It’s hard to imagine that already almost a week has gone by. So many places visited, things done, things seen. We started in Costa Rica’s rainforests welcomed by a troop of white-face capuchin monkeys the first day as soon as we set foot on the beach, then escorted by a large pod of false killer whales and then down to Panama’s beautiful islands.
Last night we entered the Panama Canal through the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks, raised up 85 feet into the man-made lake of Gatun where we spent the night. Very early this morning our second Panama Canal pilot arrived to bring us to our destination for our morning explorations at the famous Barro Colorado Island or “BCI.” Run by the Smithsonian Institute, BCI is a well-known research facility in the middle of the Panama Canal. Once at the top of a hill, once the waters raised it became an island where many generations of scientists have been studying the tropical rainforest and the effects of isolation over time. Indeed, a lot of what we know today about the tropical rainforest comes from BCI.
Our guests were received first by an introduction by the prominent scientist Dr. Egbert Leigh, and afterwards we had a chance to explore the island either by walking its many trails or by expedition landing craft along the forested coastline. All of our groups were led by trained local BCI guides.
The forest, as always, was generous, and provided us with plenty of interesting wildlife to observe, while the natural history and behavior was interpreted by the guides. Among some of the many interesting things we saw today were crocodiles resting on the riverbanks, snail kites, slaty tailed trogons, howler monkeys, and white-faced monkeys.
At midday we returned to the National Geographic Sea Lion for lunch and to wait for our third Panama Canal pilot to take us down again to sea-level, through the last leg of locks on Gatun on the Caribbean side, where National Geographic Sea Lion spent the night, peacefully attached to the pier of Colon, to dream of jumping monkeys and friendly false killer whales.
