Nights in Hell, Days in Paradise
- Pru Warren
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
Wednesday, Dec. 10 2025
The Pearl Islands
It’s a snappy blog title, right? In fact, none of this has been hell—but the photo I took of the Quest doing the Pacific side locks at night has such a hellish appeal that I was unable to resist.
The channel into the locks is illuminated with excellent lights; there’s a tall green light rod that the pilot aims the bow at until he gets some magic signal and switches to the next one downstream. There are yellow lights to tell him if he’s veering, and red lights to line the channel, and a huge bridge overhead with its own color-changing illuminations; it’s very Oz-like…
…and meanwhile, down in the chain locker, the pilot’s crew of guys (who get on the transiting ship when the pilot comes on) are waiting patiently for the time to come when someone needs to connect lines from the ship to the “mule” locomotives, and their lighting is red so their night vision isn’t affected. From the observation deck right under the bridge, it looks like hell burning down there. This is highly entertaining for the juvenile amateur photographer.
When we got to the lock last night—following this extraordinary and effective light show—two guys in a damned rowboat left the cement walkway and rowed up to the Quest. We’re a pretty small ship, compared to the tankers that regularly cross the canal, and we dwarfed two guys in a boat. What the hell?? I was standing next to Juan, who was narrating the journey, and he said they used a rowboat on the Pacific side because they’d ALWAYS used a rowboat.
Why not at least give them an outboard motor? Oh, no. What if the motor failed? They need to be more nimble than that.
And what was their purpose? It turned out that the guys in the hell pit were going to lower a rope down to the rowboat. The rowboat would attach that rope to the line that went to the mule. Somehow (hard to see, since all this was taking place essentially under the ship, from our point of view), steel cables would go from the front and back of the ship to the four mule locomotives that would guide us down the locks. On the Atlantic side, strong people on the concrete pier would throw ropes weighted with monkey-fist knots to the ship. No rowboats. This seems like a better way, but somehow, tradition has to reign on the Pacific side. Damnedest thing.
I stayed for the first of three locks, but then was too tired to carry on. I went to bed but pulled the curtains open in our stateroom so I could watch the walls of the next two locks at least. For the second lock, I was awake. At the start of the lock, the top of the concrete wall was below my level; I could read the feet-marker on the side of the canal through the second wire on my guide-wire railing. When I woke up the next time, there was nothing but wall out my window; the feet-markers were just about out of sight above me. This is a very cool thing that I should not have slept through…but I did.
I missed the third lock entirely, waking just in time to see the bow mule decouple and be left behind. “Well,” I thought sleepily, “we’re in the Pacific now.” That was enjoyable. For the few nanoseconds before I fell deep down the sleep hole.
By morning we were anchored off the rocky shores of the Pearl Islands. We were in the northernmost part of the archipelago. I should know the name of the island we focused on, but I’ve forgotten. I DO know that the next island over was Mogo Mogo because come on—who could forget that name?
We were loaded into zodiaks for a bird-watching tour because Island North-of-Mogo-Mogo is a natural rookery. Apparently.
As usual, I could not distinguish between a magnificent frigatebird and a brown booby (about which, frankly, I feel no shame), so I mostly enjoyed wandering around in the brilliant sunshine, rocking over the waves. It was lovely. After a few minutes, I stopped trying to take photos of birds.
First, they won’t come out, and second, what would I do with ten million pictures of birds on rocks? Or soaring gracefully through the air? I’m not a good photographer or a good birder, but I can tell you that a frigate bird soars with a grace that leaves me open-mouthed. They have beautiful raked-back wings like some very high-tech airplane, and they hold their tail perfectly straight until they want to turn, when they fork out into a swallowtail. The whole thing is a poem of motion. Utterly dazzling. Much more fun to watch than to try to photograph.
I spotted a VERY significant raft of seaweed. We were all very impressed. (I saw it first because I gave up staring upwards at boobies and frigate birds and was enjoying looking at the glorious, clear water.)
The water IS glorious and clear—and what a great color!
In the afternoon, we finally got to go snorkeling. We all used reef-safe sun block, which relies on zinc oxide to stop the flesh from crisping up under that tropical sun. As a result, we all left our cabins to file dutifully down to the mud room in face paint that looks a great deal like Queen Elizabeth the first, getting that dead-white complexion she prized so highly…Our version uses rather less lead, though. Happily.
I would have taken a picture of Twig, but she’d left earlier to do a powerful kayak trip around two points to the snorkeling beach. She said it was a great expedition.
