A Spot in the Sun
I have come down in the world. All the way down to sea level.
If my last posting was green, this one is blue. Not the steely grey blue of the Baltic sea, but that ooh-aahy turqoise of warmer, sand bottomed salt waters.
Throw in some palms,
or better yet, riding on the beach during sunset
Oh, I know! Let’s have some nubile girls doing sunset yoga on surfboards!
By now everyone should be suffering from cuteness overload - or possibly wondering, if I’ve gone off my rocker and joined some extreme wellness/mindfullness cult. However, the truth is, I’m just by the seaside.
I’m in Santa Catalina. This former fishing village is now one of the top surf destination in Central America. But fear not, I haven’t taken up surfing either. I tried it once in San Diego 20 years ago; I hopped on the board, fell off the board, got wallopped hard on the head with the board and decided it probably wasn’t my thing. I’m leaving it for the professionals.
However Santa Catalina is also the stepping off point for trips to the Parque Nacional Coiba - a group of 38 island forming a national park and Panama’s very own little Galapagos.
Our trip to Coiba got off to a good start, as a couple of rather small yet very lively dolphins jumped around our boat for a bit. And they jumped truly high - certainly more than a meter into the air. Even though there were no hoops to jump through and no fish bait as a reward. Show offs.
Our day-trip had two agendas: snorkeling and a small hike on the main island of Coiba national park. This island used to be a notorious penal colony and therefore access was very restricted to nature’s greatest destroyer - humans. Not surprisingly the islands now boast a rich biodiversity and rather spectacular marine life.
The only hike on Coiba we had time to do was a puny one-hour affair with only 50 floors worth of elevation. It offered a good view of the Coiba harbour at the end
as well as tantalising glimpses of birds and a more solid glimpse of a mother-father-baby monkey unit. The male of the family clearly took umbrage at our being there staring at the wife and babe and started making those iconic whook-whook-whook cries that - if Tarzan films are anything to go by - are the prelude to going into full attack mode. We decided to make a hasty yet dignified retreat.
The photos of the indignant female are unhappily all very blurry. Since this trip will include weeks of trecking, I was in no mood to take my big and good and damned heavy camera with me, so I’m shooting with my trusted Canon G12 pocket camera. Around 9 years old, and with no zoom to speak of, but it’ll have to do.
Scuba diving trips are widely organized in Santa Catalina - and no wonder since the sealife is truly wonderful! On the first stop Uupi and I swam around the small islet we landed on. On the way we saw two big turtles and five medium sized (around 1,5 metres) sharks plus the usual array of gloriously colourful tropical fish. The sharks were white tip sharks, which I know to be harmless. This was lucky, since we had left our guide behind by the boat overseeing the rest of our party: Nine beer drinking Panamanians, who didn’t seem to know how to swim and didn’t seem to mind as long as there were beaches, palms and beer. And yes, all present and accounted for!
However professional the tour operators here are, unfortunately full body burkhas are not included in the provided equipment. Virginally white Finnish winter skin and the poor ozone layer and strong sun of Panama are not a happy mix, when contemplating a 7-hour snorkling trip.
Both Uupi and myself were sadly unprepared burkha-wise, having left our leggins, long sleeved hoodies etc mostly at home. So we needed to do a dash of last minute shopping and creative dressing to achieve our chic look for the tour.
Luckily we remained mostly unburnt due to swimming fully dressed and lathering high octane sun lotion at every opportunity.
Now I must toddle off to see another epic sunset. What we long suffering bloggers wouldn’t do for our readers.
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