In 1513 Vasco Nuñez de Balboa and a small group of men hacked their way through the jungle of what we now know as Panama and found a new ocean. Balboa called it Mar del Sur, the Southern Ocean. Now we call it the Pacific Ocean. There they assembled a small boat and sailed into the Southern Ocean in search of riches. They reached a group of islands where they traded with the native inhabitants for pearls; hence we call this, one of the first landfalls in the Pacific Ocean, the Pearl Islands. It was our final landfall of this voyage up the Pacific Coast of South America. The islands and surrounding waters are rich in bird life. Today, near the end of the dry season, the air was smoky as residents of the islands clear land of its native Seasonal Tropical Forest for cultivation in traditional “Slash and Burn” agriculture. Land so cleared can be used for only a few seasons before it must be left to gradually recover its nutrients.
An early morning Zodiac cruise through a mangrove forest on a rapidly falling tide, kayaking along a tropical coast line, swimming and snorkeling in the warm tropical water, poking into tide pools left by the now-falling tide, walking along a white sand beach looking for shells or birds and admiring the tropical vegetation … each of us enjoying the moment in his or her own way.
