Coiba Island, Panama.
Our first day on Panama started with a beautiful sunrise. The sunrays began to show the paradise scenario of the newest national park of Panama: Coiba Island! Created in the late 1980s and protected by law on 2004, this park has en extension of 271,000 hectares of which most of it is marine area. The island had been protected before being a national park by the fact that it was a penal colony since the beginning of the 1900s. Once declared a park, the inmates were all relocated in different prisons within Panama.
We anchored next to a small islet known as “Granito de Oro,” little grain of gold. Similar to a comic strip picture, this islet has a couple of palm trees, white sand and a nice colony of hermit crabs. Among its waters we can find different types of corals that form part of the second biggest coral reef of the Eastern Pacific. So after breakfast and with all this information, we were eager to go a shore and enjoy this paradise. Different activities were offered: snorkeling, kayaking or just relaxing on the beach.
Once on shore and with the gear in hand, we were welcomed by a humpback whale with a calf that swam close to the islet. It was enough reason to jump in the waters. Moorish idols, reef cornet fish, white-tipped reef shark, rock-mover wrasses, puffer fish, grunts, butterfly fish, and many other species of fish began to swim close to the free divers.
The morning went very quickly; we would have stayed on the island forever had it not been for a barbecue waiting for us over at the headquarters of the park. So back on board we repositioned the Sea Voyager closer to Coiba Island to enjoy our lunch. What more could we ask of this day?
Back on board we lifted anchor and started our way tour next destination. Another 190 nautical miles must be covered before reaching to another paradise: Otoque and Bona Islands!
Our first day on Panama started with a beautiful sunrise. The sunrays began to show the paradise scenario of the newest national park of Panama: Coiba Island! Created in the late 1980s and protected by law on 2004, this park has en extension of 271,000 hectares of which most of it is marine area. The island had been protected before being a national park by the fact that it was a penal colony since the beginning of the 1900s. Once declared a park, the inmates were all relocated in different prisons within Panama.
We anchored next to a small islet known as “Granito de Oro,” little grain of gold. Similar to a comic strip picture, this islet has a couple of palm trees, white sand and a nice colony of hermit crabs. Among its waters we can find different types of corals that form part of the second biggest coral reef of the Eastern Pacific. So after breakfast and with all this information, we were eager to go a shore and enjoy this paradise. Different activities were offered: snorkeling, kayaking or just relaxing on the beach.
Once on shore and with the gear in hand, we were welcomed by a humpback whale with a calf that swam close to the islet. It was enough reason to jump in the waters. Moorish idols, reef cornet fish, white-tipped reef shark, rock-mover wrasses, puffer fish, grunts, butterfly fish, and many other species of fish began to swim close to the free divers.
The morning went very quickly; we would have stayed on the island forever had it not been for a barbecue waiting for us over at the headquarters of the park. So back on board we repositioned the Sea Voyager closer to Coiba Island to enjoy our lunch. What more could we ask of this day?
Back on board we lifted anchor and started our way tour next destination. Another 190 nautical miles must be covered before reaching to another paradise: Otoque and Bona Islands!
