A wonderful day in David

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The Pacific ocean just south of David, Panama is home to some of the best deep sea fishing in Central America. Our group split up with some going to projects in Boquete. The rest of us travled south to assess the water quality of the ocean.

The day was beautiful with the sun shining. In fact, as we were putting on sunblock 40 we noticed that the local Panamanians were putting on sunblock 70! So of course we all lathered on the higher sunblock but still all burned. We were successful in finding plenty of water. Alas, none was fit to drink so we had to resort to cerveza. The ocean was calm and I am happy to report only one fish was harmed on our trip. During the trip to an island for lunch, a group of dolphins joined us. They swam right up along side of us and kept with us for almost an hour!

For lunch we stopped at an island with a beautiful white sand beach and ate a wonderful meal of ceviche and pollo papas ensalada. Several of us jumped out of the boat and swam to the island. We had a great day.

In the evening we met up with the rest of our group and went to the David Rotary Club meeting. The David Rotary club is a very busy club with several on-going projects. They also host a great many Rotarians traveling from the United States. Part of the meeting was spent trying to find host families for a large group of Rotary youth coming in later this month. They have been really busy.

We exchanged banners and again sang Home on the Range for our hosts.

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Photos

Boats
The access to the ocean from David is by way of close to an hour through mangroves.

Getting the lines ready
With all the hands on deck ready to help, you almost feel sorry for all the fish that will be caught!

Boats heading out for Red Snapper
We met several boats traveling out of the mangroves to commercially fish.

Hard at work!
The worst day a fishing is better than the best day of work...

Volcan
This is a view looking back towards David with the largest point of Panama in the background. It is the only volcano in Panama and reaches 3478m. It last erupted 500 years ago.

Where are the fish?
They tell us that some of the best fishing is off of the islands. But they all seem to be somewhere else.

Look at that monster fish!
This picture really didn't turn out so well. You can't really tell but the fish is about 10 feet long....or I mean 10 feet from the boat. This was our only catch, but just look at that monster. It could feed several families for weeks!

Dolphins
I'm not sure who is more entertained. Us or the dolphins.

Comments

[Lois]

Bryan -- you've done a fabulous job...I was there and I'm still enjoying the updates! I'll get my images to you guys eventually! Thanks! L.

[Buck Buchanan]

Thanks
Hello, I just joined. Wanted to say I can't wait to get there, want to be there around Oct. 06. Plan on staying a while 6 to 12 months. What are some of the things I should be aware of, and also what town, away from cities, closer to the beach, and the American Dollar goes far. If there is anything you can share would be geat. Thanks very much, Buck