Granito de Oro, Coiba Island, Panama
After all the wonderful rainforest experiences in Costa Rica it was a great change to arrive in the offshore island environment. We dropped anchor in front of our favorite little island, Granito de Oro, which is located adjacent to Isla Coiba. Granito de Oro is just a small tuff of sandy beach with a couple of palm trees, surrounded by glassy blue water.
We got the activities underway as soon as everyone was finished with breakfast. Some of us went off to the National Park headquarters on the main island to enjoy some birdwatching. This was pretty successful – we enjoyed views of white-tailed hawks, king vultures, woodpeckers, honeycreepers, flycatchers, willets, whimbrels and herons. While on the grounds we were also lucky to spot the Coiba endemic “Agouti,” a rodent that only here would seem exciting.
Back at Granito de Oro (an island that looks like a Gary Larson “Far Side” cartoon) snorkelers were coming back with reports of tiger eels, white-tipped reef sharks, schools of Pacific barracudas, and the beautiful Pacific angel fish. We spent the rest of the morning enjoying this idyllic tropical beach paradise with all sorts of creative ideas like a hermit crab race which drew quite a crowed to cheer on their favorite crab.
Coiba Island, including it’s water territories, is Panama’s largest Marine National Park with more than 170,000 hectares. This National Park has recently been adopted to be a part of an ongoing project to unite the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador, with Cocos Island in Costa Rica and Isla Coiba as one large interconnected Marine Biological Corridor, which would elevate the importance of conservation of this important area of endemism in the western hemisphere.
After all the wonderful rainforest experiences in Costa Rica it was a great change to arrive in the offshore island environment. We dropped anchor in front of our favorite little island, Granito de Oro, which is located adjacent to Isla Coiba. Granito de Oro is just a small tuff of sandy beach with a couple of palm trees, surrounded by glassy blue water.
We got the activities underway as soon as everyone was finished with breakfast. Some of us went off to the National Park headquarters on the main island to enjoy some birdwatching. This was pretty successful – we enjoyed views of white-tailed hawks, king vultures, woodpeckers, honeycreepers, flycatchers, willets, whimbrels and herons. While on the grounds we were also lucky to spot the Coiba endemic “Agouti,” a rodent that only here would seem exciting.
Back at Granito de Oro (an island that looks like a Gary Larson “Far Side” cartoon) snorkelers were coming back with reports of tiger eels, white-tipped reef sharks, schools of Pacific barracudas, and the beautiful Pacific angel fish. We spent the rest of the morning enjoying this idyllic tropical beach paradise with all sorts of creative ideas like a hermit crab race which drew quite a crowed to cheer on their favorite crab.
Coiba Island, including it’s water territories, is Panama’s largest Marine National Park with more than 170,000 hectares. This National Park has recently been adopted to be a part of an ongoing project to unite the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador, with Cocos Island in Costa Rica and Isla Coiba as one large interconnected Marine Biological Corridor, which would elevate the importance of conservation of this important area of endemism in the western hemisphere.
