Biodiversity

It has been an exciting couple of days with wildlife and awareness of biodiversity. We delayed our departure in order to visit the Smithsonian Tropical centre at Punta Culebra, just 100 yards from Tin Tin. The centre does a great job of introducing people to coastal and marine wildlife through open air displays. We met Hawksbill and Green Turtles swimming in a tank within finger-nipping distance, and Nurse Sharks and star fish and sea anemones too.

The beach has turtles which return to lay eggs, and lots of crabs scuttling around. But the most exciting moment was meeting a Sloth! This one - a Two or Three-toed Sloth - I can't recall which - was relaxing in a tree at about head height and I was able to get close to sketch him. I swear he opened one eye and winked at me! Later I spotted three of the other fifteen sloths hanging around in the top of trees. Emily spotted one legging it along the barbed wire fence around the car park at a surprisingly rapid rate!

A very relaxed sloth

Next I went to the Biodiversity Museo which is a startlingly colourful building on the causeway out to La Playita. It was designed by famous architect, Frank Geary, and the taxi driver said that it resembles coloured paper screwed up by a child and thrown in the bin! I found it a new exciting sight, and walking under the coloured planes of the roof I entered a grey interior evoking forest trees through its branched pillars. There were some great exhibits; the Panama-rama is a huge room walled and floored with screens on which images of wildlife are projected whilst one listens to the sounds of the jungle, ocean or animals. Very impressive! Then on through geology of the bridge linking the Americas and into a huge atrium filled with life-sized leaping animals, representing the clash between separate ecosystems of North and South when the continents were joined.

Frank Geary's BioDiversity Museum.  Colourful paper crumpled up?!

Then today, Sunday 5th March we finally set sail to escape Panama City, and in 25 knots of wind our sails filled and we fled through the field of anchored tankers to the open sea. I went below and, free of the stresses of the city, slept for a blissful couple of hours in my bunk, rocked by the gentle movement of the boat.

 When I woke I found that the Las Perlas Islands were in sight. Suddenly something jumped out of the water and splashed dramatically ahead of us. It turned out not to be a whale, but a manta ray. Then for the next two hours the sea around us was constantly erupting with big manta rays leaping and turning somersaults.

Leaping Manta Rays and a Whale Shark! - My Journal entry Sunday 5th March 2017

Next we caught a tuna, and while getting a bucket of water to wash off the blood, I spotted whale shark just below me. It was about 15-20 feet long and had a characteristic spotted skin with a flat head. Very exciting!

The Pacific is absolutely teeming with life in contrast to the Caribbean!

Finally we dropped anchor between Isla Mogo Mogo and Isla Chaporra, and Emily pumped up her new paddle board and went off with great poise and natural elegance to explore our surroundings.