Costa Rica to Panama with Kids: Crossing Sixaola to Bocas del Toro — Carenero, Bastimentos & the Bridge That Changed Us Costa Rica to Bocas del Toro with Kids: How to Cross the Sixaola Bridge, Island-Hop to Paradise, and Come Home Slightly Sunburned and Completely Satisfied In which we navigate a pedestrian border crossing over a river, discover that boat taxis are a perfectly acceptable school bus alternative, snorkel in a national marine park, encounter a snake of non-trivial dimensions, and conclude that Panama is best appreciated with tropical fruit, a cold beer, and sufficiently low expectations about the surrounding rubbish situation. The Bocas del Toro archipelago sits on the Caribbean coast of Panama, just across a small bridge over the Rio Sixaola from Costa Rica. In a straight line it's roughly 40 miles from Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. In actual travel time, given that you cross an international border and then board a boat, it takes around three to fo...

At Home in Water World: We Swallowed the Anchor and Landed in Eleuthera, Bahamas A sailor's guide to the most beautiful island you've never heard of — with a healthy dose of self-inflicted adventure, questionable decisions, and a manatee. There is a moment in every long-distance sailor's life when they look at their boat — really look at it — and think: what if I just... didn't? For us, that moment arrived in the Bahamas. Our sailboat, Tiny Bubbles II , was hauled out of the water and parked on dry land in Virginia like a very expensive lawn ornament. And we — the crew who had been living aboard and sailing the eastern seaboard — had done something radical. We had stopped moving and gotten jobs . On an island. In the middle of the ocean. At a place called The Island School on Cape Eleuthera. I want to be clear: this was not a failure of nerve. This was a strategic pivot. (It was also partly because someone offered us a place to live that wasn't a b...