Pearl Islands, Gulf of Panama
The seasons of Tropical Central America are a bit different from the four seasons that many people are used to in the temperate zone. To start with there are only two seasons, rainy season and dry season, each lasting about six months, give or take, and heavily affected by winds, especially trade winds. Trade winds bring a lot of humidity that they harvest from the Atlantic Ocean into all the Caribbean side of Central America, making that green lush tropical rain forest that we see on movies possible.
These winds are so powerful at this time of the year that they are capable of blowing all the way across the isthmus, and by the time that they get across the continental divide, they have become dry winds but very strong winds. They are strong enough to blow away all the clouds of the Pacific side of Central America, triggering the season that we know as the dry season and even in some low points of Central America, like here in the Gulf of Panama, they produce a seasonal upwelling.
This they do by blowing away all the warm water of the surface and let it be replaced by cold water, nutrient rich from the bottom making it a perfect place for an explosion of plankton life that will attract and support all kinds of sea life. So today, we took our entire morning to go on Zodiac cruises to explore the seabird colonies that are coming into the gulf to take part of the bounty.
By now, we can all testify for the richness of waters after seeing thousands of sea birds including brown pelicans, brown boobies, blue-footed boobies, magnificent frigatebirds, night herons and even some oystercatchers and a Peruvian booby.
