...and that was to find a piece of land to buy. Three of us flew to Big Corn Island: my younger son again, my sister this time, and I. One of the great things about Big Corn and, it turns out, about Bluefields as well is the ease with which you can get there. To get most any place along the Pacific coast you have to take a bus, or rent a car (with lots of insurance), or hire a car and driver. Driving in Nicaragua, particularly in Managua, might be one of those things you do once in a lifetime just to say you've done it, like eating fugu. But getting to Big Corn or Bluefields is simple: fly.
(Atlantic Air has since gone out of business.)
Big Corn Island sits in water so you can't get there in a bus or a car. And until recently there was no road to Bluefields. The ease of getting to either of these places by simply flying in was a factor in my decision to buy on the Caribbean side: I can catch a plane in Washington, D.C. in the morning and be on the beach that afternoon. Very little lost time.
You can, of course, make getting to Bluefields difficult. From Managua, drive or take a bus to Rama, and then a boat to Bluefields. You can also make getting to Big Corn Island difficult: ride the ferry from Bluefields, which I understand takes about 5 hours. However, once on Big Corn or in Bluefields let a taxi take you where you want to go: fifty cents or a dollar will get you just about anywhere. It's always nice to have options.
Time spent on Big Corn is always a pleasure and we combined the fun of being there with looking at property for sale, which is another kind of fun. When I didn't find a piece of Iand I couldn't live without, we headed to Bluefields and caught a boat to Pearl Lagoon to meet a man. Some of the land he had available in that area was beautiful (see next picture) and the possibility of a purchase was in mind as we boated back down to Bluefields to look at property he had for sale there.
The second piece of property we visited near Bluefields is what I now call False Bluff. After very brief negotiations I signed the necessary documents and bought the smallest of all his beachfront offerings from this interesting Canadian man who had sailed to Bluefields years before and decided to stay after his boat sank in the bay.
Sinking had been a possibility on our first trip to False Bluff.
Sinking had been a possibility on our first trip to False Bluff.
At that time the only viable option for getting there was a boat trip from Bluefields out into the Caribbean and up the coast, a good hour-long trip in what could and sometimes did quickly turn into a rough ride.