Coiba Island National Park, Panama
Today we had the privilege of visiting one of the most pristine National Parks of Panama known as Coiba Island, the second biggest island in the Pacific Americas. Coiba is not only a big island with a healthy tropical forest cover, but it has the second largest coral reef in what is known as the Central Eastern Pacific Ocean and is in a very good condition. This is one of those few places on the planet that have been preserved with very little development or human impact for a long time.
This island was not always a National Park. Actually, far from that. The island was used from 1918 to 1990 as a penal colony for the worst criminals from Panama. Thanks to that, the ecosystem on the island was preserved from heavy human impact. Then, in 1990 the penal colony was closed and by 1991 the island and was turned into a National Park to protect not only its forest and life on land, but also the life under water. This makes it part of a marine wildlife corridor that runs from Galápagos Islands in Ecuador, to Gorgona in Colombia, to Cocos Island in Costa Rica, among some other places.
Today we took our time in exploring this incredible place. First in the morning we went in to a little inlet right next to the main island called Granito de Oro – “Grain of Gold” – where we took our time to snorkel and kayak around this beautiful little piece of heaven. I’ve been in this place before, but the conditions of the morning were just perfect. Not only was there no current, but there were a lot of tropical fish and the visibility was great.
After the morning, we went to the one of the ranger stations where the crew of the National Geographic Sea Lion was waiting for us with a beautiful barbecue lunch right on the beach with hammocks and everything. Then we had more time to snorkel, kayak, walk, swim, or just relax on a hammock looking at the ocean.
