Islas Bona, Otoque, & Iguana, Gulf of Panama
Sunrise caught us in the Gulf of Panama as we reached the islands of Bona and Otoque. We spent most of the night off Balboa for a calm anchorage and weighed anchor before dawn. The upwelling in this Gulf produces wealthy fisheries and the bioluminescence produced by the plankton was easily appreciated in the darkness of a night just passed the new moon. Venus and Mars clearly marked the East-West elliptic as we navigated to the tail of Canis Major (the dog); The Southern Cross and Polaris were clear on either side of the vessel on the other axis. Leo up in the zenith started to faint away as the sun rose and the “V” in the sky wasn’t Taurus anymore; the flight formation of the brown pelicans and the bird shape wasn’t Corvus, but a lone magnificent frigatebird soaring above the Sea Voyager. The islands had come alive. The forest was lush and green and the Neotropical cormorants and the brown boobies passed by.
Our first outing took us to this incredible bird rookery. The early risers departed before breakfast and the second Zodiac cruise was back before 10 o’clock. Blue-footed boobies, a rare sighting of a Peruvian booby, and pantropical spotted dolphins were now on our sighting list too.
We resumed our navigation to Iguana Island as we looked for marine life. Some dolphins followed us for a while and we found the amazing feeding frenzy of small tuna and thousands of black terns.
In the afternoon we arrived at Isla Iguana Wildlife Refuge. The crabs seemed to be the only other inhabitants of the island on a white sand beach. Snorkeling opportunities and a great chance to take pictures of a nesting colony of frigatebirds up close were also found here.
Sunrise caught us in the Gulf of Panama as we reached the islands of Bona and Otoque. We spent most of the night off Balboa for a calm anchorage and weighed anchor before dawn. The upwelling in this Gulf produces wealthy fisheries and the bioluminescence produced by the plankton was easily appreciated in the darkness of a night just passed the new moon. Venus and Mars clearly marked the East-West elliptic as we navigated to the tail of Canis Major (the dog); The Southern Cross and Polaris were clear on either side of the vessel on the other axis. Leo up in the zenith started to faint away as the sun rose and the “V” in the sky wasn’t Taurus anymore; the flight formation of the brown pelicans and the bird shape wasn’t Corvus, but a lone magnificent frigatebird soaring above the Sea Voyager. The islands had come alive. The forest was lush and green and the Neotropical cormorants and the brown boobies passed by.
Our first outing took us to this incredible bird rookery. The early risers departed before breakfast and the second Zodiac cruise was back before 10 o’clock. Blue-footed boobies, a rare sighting of a Peruvian booby, and pantropical spotted dolphins were now on our sighting list too.
We resumed our navigation to Iguana Island as we looked for marine life. Some dolphins followed us for a while and we found the amazing feeding frenzy of small tuna and thousands of black terns.
In the afternoon we arrived at Isla Iguana Wildlife Refuge. The crabs seemed to be the only other inhabitants of the island on a white sand beach. Snorkeling opportunities and a great chance to take pictures of a nesting colony of frigatebirds up close were also found here.
