Otoque and Bona Islands, Gulf of Panama, Panama
We left the Panama Canal behind us and sailed roughly 22 nautical miles into the Gulf of Panama. We plan to spend the morning exploring a couple of small islands called Otoque and Bona which lie just inside the Gulf. The waters inside this gulf are particularly rich, as the mountain chains that parallel the western coastlines of several Central American nations break, allowing the trade winds to blow over the gulf, pushing surface waters away causing an upwelling. An upwelling is a flow of deep water toward the surface that brings water from depths below the euphotic (light reaching) zone. This water is rich in nutrients and dissolved gases because there is no phytoplankton at these depths to consume these compounds. When chilled waters from below the surface rise, they lift nutrients where phytoplankton thrive and make food for larger organisms such as copepods, fish, all the way up to whales. This high productivity forms the basis of the complex web of life. Millions of sea birds take advantage of this phenomenon and nest all through the islands of the Gulf of Panama.
We explored a couple of these islets this morning in several ways: Zodiac cruising, kayaking, and scanning with our binoculars just off the decks of our vessel. The islands combine interesting geology with vegetation and large colonies of blue footed boobies, brown pelicans and magnificent frigate birds. As many of you already know, we are the only group of travelers that visit the islands, they are not protected and no research is being done on the general biology or cycle of the birds that inhabit them. Today we saw numerous displaying frigate bird males with their bright red pouches, down-covered brown booby chicks, and a slightly brighter blue tinge on the legs of the blue-footed boobies! Shocker! We must be the people who know the most about these islands and their birds!
On this note, we proceeded on to our next destination within Panama, Coiba Island National Park.
We left the Panama Canal behind us and sailed roughly 22 nautical miles into the Gulf of Panama. We plan to spend the morning exploring a couple of small islands called Otoque and Bona which lie just inside the Gulf. The waters inside this gulf are particularly rich, as the mountain chains that parallel the western coastlines of several Central American nations break, allowing the trade winds to blow over the gulf, pushing surface waters away causing an upwelling. An upwelling is a flow of deep water toward the surface that brings water from depths below the euphotic (light reaching) zone. This water is rich in nutrients and dissolved gases because there is no phytoplankton at these depths to consume these compounds. When chilled waters from below the surface rise, they lift nutrients where phytoplankton thrive and make food for larger organisms such as copepods, fish, all the way up to whales. This high productivity forms the basis of the complex web of life. Millions of sea birds take advantage of this phenomenon and nest all through the islands of the Gulf of Panama.
We explored a couple of these islets this morning in several ways: Zodiac cruising, kayaking, and scanning with our binoculars just off the decks of our vessel. The islands combine interesting geology with vegetation and large colonies of blue footed boobies, brown pelicans and magnificent frigate birds. As many of you already know, we are the only group of travelers that visit the islands, they are not protected and no research is being done on the general biology or cycle of the birds that inhabit them. Today we saw numerous displaying frigate bird males with their bright red pouches, down-covered brown booby chicks, and a slightly brighter blue tinge on the legs of the blue-footed boobies! Shocker! We must be the people who know the most about these islands and their birds!
On this note, we proceeded on to our next destination within Panama, Coiba Island National Park.
