Linton Bay

It was mid afternoon when we realized that it was Easter weekend in a few days and if we didn’t get to Linton Bay tomorrow (Thursday) we would have to wait till Monday for our Zarpe (Departure papers). We devised a way plan, and quickly left Chichime and the San Blas Islands, getting to playa Chiquita just after nightfall. We decided to keep our anchor lights off as to not call attention to ourselves as we were the only boat in this uncomfortably roll Bay. After dinner, we took some melatonin to offset the heaving of the boat and fell to sleep. I awoke at 10:30pm to pee and as I was climbing back to bed… I heard someone call out. Immediately I woke Brian and we yelled at whomever was nearby. Rapidly trying to find clothes in the dark and make our way to the pilot house. A man had climbed aboard the boat and said he was swimming, wanted to rest, wanted a life jacket, and upset that his cell phone was wet. I just stood there as they spoke Spanish. Brian had aimed a spotlight at him and calmly told him to leave a few times. Finally he jumped back in the water and it wasn’t untill we put the spotlight on him did he swim away.
We sat in the pilot house trying to decide what to do next, Brian asking me if I had heard the fireworks earlier. I didn’t. We agreed that neither of us would be able to fall back asleep….and we might be in danger if we stayed. So we weighed anchor at 11:15pm and went to sea. A bumpy night!!
We arrived to Linton Bay an anchored at 7am. I tried to sleep for a couple hours, then we docked…. With some struggle due to angle and current.
We spent two nights at the marina and it was great!! There was a chandlery, a cafe and small grocery store (run by Charlie and his cat Captain) . We hired Luis to take us to the grocery store in town (Portobello), although not sure it was worth it, although the drive was nice.
We shower often, even though they weren’t hot, and were able to get out laundry done. We also managed to get our Zarpe, but they charged $400usd verse $120 had we waited till Monday (claiming that it was a RUSH fee).
We met the owner of the marina, Allen, and told him our story about Playa Chiquita. We had learn from the Chandlery that the fireworks Brian heard were actually gun shots and someone had been murdered. We found the news report for it (https://www.tvn-2.com/nacionales/provincias/hom…) and tried to contact the authorities with no luck. Allen suggested we needed to have wasp spray on the boat as we had no weapons to protect ourselves. We walked to the small Chinese run grocery in Linton, but weren’t successful. In the end Allen gave us one of his bottles before we sailed off to Isla de Providencia.
We made a report of the incident in the Caribbean Safety and Security Net (CSSN), and subsequently a sub stack article was written: https://open.substack.com/pub/loosecannon/p/pos….Read more