6/4/2010 - Puerto Ballena

Puerto Ballena is another beautiful place.  It’s just north of LaPaz on the island of Espiritu Santo.  There are three lobes in Puerto Ballena.  The first is where we anchored the last two nights (and the sight of my “incident”).  Jake and Andy spent a lot of time cruising around in the dinghy and snorkeling while I stayed indoors sewing the mosquito nets for our hatches.  I finally finished them and I am proud to say, they are extremely functional (even if they don’t add much to the décor).

This morning we pulled anchor and I drove the boat over to the third lobe and helped Andy drop the anchor for a change of scenery.  I still can’t get my foot in the salt water but it doesn’t hurt anymore and I’m having cabin fever so Andy took us on a dinghy ride and then he piggy backed me to shore….where we saw an army of little bugs that look very similar to cockroaches.  I wish I had my video camera.  It was disgusting.  Imagine the grossest apartment in the grossest city you can think of and turning on the lights at night to watch the roaches scatter….then multiply that by a million.  As we walked up on shore they all scattered, just like the roaches.  Ick.  We did a little hiking and saw almost as many fiddler crabs and way up in the distance we saw a herd of goats.  Strange but true.

There were millions of these things and they were about the size of your thumb.  But Andy managed to get a picture of one of the hard core pirate crabs :)  (notice the left eye missing).

Jake scraped his legs on the rocks while he was snorkeling so he’s been banned to the infirmary with me.  Tomorrow we will be released by the resident doctor and can enjoy some more swimming.  Until then, we’re catching up on some school.