Day 4: Isla Coiba National Park
Highlight of the Day:
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Around 9 am we arrived at a picture book miniature island with sandy beaches and about 5 palm trees, surrounded by a coral reef: Granito the Oro, part of Coiba National Park.
The area around Isla Coiba is one of Panama’s most remote national parks, and the third largest marine reserve worldwide – after Galapagos and the Great Barrier Reef.
We went ashore, fully dressed up with snorkeling gear, and explored the reef around the island. There were many colorful small fish, most of whom we recognized from our earlier dive trips. "Nemo" was there, as well as a school of Sergant Sergeant Major fish, a large parrot fish, a bright yellow “boxy” puffer fish, barracudas and at least 4 large sharks.
We more or less stayed in the water until we had to leave.
The kids also enjoyed collecting hermit crabs – they were everywhere, every shell was moving. Disappointing though, the crabs did not want to stay in the sand castle prison and managed again and again to escape successfully.
Treasures!
Back on the boat we drove a short distance to the largest island, Coiba. Some of our group decided to “power kayak” the distance. At the beach, the crew set up a beach barbeque for lunch under an existing pavilion.
We were surrounded by black vultures who could not resist getting some scraps from the floor.
A few lizards were sun bathing on the lawn...
... and Titus, the crocodile lay in the water, but never fully emerged.
After another yummy lunch we enjoyed bird watching and kayaking, the girls went into the water again to collect more beautiful shells.
And more treasures (which of course had to stay on the island!)!
During recap, Christian presented still and video footage that he had recorded earlier while diving among us snorkelers. We missed this presentation though, because Sophia wasn’t feeling well and we sat outside the lounge and focused together on the horizon. Sophia wasn’t the only one to go to bed without dinner tonight.
More information
Official Lindblad Expedition Report of the Day by Cristian Moreno, Naturalist