view of one of the islands we went to. It was great, but I was silly enough to only apply sunscreen once, and although I was smart enough to wear a wet top to protect my back, I forgot about by butt and managed to burn pretty badly! Nice first day, eh?

I won't give you a blow-by-blow account of each day, but each day typically involved a leisurely morning, heading out to surf mid-morning or early afternoon, surfing for a few hours, and then back for some more food. Some of the crew made a few trips out a day (morning and afternoon), but I would generally be pretty water logged after one; I think I only made it out twice in a day on my last day, when I didn't care if I couldn't lift my arms the next day!

The other sucky part about having to get taxied to and from the breaks is that you didn't have a camera to take pictures! That, and you had to leave when they'd come get you, regardless of whether or not you'd just finally gotten in to the groove or the waves started to get good. But at any rate, no pictures of us surfing, but here are some pics of Trish and Graeme, and me with my Nova Scotia, too large for the airplane surf board (oops! they aren't supposed to be longer than 6 feet, but they were nice enough to let me bring it anyways!) Hotel Olas de la Madrugada (Hotel of the Midnight Waves) was where we stayed, and the picture beside is a view of the hotel itself.

I'm happy to say I had a least a few really good rides, and a few good thrashings too. It's not a good day unless you get thrashed at least once. I actually got a mild reef rash on my back despite the wet shirt one day; I was quite impressed with that! All in all, a great trip.