Coiba Island Marine National Park
After sailing through the night, the Sea Voyager finally arrived to Panama’s pristine paradise. A lovely sunrise revealed a couple of islands that belong to Coiba National Park. With around 667,479 acres of protected area, Coiba will gather around eight big islands and around 30 islets. Coiba was used as a penal colony from the year 1919 to 2004. This kept visitors far away from it, allowing all the forest to be kept pristine. In the year 2005, the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO designated this park a World Heritage Site. The area has a lot of endemic species of flora and fauna. It is in this park were we can find the second biggest coral reef formation of the Eastern Pacific.
Shortly after breakfast, we grabbed our snorkelling gear and went ashore to see if all the info we had was true. We landed in a lovely little islet known as “Granito de Oro,” which means, “Little Grain of Gold.” Just like a Gary Larson comic, this islet has a couple of Palm trees, a little tree that provides a lot of shelter and a nice white sandy beach that is constantly patrolled by a lot of hermit crabs that are the owners and guardians of this nice paradise. The options for the morning were to explore the area by kayak or snorkelling around. Almost everybody chose to go snorkelling.
The tides were perfect, as was the visibility for snorkelling. The life under the sea is just gorgeous. There were a lot of Bicolor parrot fish, Blue chins parrot fish, spotted tail grunts, razor fish, trigger fish, barber fish, three banded butterfly fish, moorish idols, king angel fish, morays, white tipped sharks and many others. A few guest had the opportunity to spot a hawks billed turtle. It was like a whole new world! It was so hard for us to get back on board. We had no choice but to return to the ship.
Lunch was served in the lounge, and while we were having our lunch, a pod of pantropical spotted dolphins showed their abilities of jumping and escorted us for a good while. This park is being patrolled by a non-profit organization known as Mar Viva. Their dream is to connect a marine corridor that unites Cocos Island, in Costa Rica, with Coiba National Park, Malpelo island in Colombia, and Galápagos Islands in Ecuador.
What a morning! Now we had to sail 120 nautical miles to reach our next destination. We all concluded that is was the best introduction and welcome to Panama!
After sailing through the night, the Sea Voyager finally arrived to Panama’s pristine paradise. A lovely sunrise revealed a couple of islands that belong to Coiba National Park. With around 667,479 acres of protected area, Coiba will gather around eight big islands and around 30 islets. Coiba was used as a penal colony from the year 1919 to 2004. This kept visitors far away from it, allowing all the forest to be kept pristine. In the year 2005, the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO designated this park a World Heritage Site. The area has a lot of endemic species of flora and fauna. It is in this park were we can find the second biggest coral reef formation of the Eastern Pacific.
Shortly after breakfast, we grabbed our snorkelling gear and went ashore to see if all the info we had was true. We landed in a lovely little islet known as “Granito de Oro,” which means, “Little Grain of Gold.” Just like a Gary Larson comic, this islet has a couple of Palm trees, a little tree that provides a lot of shelter and a nice white sandy beach that is constantly patrolled by a lot of hermit crabs that are the owners and guardians of this nice paradise. The options for the morning were to explore the area by kayak or snorkelling around. Almost everybody chose to go snorkelling.
The tides were perfect, as was the visibility for snorkelling. The life under the sea is just gorgeous. There were a lot of Bicolor parrot fish, Blue chins parrot fish, spotted tail grunts, razor fish, trigger fish, barber fish, three banded butterfly fish, moorish idols, king angel fish, morays, white tipped sharks and many others. A few guest had the opportunity to spot a hawks billed turtle. It was like a whole new world! It was so hard for us to get back on board. We had no choice but to return to the ship.
Lunch was served in the lounge, and while we were having our lunch, a pod of pantropical spotted dolphins showed their abilities of jumping and escorted us for a good while. This park is being patrolled by a non-profit organization known as Mar Viva. Their dream is to connect a marine corridor that unites Cocos Island, in Costa Rica, with Coiba National Park, Malpelo island in Colombia, and Galápagos Islands in Ecuador.
What a morning! Now we had to sail 120 nautical miles to reach our next destination. We all concluded that is was the best introduction and welcome to Panama!
