The Adventures of Trader Ric , part 2:
On the trail of Cristóbal Colon
The non-fiction Trader Ric series continues with this accounting of Ric’s adventures along the Veraguas coast of Panama, hunting for ethnological treasures among the Indian villages and coastal settlements while flashing back to his time working as an underwater archaeologist on the hunt for one of the ships Christopher Columbus lost during his disastrous fourth voyage in 1502. The well-researched historical background of the chronicle sheds a new light on these little known expeditions as it describes the terrible hardships and misadventures the early Spanish explorers suffered as they tried in vain to discover the source of the Veraguas gold. Accompanied by his friend Hermiglio, the young fellow from Rio Belen, Ric survives the attempted coup d’etat of Manuel Noriega, an almost fatal capsizing of his 45-foot-long, sea-going dugout canoe in a storm one night while navigating miles off-shore, and nearly being eaten by hungry bull sharks while diving in the turgid water of Rio Belen bay
