In the search for a place to live on a boat in Panama I saw that the area around Pedrigal has lots of rivers and islands. It’s on the Pacific side of Panama where the tidal range is about 19 feet. I went down there today despite the negative comments I’ve had about the place. They were right.
The marina is very small with floating docks.
The water is brown and when the tide is out it’s muddy all around and the mangroves would be a mosquito factory
There’s a nice restaurant at the marina. I had the mixed seafood platter consisting of shrimp, fish fingers (I didn’t even know fish had hands to get fingers from) and calamari. If calamari is cooked too long it’s sort of like chewing on rubber bands, but these were done just right…tasty and tender. After the Jubilado discount the dinner was $6.60.
The town itself isn’t much to look at and some of the houses are pretty bad…
But across the street was a flowering tree I’d never seen before
Bus trip back to Panama City tomorrow and plane ride back to Fort Lauderdale Saturday.
One More Good Adventure 
Took a look at where you are via Flash Earth, and I can see why Pedrigal itself wouldn’t be too good. Although North from Pedrigal, in the Bay of Coronado and Gulf of Dulce there look to be some interesting areas. Still, I see all the possibilities of the Bocas archipelago even discounting 11 ft of rain a year .
Oops… my bad! The Bay of Coronado and Gulf of Dulce are across the border in Costa Rica, not Panama. FlashEarth doesn’t show the border!
For my houseboat plan to work I need an area with good water and Pedrigal sure isn’t it. There aren’t that many places to pull this off.
The Darien has lots of rivers along with drug smugglers and Colombian guerrillas and is, anyway, too remote to consider. There are no towns around for supplies and provisions. There, on the Pacific side, you have to contend with the 19 foot tides. So, it looks like Bocas is the place.
It’s obvious that you are one of my devoted readers, so you saw my posts about Bocas, but I failed to mention a couple of things…I had lunch with the owners of the marina on Monday, Rosemary and Courtney. He builds small boats, himself. They own some land in Almirante on the mainland and are going through the paperwork process to get it set up for a haul-out and storage facility which is badly needed around there considering the number of cruising boats that visit. Courtney liked the houseboat idea and said that if and when they open up he would be happy to rent me a spot in which to build it. So, it definitely looks like the project actually has the possibility of happening.
I bought a book called the Panama Cruising guide by Eric Bauhaus that has great aerial photos of the archipelago overlaid with chart depths, etc. When I flew out to David Wednesday I got a good look from above myself. Despite all the good places for cruising boats to explore around there I didn’t see any evidence that they were anywhere but the two marinas and the one one large anchorage. If someone wants beauty, peace and tranquility this seems like the ideal location.