Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
glide like floating autumn leaves, occasionally leaping 2m into the air, as well as more solit-
ary
manta
rays; boasting a colossal 6m wingspan, one weighs as much as a small car.
In general the Pacific coast boasts a greater number of large fish -
blue
and
black marlin
,
amberjack
,
wahoo
,
dorado
and
tuna
, to name a few - while the
coral reefs
on the Carib-
bean side, particularly around the archipelago of Bocas del Toro and parts of Guna Yala,
are populated with a greater variety of soft and hard corals. These feed and shelter aquatic
life from sinuous
moray eels
and spiky
sea urchins
to delicate
sea horses
and a rainbow of
dazzling fish. Iridescent
parrot fish
(30-50cm) are among the most distinctive, named less
for their technicolour coats than for their serrated parrot-like “beaks” that gnaw algae and
coral polyps off the reef. The ground coral is digested and excreted as sand - up to an es-
timated 90kg per fish annually - a major factor in the formation of Panama's glorious
white-
sand beaches
. The Caribbean's other mammalian draw is the
manatee
, or sea cow, an ami-
able elephantine herbivore with a paddle-like rudder and flabby fleshy snout, found in the
Humedales de San-San Pond Sak in Bocas del Toro.
Five species of
marine turtle
lay their eggs on both Atlantic and Pacific shores, roughly
between March and October/November (timings depend on species and location). In the
Caribbean, Bocas del Toro is the easiest place to visit
hawksbill
,
leatherback
and, to a lesser
extent,
green
turtle nesting sites while
loggerheads
frequent the shallows. On the Pacific
side, Isla de Cañas, off the Azuero Peninsula, is renowned for the mass
olive ridley
nesting
(May-Nov), though the other species also deposit their eggs there in smaller numbers.