21 November 1999 - Sunday

The fourth day on our way from Cocos Island. The winds still support us, only the weather is rainy and stormy. We have another 270 miles to Panama. Last week was dominated by going to and staying on Cocos Island.

At night from the 15th to the 16th of November when we were 10 miles away from Cocos Island in showers we started drifting waiting for the dawn in order to reach the island. We didn't have the maps of the island so we were very careful. In the morning we approached an island flooded in clouds and rain, so different from the rocky Galapagos. We were heading towards big waterfalls visible from far away. Suddenly about 2 miles from the island big dolphins appeared by our yacht. Few of them on our right started jumping up and falling on their sides, the other on our left would swim on the stem as if trying to push us away from the coast. We changed the course by about 30 and the dolphins gave us up. They kept swimming along with us peacefully. After sailing 2 miles we met a patrol boat which guided us to the anchorage in Chatham Bay. It was there where we learned that we had been very close to an unseen submarine rock. The crew of the patrol boat had seen us but couldn't worn us as they had had their radio broken.

The island impressed us much being really tropical with its jungle like from a fairy tale, lots of birds and fish. Cocos Island is a sanctuary which belongs to the Costa Rica government. It has a perfectly organised patrol service and volunteers from all over the world who treat their work very seriously. We spent the rest of the day on board as it was raining very heavily. We passed the following day on an excursion through a tropical jungle and the mountains to a main base of forest guards in Warf Bay. As a consequence of the torrential rains the route was hilly and slippery making the expedition really hard. In the evening we returned to Chatham Bay where we had left Antica. We fetched papaya and a pig's leg with us - a gift from the watchmen. We ate it the same evening. The last day on the island was busy for us. We gathered a fresh reserve of water little papaya and coconuts. We dived with the sharks and the fish which nobody wants to catch here. We saw a big turtle and a manta.

An interesting thing about the island is that there is a pirate hoard treasure from the XVIIth century which hasn't been discovered yet. One of a very persistent searchers, a German spent 15 years on the island with no results. Another interesting thing is a stream falling steeply from the mountains filled with huge stones having the names of ships and crews visiting the island in the past engraved on them. Nowadays the engraving is forbidden. We found the stones having the names of Capt. Morgan's and Jaqis Cousto's ships on them. We searched for the stone with the signature of Gedania which visited the island in the 80's but we gave up after several hours. We met the guards once again this time in Antica. We had a very good time. The exchange of presents, last cup of coffee and off we went.

Capt. Jurek Wąsowicz

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