Meanwhile, Lexie, Scott, and I did a thrupple buddy system and slipped into the blissful waters from the beach. (I sort of prefer a boat entrance; putting flippers on while sitting in waves is endlessly amusing but still awkward.) I brought my phone in a special “don’t get wet” case but I lost my nerve and so have no terrible photos to show you.
Instead I shall tell you about the large number of puffer fish we saw. These funny fish have almost square bodies and a stub of a tail that doesn’t look like it would do much good. They were khaki with white polka dots and dark accents, plus tiny fluttering wings on either side that don’t at all look like fins. They have big eyes. I thought they were very curious—I thought one of them was circling me uneasily over and over again, but it turned out that there were just a lot of them and you know puffer fish; they all look alike to me.
We were on a rock reef; there WERE corals growing on it, but it wasn’t a typical coral reef. Still, the place was alive with fish. There were enormous parrot fish, dressed for spring break in Miami—all pastels and neon brights. They practically had their jacket sleeves pushed up and no socks. Bodies of palest blue streaked with pink, plus neon greens and blues down the spine and on the fins. SO very Miami Vice…
…but there were also orange parrot fish who had thick, blobby stripes on their bodies in white. Then there was a chain-link fence pattern across the entire body in a darker orange. They, too, had the funny parrot overbite in the jaw that lets them crunch up hard coral, and they too were astonishingly large.
I looked into a crevice in the rocks and saw a flash of electric blue (someone told me that was a juvenile wrasse and I have no reason to disbelieve them) (I also don’t know who that person was; it’s very hard to ID Quest guests when they’re up to their chin in the Pacific and are wearing a snorkeling mask.
I saw fish the color of dark garnets who had a “hunters please don’t shoot me” flare orange tail. I saw a tiny little fish dressed in dark brown with the most perfect minute white polka dots; it was a very high-fashion fish. I saw long pipe fish, almost the color of the sand they hovered over. They hung in flocks, a fact that came as a surprise since they were so well camouflaged.
Eventually we met up with Twig just as Scott was getting out, so we swapped out a member of our thrupple. I found a sand dollar on the sea floor (when Twig and I were with Nat Geo/Lindblad in Melanesia, our favorite nature guide Kura had picked up a sand dollar for us the side of my head, and I wished I’d had the courage to do that here—but the rule was not to touch anything, so okay.)
Lexie and Twig went in, and the naturalist serving as life guard at the beach said I could snorkel alone as long as I hung around where he could keep an eye on me, which I gladly did—which was when I spotted a stunning ribbon of olive green rippling across the sea floor—moray eel! I’ve never seen one before and was so thrilled that I unwittingly ducked my snorkel under the water and nearly inhaled a lungful of the Pacific. I cleared my snorkel and watched that spectacular fish swim off. Bye, beauty. I was glad I hadn’t brought the camera; I would have been focused on getting a blurry, poorly-colored shot instead of watching it ripple away.
I saw tiny, nearly clear fish circling a rock in a way that clearly demonstrated that this fish was profoundly neurotic. I saw a school of serious, silver fish that would have blended into the water as well as they thought they were blending if they hadn’t each had a swallowtail in chromium yellow and trailing fins on top and bottom in the same dazzling color. I saw sergeant major fish, blue and yellow beauties with the four black stripes of (I suppose) a sergeant major. They make me think of my father, who taught me the names of the few fish I know when I was but a wee lass snorkeling with him and Twig in St. Barts on a summer vacation.
I saw paradise. What bliss it is to drift in sunlight, breathing through a very useful tube and staring down into a glorious kingdom. Snorkeling is my idea exercise! (And we’re going to snorkel again tomorrow—so YAY!)
I suspect I look a little silly when I snorkel because I not only wear a long-sleeved swim shirt (which the cool kids call a “rash guard”) but also full-length swim leggings. I’m a very over-dressed snorkeler…on the other hand, I only need to put on Good Queen Bess’s face paint on my face and neck, hands and ankles. And I don’t worry about getting sunburned. Ever. That’s a glorious relief. Twig and I have hung our dripping wet swim cloths on our balcony, but we’ll need to bring them in tonight to dry in the air conditioning.
Here's a photo of Twig looking every bit as elegant as she always does, wrapped in the blankets kept in the lounge because they crank their air conditioning and most people are still in summer clothes. (Those of us who carry our insulation with us are not much inconvenienced!)
That’s enough. More tomorrow!
