Our first call in Panama was at the newest marine national park in the western hemisphere, Coiba. Once a feared penal colony, now it’s a dream for biologists, to research an area unexplored for over 75 years.
This Devil’s Island existed as a prison between 1919 and 1991. President Guillermo Endara (1990-1995) decided that Coiba Island and its marine area were important enough to change its mission to conservation, which was favorably viewed in all Panamanian’s eyes. This park has become one of the largest marine national parks in the western hemisphere with 172,000 square miles of protected area.
Lindblad Expeditions was one of the first to visit this area in the 1980s, even before it became a national park. Today, along with the efforts of Mar Viva Marine Conservation, Lindblad helps with local conservation and is part of a master plan to help create a vast marine corridor which would unite four countries in a common goal to protect these highly productive waters from over-fishing and unsustainable development. These countries are Costa Rica (Coco’s Island), Panama (Coiba Island), Columbia (Manpelo) and Ecuador (Galápagos Islands).
We enjoyed our visit today at the tiny island of Coiba, famously know as a “grain of gold.” For most of us, it was a chance to enjoy crystal-clear waters teaming with fish, and to relax on a beautiful beach and think about our friends at home getting ready for winter.
We left this Island after lunch and enjoyed an afternoon at sea with several sightings of bow-riding dolphins, which accompanied us until the sun set.
