Panama/Coiba Marine National Park
After enjoying 3 days of the exhilarating wildlife of the Costa Rican rainforest, we changed pace entering Panama’s largest marine national park, Coiba Island.
Once a devil’s Island Prison, now a jewel for marine conservation, Coiba has become a great diving destination as scientist divulge the hidden secrets of species endemic to this reef systems. National Geographic Sea Lion arrived early this morning at Granito de Oro Island just off shore, a tiny out crop of rock and sand surrounded by a pristine reef. We deployed Zodiacs and headed over to this idyllic little island and immersed ourselves in this underwater world that so many marine biologist rave about. We were not let down by Cobia’s reputation, many of us saw a great number of fish, Moorish Idol, King Angles, Reef Cornet fish, bicolored parrot fish giant damsel fish, sharks, moray eels and a beautiful array of living coral.
Coiba is a part of an ongoing project to unite four countries’ reef systems to create a massive marine corridor between Costa Rica’s Coco’s Island, Coiba Island, Panama, Mapelo’s Colombia and the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador. This project has involved many conservation entities, of which Lindblad-National Geographic’s connection is with Mar Viva. The conservation entity Mar Viva plays a crucial role and will be important for the continuing effort of marine protection and legislation at a larger scale, enabling Marine biologist and park rangers to provide pertinent information on the sustainability of our reefs systems, which have been exploited largely by commercial fishing.
