Towed by a Boat

No photos of Wahoo Rock, but here’s another of Coiba National Park.

After our whale shark adventure, we made our way to Wahoo Rock, to see if we would be twice lucky. The boat of scuba divers that had passed us was already there, searching in vain. There was nothing in the area, evidently.

We let the divers know what they had passed by.

I’m not proud of it, but I did take a little pleasure in the fact that they had missed out – it made my own time with the shark seem more exclusive; more special.

While there was no hope of seeing another whale shark, we were told there would be some nice snorkeling near Wahoo Rock itself. We were also warned that the current would be strong.

Very strong.

Our guide warned us about where to swim and where to steer clear before sending us on our way. We jumped in and headed toward the snorkeling area. Or we tried to anyway.

Our party quickly got separated into groups based on our swimming abilities. The weakest were immediately taken by the current, and our pilot headed off to keep them from being swept out to sea.

The group I was with – those of moderate swimming skills – struggled to power our way towards the snorkeling area. It took every effort to make the smallest headway in the strong current. We all kept popping up to see if we were getting any closer and, eventually, we looked at each other and decided the snorkeling wasn’t worth the effort. We floated back towards our boat, which had returned from the rescue.

Upon our rendezvous, we saw that they hadn’t pulled our fellow tourists into the boat. Rather the guide dangled a rope out the back and told them to hold on, dragging them back to meet us.

We were instructed to hold on as well!

It was a little embarrassing. It was like we were being paraded among the other tour groups as the people who weren’t strong enough to swim these waters. We were a group of kids being pulled in a wagon, with the adults in charge.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. It was absolutely fun too (when the water form the motor wasn’t splashing up in your face and when the skin on your hands wasn’t burning where the rope rubbed). But I think, perhaps, that quiet gloating I had engaged in earlier might have been enough to convince karma to kick in.

We felt like fishing lure as we made our way to the strongest swimmers; the ones who hadn’t given up in the current. They had made it to the snorkeling area only to find it somewhat disappointing.

So at least we felt justified in giving up when we did.

And once we were all together again, they let us back in the boat. We piled in and headed for the mainland; our Pacific-Panama adventure at an end.