“Now sit right back and hear a tale, a tale of a fateful ship”...(posting from the road)

I guess you figure out what happens here – rest assured it was not the Encantada. The Encandada is too big to get close to shore, thus requiring us all to pile into a little zodiac that zooms us either close enough to wade in or right up against the rocks. Today we were attempting the latter in EXREMELY LOW tide.

Our crew had done an excellent job for the majority of the navigation as our little dinghy winded its way through coral heads and lava rocks – much to the annoyance of the thousands of crabs that lined the shores. To the point where Luis lifted the motor, got out of the boat and manually towed us through some small channels – all while skilfully dodging the crabs that were protecting their homeland.

Disaster struck at the last possible moment – as we were ‘docking’ against the shore. An unseen jagged lava rock tore a 15cm hole in the bottom of our inflatable raft. As we were prepping to abandon ship anyways, we simply got off the boat in an orderly fashion before turning to watch the front portion start to sink. We then turned and looked at the inhospitable land in front of us.
Up until this point we had visited lush, tropical destinations with vegetation and amazing wildlife. Now we stood on a lava field. Now black rock stretched out as far as we could see – the occasional cactus dotted the landscape with mangroves in the far distance along the salty shore. The heat waves were already radiating up from the ground – at is only 8 am.

As Luis attempted to limp the raft back to the Encantanda, we set upon a hike to explore what Leila and I were sure was going to be our new home. I have watched a tremendous amount of the Reality TV show, Survivor – so I know that fire and water should be our top priorities, along with shelter from the assaultive equatorial sun. So while our fellow shipmates snapped photos of the landscape, I looked for potential cactus’ with a significant water source while Leila looked for something to fish with.

The morning dragged on as our poor guide Juan tired to keep us entertained with the history of the lava flow and our minds off of the fact that we were essentially stranded. I appreciated his efforts but once again it felt like we were being marched around an active BarBQ, with nothing more than a few flamingos to peak our interest.
Suddenly Juan’s radio crackled to life and a long bit of rapid Spanish came across. Juan then turned and explained it was essential that we high tail it back to the shore - double time. Right, double time across jagged, boat deflating, spiky hot rocks – so horribly uncomfortable that there isn’t an animal of the whole area that chooses to live here (and he should see the skin on the tortoises and iguanas!).

But as we reached the shore – a fantastic site greeted our eyes – a floating boat -not ours. It seems the staff of the Encantada had radioed another boat in the area who generously agreed to rescue us from our BarBQ.

As I sit here now I am watching the crew attempt to fix the boat with a needle and thread, a can of liquid contact cement and a large butcher knife – the boat is suspended over the ocean while all this occurs. The plan is to “hope” and see if the patch holds enough to go for the scheduled boat ride this afternoon – I will be wearing my lifejacket.