Wednesday  Isla Coiba National Park and Granito De Oro, Panama

One of Panama’s newest and largest national park and the third largest marine park in the world.  There is no development on the islands other than an old prison which is now park headquarters.  This was our snorkeling day—Dibs to the beach on a teeny, tiny island or spit of sand.  Full of hermit crabs and surrounded by coral.  We enjoyed the warm waters and colorful marine life.  Nancy was excited to see a spotted eel.  It was just a great morning.  After lunch we were headed off to our next destination so sailed all afternoon and night, 190 miles of rocking and rolling on the pacific ocean.

Thursday we are in the Gulf of Panama.  We start making our way to the Panama Canal with a two stops today.  The first is Bona where we observed seabirds who take advantage of the upwells formed by trade winds.  The upwells are rich in nutrients.  We took DIB rides around Bona island and saw boobies, blue and brown, adults and babes, frigate birds in mating season so the males were performing by blowing out their red pouches and brown pelicans.  Off we went the 22 miles to the Panama Canal.  We stopped Taboga, the island of flowers, to visit one of the oldest churches in the Western Hemisphere, founded in 1550.  This area, including Taboga, was a great location for the pirates who attacked Spanish ships throughout the 1600’s.  Nancy went into town on DIB and enjoyed the church, climbing the spiral staircase to the bell tower and then walking around the colorful town.

We had to be at our buoy by mid afternoon to await our pilot and linesmen and our turn in line to begin the crossing.  The first sets of locks, Miraflores and Pedro Miguel lift us 85 feet above sea level into the Culebra Cut and on to Gatun Lake where we will spend the night.  This is very unusual at boats are expected to transit from ocean to ocean without stopping in the lake.  The lake is huge, the crossing is 50 miles in total.  Lindblad/Nat Geo have a special contract in order to stay overnight and visit Barro Colorado which is a Smithsonian Research facility.  Our turns and we begin.  It is a slow, slow yet amazing process.  We enter the lock behind another ship and are kept from hitting the walls by special rail cars that are tied to each side of the ship.  These are modern day versions of a mule.  The water pours in—some millions of gallons and we are raised to the level of the next lock, about 30 feet.  It is night time so the locks are lit up and sparkle in the night sky.  Two locks make up Miraflores and then we travel a short distance to Pedro Miguel.  Some stay up all night, but we turn in after a fun night of adventure.

We spent Friday morning on a DIB ride around the island housing the research center.  The current director came aboard to give us an intro to the history of the center and describe some of the research areas, mostly around animal interactions and flora.  We saw howler monkeys, two crocs, smallish in nature, white faced monkeys, spider monkeys, birds and some funky looking lizard.  It was hot, but we had good sightings and a good last look to the rain forest.  Back in line for the last of the locks exiting the canal into the Caribbean Sea.  Will describe the rest of the adventure with our last blog, but it late, we are packed to disembark in the morning to spend one day in Panama city before heading home.