Otoque & Bona Islands
We finished our crossing of the Panama Canal sometime close to midnight: with the Bridge of the Americas at our backs we kept cruising south-southwest to our next destination, the islands of Otoque and Bona in the Gulf of Panama.
Yesterday we walked through the lowland rainforest of Barro Colorado Island, but today we had our first real Zodiac, snorkeling and kayak experiences in these tropical waters. For an hour and a half we were surrounded by hundreds of boobies, pelicans and frigate birds that make these rocky islands their breeding place.
The brown pelicans built their nest on the branches of small trees and bushes like the frigate birds, while boobies prefer the ground. All these pelagic birds have pretty similar characteristics, including a diet of fish, crustaceans, jellyfish or squid.
The incubation of their eggs takes from 35 to 55 days and the chicks attain adult plumage at 3 or 4 years of age. If all that sounds kind of slow, well let me tell you that all of them reach their sexual maturity around 5 years old, and 7 years in the case of frigate birds. But they tend to live close to 20 years, so there is time to soar effortlessly for hours.
But the trip was not just learning about all the natural history of these pelagic birds, but was also enriched by the visit to the small fishing town of Otoque. One single street, or enlarged sidewalk, crossed the town from the dock to the school, twisting around small houses, corner stores and a beautiful white church. Like the pelicans, frigates and boobies that adapted themselves to live out in the ocean, these Panamanians have adapted to live on this small island with no cars, discos or movie theaters but a deep blue ocean that provides them with their way of life.
We finished our crossing of the Panama Canal sometime close to midnight: with the Bridge of the Americas at our backs we kept cruising south-southwest to our next destination, the islands of Otoque and Bona in the Gulf of Panama.
Yesterday we walked through the lowland rainforest of Barro Colorado Island, but today we had our first real Zodiac, snorkeling and kayak experiences in these tropical waters. For an hour and a half we were surrounded by hundreds of boobies, pelicans and frigate birds that make these rocky islands their breeding place.
The brown pelicans built their nest on the branches of small trees and bushes like the frigate birds, while boobies prefer the ground. All these pelagic birds have pretty similar characteristics, including a diet of fish, crustaceans, jellyfish or squid.
The incubation of their eggs takes from 35 to 55 days and the chicks attain adult plumage at 3 or 4 years of age. If all that sounds kind of slow, well let me tell you that all of them reach their sexual maturity around 5 years old, and 7 years in the case of frigate birds. But they tend to live close to 20 years, so there is time to soar effortlessly for hours.
But the trip was not just learning about all the natural history of these pelagic birds, but was also enriched by the visit to the small fishing town of Otoque. One single street, or enlarged sidewalk, crossed the town from the dock to the school, twisting around small houses, corner stores and a beautiful white church. Like the pelicans, frigates and boobies that adapted themselves to live out in the ocean, these Panamanians have adapted to live on this small island with no cars, discos or movie theaters but a deep blue ocean that provides them with their way of life.
