June 13 Contadora Snorkeling

I had asked Tony if he could set up a local guy with a boat looking to make some extra money to take us to another island with perhaps better snorkeling from shore. (not sure Sonya was ready to jump off a boat yet to snorkel and I knew my feet wouldn’t do well getting back in the boat with a tiny runged ladder. He said one of the guys that uses his boat to assist with the ferry transfers could do it as long as we were willing to work around that schedule. So, the ferry gets in around 9:00 so that worked out great.

 kitchen & dining area

 Greg on our patio

 Scott & Sonya's patio

 Contadora Island Inn

 living room

 entry way

 Scott & Sonya's room

 our room



flowering tree out front

 

We met Charley at the beach and he took us to Isla Mogo Mogo aka“Survivor Island” since several seasons of Survivor were filmed there.

 Charley

 Scott & Greg

 Sonya

 views from the boat

 arrival to the island



 While not really great snorkeling (not a lot of healthy coral) we saw quite a bit and it was a joy to snorkel with no rocks. It was a better test of my new fins. I was worried they were causing the cramping from yesterday, but I did fine today and they are very comfortable and no foot cramps. (they were just irritated by the rocks getting in yesterday) We spent a couple of hours snorkeling.

 wrasse

 Parrotfish

Three-banded Butterflyfish

 Triggerfish 

 Parrotfish

 Surgeonfish

 me

 Yellow-spotted Pufferfish

 Black and White Spotted Pufferfish

 Parrotfish

 Wrasse

 King Angelfish

 Coral

 Black and White Spotted Pufferfish

 Grouper?

 

 Coral and King Angelfish

 me



Scott & Sonya

 



 

 

Once back on Contadora we went in search of lunch. We tried a fonda that we had eaten at before, but it wasn’t as good as last time. It was tasty, but since we all had various forms of cramping and TD that night and the next day……well, I’ll just leave it at that.

smoked pork chop, beef, rice, beans and mashed potatoes

 



In the afternoon we went back to the same beach from the day before, but went down on the other side where there were hardly any rocks and found some great snorkeling in a coral garden. Sonya did well until she encountered a current that freaked her out and she panicked and almost drowned Scott when he tried to help her. Greg and I experienced that same current and we just snorkeled closer to shore to get out of it. I do understand her panic though since she had never encountered that before. Despite that I think she did a fantastic job snorkeling. Scott has always been a fish, so like Greg they both dive down and snorkel with ease. (photos included in the above snorkeling pics)

Here is a link to a snorkeling video from the 2 days. Combined highlights from the Go Pros from Greg & Scott.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/49172501@N02/1Y7vyF

After cleaning up we went to dinner at Sal y Pimienta (used to be Rincon Hot Stone, but same menu). It was delicious. Scott & Sonya had Prawns and I had shrimp and Greg had fish. All the sides are served family style so it’s a lot of food. All good!

 center of town

 Police Station

 Restaurante Sal Y Pimienta

 side dishes to share

 shrimp

 fish

 prawns

 

We went back to the B&B and played some cards. We didn't plan on snorkeling on the last day there since we had to check out of the Inn and turn in the golf cart, so we had a bit of a later start tomorrow.