Isla Coiba, Panama
Our guests made their way up sleepily to the lounge for some eye-opening coffee and to see where we’d dropped the anchor. Even though it was barely 6:00 a.m., it promised to be a beautiful day with clear blue skies and a warm off-shore breeze. After being gently rocked to sleep the night before, we’d come approximately 130 nautical miles, leaving behind memories of wild flower fragrances and fresh coconut in the afternoon on the shores of distant Costa Rica.
We had arrived at Coiba, Panama’s largest island located in the Gulf of Chiriqui. The Coiba National Park contains many other small beautiful islands and the one that we were anchored beside looked spectacular! A hump of white sand, flecked here and there with the remains of broken shells and writhing hermit crabs, these little helmeted creatures with claws, were everywhere busily scavenging food in the form of organic detritus from the beach. The immense rocks that jutted out from the beach held small tidal pools of water where hungry Nerite snails munched happily on smaller mollusks. “Granito de Oro”(little grain of gold) had much to offer to our guests. We had taken several kayaks to the beach and soon our kayakers were out and away to explore the far side of the islet.
While we made our beach comfortable with chairs and towels, four Zodiacs roared off with our birders toward the larger island of Coiba. But some of us decided to that we’d come here to snorkel and wasted no time donning mask and flippers and entered the water. The sandy floor evolved into an explosion of brightly colored fish as they swam this way and that. There are over 1700 hectares of coral reefs and coral communities within this group of islands with over 69 species of fish, and our “little grain of gold” seemed to have all that and more. Add a few sea turtles, a couple of green moray eels and a couple of white-tipped reef sharks and you’ve got some very excited snorkelers! The government of Panama declared this 2700 sq. km archipelago a protected marine park in 1991 and are presently discussing the legislation for management of Coiba.
We almost had a mutiny when we announced that it was time to “set sail” to our next destination, but all was well when Marco Robles, the hotel manager aboard the Sea Voyager, lured us into the lounge to feast on delicious cold melon soup and churros, which is a local pastry dipped in a rich caramel sauce and sprinkled with sugar! Yum!
Our guests made their way up sleepily to the lounge for some eye-opening coffee and to see where we’d dropped the anchor. Even though it was barely 6:00 a.m., it promised to be a beautiful day with clear blue skies and a warm off-shore breeze. After being gently rocked to sleep the night before, we’d come approximately 130 nautical miles, leaving behind memories of wild flower fragrances and fresh coconut in the afternoon on the shores of distant Costa Rica.
We had arrived at Coiba, Panama’s largest island located in the Gulf of Chiriqui. The Coiba National Park contains many other small beautiful islands and the one that we were anchored beside looked spectacular! A hump of white sand, flecked here and there with the remains of broken shells and writhing hermit crabs, these little helmeted creatures with claws, were everywhere busily scavenging food in the form of organic detritus from the beach. The immense rocks that jutted out from the beach held small tidal pools of water where hungry Nerite snails munched happily on smaller mollusks. “Granito de Oro”(little grain of gold) had much to offer to our guests. We had taken several kayaks to the beach and soon our kayakers were out and away to explore the far side of the islet.
While we made our beach comfortable with chairs and towels, four Zodiacs roared off with our birders toward the larger island of Coiba. But some of us decided to that we’d come here to snorkel and wasted no time donning mask and flippers and entered the water. The sandy floor evolved into an explosion of brightly colored fish as they swam this way and that. There are over 1700 hectares of coral reefs and coral communities within this group of islands with over 69 species of fish, and our “little grain of gold” seemed to have all that and more. Add a few sea turtles, a couple of green moray eels and a couple of white-tipped reef sharks and you’ve got some very excited snorkelers! The government of Panama declared this 2700 sq. km archipelago a protected marine park in 1991 and are presently discussing the legislation for management of Coiba.
We almost had a mutiny when we announced that it was time to “set sail” to our next destination, but all was well when Marco Robles, the hotel manager aboard the Sea Voyager, lured us into the lounge to feast on delicious cold melon soup and churros, which is a local pastry dipped in a rich caramel sauce and sprinkled with sugar! Yum!
