Coiba Island National Park, Panama
After sailing 120 nautical miles from Costa Rica, the Sea Voyager anchored in front of Coiba Island when the sun was giving its first rays. Coiba Island National Park was created in the late 1990’s and was protected by law on November of 2004. It gathers an area of 271,000 hectares (652,000 acres) in which only 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres) is mainland. It has the biggest coral reef of the Eastern Pacific. Before being a national park, it was Panama’s most dreaded prison camp. And because of this, its forest has been kept pristine. Known as an exotic terrain in terms of geological formation, Coiba Island shows evidence of volcanic formation. Its richness of wild life encouraged us to take an early birding walk over at the ranger station.
We were greeted by “Sara,” a red brocket deer that got so close to the station that she decided to stay there rather than return back to her natural habitat. The birding was excellent! Crimson backed tanager, red legged honey creepers, streaked flycatcher, great Kiskadees, bananaquits and many others delighted our morning. Back on board for breakfast, we repositioned the Sea Voyager close to a little islet known as “Granito de Oro,”or “Little Grain of Gold.” We soon discovered the reason for its name: the abundance of fish. Moorish idols, puffers, barberfish, cornet reef fish, white tipped reef sharks, spotted tailed grunt, hawksbill turtle, rock mover wrasse and many others gave us reason to spend the rest of the morning in this little island. One of the greatest highlight of the snorkeling was the sighting of a bull reef shark which is known to be one of the three most aggressive sharks in the world.
Our trip had to continue, so back on board we started sailing toward our next destination. While the sun began to set, we all concluded that it could not have been any better. What a welcome to Panama!
After sailing 120 nautical miles from Costa Rica, the Sea Voyager anchored in front of Coiba Island when the sun was giving its first rays. Coiba Island National Park was created in the late 1990’s and was protected by law on November of 2004. It gathers an area of 271,000 hectares (652,000 acres) in which only 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres) is mainland. It has the biggest coral reef of the Eastern Pacific. Before being a national park, it was Panama’s most dreaded prison camp. And because of this, its forest has been kept pristine. Known as an exotic terrain in terms of geological formation, Coiba Island shows evidence of volcanic formation. Its richness of wild life encouraged us to take an early birding walk over at the ranger station.
We were greeted by “Sara,” a red brocket deer that got so close to the station that she decided to stay there rather than return back to her natural habitat. The birding was excellent! Crimson backed tanager, red legged honey creepers, streaked flycatcher, great Kiskadees, bananaquits and many others delighted our morning. Back on board for breakfast, we repositioned the Sea Voyager close to a little islet known as “Granito de Oro,”or “Little Grain of Gold.” We soon discovered the reason for its name: the abundance of fish. Moorish idols, puffers, barberfish, cornet reef fish, white tipped reef sharks, spotted tailed grunt, hawksbill turtle, rock mover wrasse and many others gave us reason to spend the rest of the morning in this little island. One of the greatest highlight of the snorkeling was the sighting of a bull reef shark which is known to be one of the three most aggressive sharks in the world.
Our trip had to continue, so back on board we started sailing toward our next destination. While the sun began to set, we all concluded that it could not have been any better. What a welcome to Panama!
