Carenero Island

People playing at the aqua lounge  bar.

We decided to skip out of Bocas town, so we cooked up our included pancakes, went to the grocery store, and then went across to the Aqua Lounge on Isla Carenero across from Isla Colon, where the capital Bocos is.
The Aqua Lounge was fully booked, so we wandered along the coast of the island until we found someone that would let us camp, and for free! We set up the tarp and tent and our beds, tucked our bags into our impromptu host's house, and headed for the relaxing Aqua Lounge to bounce on the trampoline into the ocean. Woooh! For dinner we were pleasently surprised with their menu; poutine!! First time since Canada! And it was delicious!

Size of one the many land crabs creeping our camp at night. I wrestled this one upside down.

On the way back to our camp we found out what the people meant when they warned us about the crabs. 8 inch crabs swarmed our camp, we did our best at shooing them away but they kept coming back. Also between our bikes and the tent was a very busy highway of leaf cutter ants (one more danger to avoid). Once we were done playing with the crabs and watching the ants we were led to a hot water outdoor shower by our host (which was awesome even though it was hot out still) then we went to bed. But then we found out about the third danger of sleeping where we did. Bats liked to fly overhead often using our tent as a bathroom...most of the time though it didn't go through the screen..

Beachside picture. The water alternates sandy desolation and reedy abundance. And no waves thanks to the reef.

On thesecond night on Carenero, we camped on the deck of a house. It rained-hard-all night.

For the next night we were advised to set up our tent on the porch of the vacation house so to not have to deal with crabs, ants and bats. We spent most of the day on the beach swimming and meeting new people as they were dropped off by boat for the afternoon. We explored the 'town' on the island as we looked for the store. There are no roads on the island, just a winding sidewalk that goes inland and a sandy path around the edge. Also if it has been raining the only non flooded part is the sidewalk because the island is so low.
In the middle of the night we woke up by the wonderful sound and feel of being rained on so we quickly as we could in our sleepyness moved the tent furth from the edge of the deck and tried to go back to sleep. We had to pack up really early unfortunately because the vacation house was to be cleaned in preparation for the guests later that day so the tent was packed up soaking wet.
On the walk back around the island to the main dock we had to cross a fast flowing flooded bridge, Rigel managed to stay dry but I had to get my feet wet...

View of Carenero from one of the many docks.