Barro Colorado Island, Gatun Lake and Gatun Locks, Panama Canal
After cruising through the first set of locks, Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks, from the Pacific side of the Panama Canal, we met this morning just outside the bay of Barro Colorado Island (BCI). Barro Colorado Island, which means the Red Clay Island, has been a biological reserve since 1923, not long after the area was isolated from the mainland when the Gatun Lake was created. At that moment, a new era of biological research began, as BCI became one of the most studied sites in the Neotropics. By the year 1946, when the island became a bureau of the Smithsonian Institutuion, there were more than one hundred scientific visitors in it each year. Publications about the island’s biota now number in the thousands and in 1979 the island was declared a National Monument.
Lindblad Expeditions is the first company that has managed to get permission to walk the trails of the biological station. With 1368 species of vascular plants, 93 species of mammals, 366 species of birds, and 90 species of amphibians, this island is a dream for many nature lovers, and we are not the exception!! Most of us got the chance to walk the trails and Zodiac around the island, and were rewarded with sightings of snail kites, ospreys, keel-billed toucans, howler monkeys, and many other species of animals and plants.
We spent a laid back afternoon waiting to continue our crossing of one of the marvels of the new world: the Panama Canal. We still had some of it to go, crossing the Gatun Lake and the Gatun locks. This exciting experience means, much to our distress, the end of our wonderful voyage.
Until we meet again in some other destination! PURA VIDA!
After cruising through the first set of locks, Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks, from the Pacific side of the Panama Canal, we met this morning just outside the bay of Barro Colorado Island (BCI). Barro Colorado Island, which means the Red Clay Island, has been a biological reserve since 1923, not long after the area was isolated from the mainland when the Gatun Lake was created. At that moment, a new era of biological research began, as BCI became one of the most studied sites in the Neotropics. By the year 1946, when the island became a bureau of the Smithsonian Institutuion, there were more than one hundred scientific visitors in it each year. Publications about the island’s biota now number in the thousands and in 1979 the island was declared a National Monument.
Lindblad Expeditions is the first company that has managed to get permission to walk the trails of the biological station. With 1368 species of vascular plants, 93 species of mammals, 366 species of birds, and 90 species of amphibians, this island is a dream for many nature lovers, and we are not the exception!! Most of us got the chance to walk the trails and Zodiac around the island, and were rewarded with sightings of snail kites, ospreys, keel-billed toucans, howler monkeys, and many other species of animals and plants.
We spent a laid back afternoon waiting to continue our crossing of one of the marvels of the new world: the Panama Canal. We still had some of it to go, crossing the Gatun Lake and the Gatun locks. This exciting experience means, much to our distress, the end of our wonderful voyage.
Until we meet again in some other destination! PURA VIDA!
