Exploring the Pearls

NOTE:  Article is after the photos ....

NOTE:  All the photos are at the beginning of the article. 

It is time for you all to get out your atlases or open up Google Earth and check out the islands that are about 30 miles off the coast of Panama.  They are known as Las Perlas (the Pearls in English) and they are beautiful.  We have been exploring the islands and I am so happy that we decided to spend a little time here.  They are very different from the San Blas, which are primarily coral head islands. Apparently, The Pearls appeared some 3 million years ago when the earth’s plates shifted and created the islands.  The colours and types of rock are quite diverse and the rising of the tide has created interesting formations.  The tide levels here are much more dramatic than they were in the Caribbean coast rising almost 9 feet.  We have to be a little more cautious when we anchor and also when we take the dinghy on shore because if it the tide comes in while we are ashore, Squirt just might get washed out to sea. 

We have snorkeled around many islands and have not yet found beautiful corals.  The few we have seen so far are rather dull and small with little variety.  However the fish are larger and we have seen many, many schools of larger fish such as mackerel, jack fish snappers and groupers.  The reef fish are also slightly larger than what we have seen on the East coast.  We spotted large humphead parrotfish, moray eels, angelfish and wrasses.  One of our favourite things is to watch the Dolphinfish or Mahi Mahi as they are hunting.  They jump clear out of the water and in again several times as they chase down their prey.  The colours on the Dolphinfish are quite beautiful – shimmering green, yellow and blue.  What a beautiful sight.  We’ve also seen Eagle Rays jumping out of the water but we’re not sure if they are also hunting or doing it just for pleasure.    

Most of the islands are uninhabited and we can explore them to our heart’s content.  We enjoy walking around the islands looking for shells or other treasures.  Too often, we just find plastic bottles and other miscellaneous junk washed up on shore. 

So let me give you a summary of the islands we have visited and a comment or two on each. 

Isla Contadora:  A popular hang out for the rich and famous with a busy airport, decent shops and restaurants.  Fredrik and Johan joined us having taken the ferry from Panama City.  We had a nice dinner at Casa Tortuga where the Italian chef cooks for you in his home.  No menu to be had, he just prepares what he feels like cooking and despite the black out for the first hour (suddenly the power went out) we were served a delicious dinner with plenty of beer and wine.

Isla Bartolome (uninhabited):  I also think of it as bird poop island – lots of birds hanging out and the smell of their poop was a bit disgusting.  However, the snorkeling around this island was the best we have seen in Las Perlas.

Isla Mogo Mogo (uninhabited):  This is where they filmed Survivor, Pearl Islands (I think it was the third season of Survivor).  We came ashore to find the beach littered with pink shells.  It was all I could do to stop myself from collecting them all.  The guys found some oyster shells and we opened them with the hope to find a pearl.  But, no  - no pearls for us. 

Isla Bayoneta (uninhabited):  We sailed to this island with the hopes of finding a lot of large cowries as described in Eric Bauhaus’s Panama Cruising Guide.  Yes, we had to look up cowries on the internet as we didn’t know exactly what they were … we guess shells or maybe birds.  Cowries are in fact shells and unfortunately, we only found a couple, most of which were already inhabited by Hermit Crabs. 

Isla Pedro Gonzales:  This is an island with a huge ambition.  They are building an international airport, a hotel and condo complex.  The town as it exists today looks very much like a shanty town and is not too impressive.  But the construction that is under way looks first class and will mean big changes for the locals. 

Isla San Jose:  This is one of the largest islands in The Pearls and is privately owned.  The island is also one of the more southern and western in the group so you can really feel the swells coming in from the Pacific.  It also makes for quite the surf on the beach, which doesn’t necessarily make for good swimming.  Instead we had a nice long beach to walk along.

Isla Del Rey:  The last stop was Isla Del Rey where there is a larger town and where we had hoped to do some last minute provisioning for our sail down to Ecuador.  It turned out to be nothing more than a large fishing village with a lot of scurvy, flea-bitten dogs hanging around and the smell of garbage wafting through the air.  Not exactly the place I would like to buy my food supplies.  We could have managed without food supplies for our onward journey but the deciding point was the lack of internet.  So we headed back to Isla Contadora.

We will now spend the next two days shopping, doing maintenance and prepare a few meals before we set sail to Ecuador.  The entire journey will be about 680 nautical miles.  We want to stop at Isla Malpelo off the coast of Colombia along the way if we can.  If the wind is good, it will probably take us 5 or 6 days of sailing not counting our stop at Malpelo.   We won’t have internet access till we reach our destination of Salinas, Ecuador. 

Till then, enjoy your Atlas and Google Earth.  By the way, you now also have to look up Isla Malpelo and Salinas, Ecuador J. 

PS:  Regarding whales – Jens was truly lucky as we heard the whales had pretty much moved on and we only spotted some far off in the distance.   The locals said the season runs to end of October and this had been one of the best whale watching seasons they have had.  I hope we have a chance to see some on the way down to Ecuador.