Day 8 - Islas Zapatillas y Coral Caye. Monday September 9, 2019. Entry time - 7:30pm

This day began at 6:30am, and just like every other day we have been here the breakfast was delicious.  Then we had some time to gather our selves and things before meeting up down at the boat to begin the all day snorkel adventure.  We all got settled on the boat (Picture 1 & 2) and the adventure began.  Our friendly boat captain Sebastian was our operator today and he took us on the wonderfully long boat ride out to Islas Zapatillas.  The islands are part of a marine park where there is no fishing allowed and the wild life is abundant.  The boat ride took about 30 minutes and the weather was absolutely perfect.  It was sunny and warm, with a light breeze and the boat ride took us through some of the most spectacular scenery.  We zipped through mangroves that were speckled along the way to the islands, and were like little patches of vibrant emeralds nestled among the varying shades of cyan water.  Just before we got to the islands, Vanessa spotted a small pod of bottle nose dolphins (video of aforementioned dolphins is too large to upload to this blog post).  Sebastian said that they frequent the waters around the islands.  We saw shiny tail flukes and slippery dorsal fins as they caught breaths of air in between bouts of feeding.  That was just a preview of the wonderful collection of animals we were going to see on today's adventure.  The islands where we were headed looked like two relatively small specs of land on the horizon, but got much larger as we approached them.

Once we got closer to the islands, their true grandeur became clear; white sandy beaches and rows of tropical trees including coconut palms (Picture 3).  We headed for the eastern part of one of the two islands for our first snorkel.  Once we all had our mask, fins, and any other accouterments donned we splashed into the water fins first and eyes wide open.  We were greeted by warm salty water and fabulous wild life.  Lots of different fishes and large corals were abundant at this location as were the tidal currents.  The large colonies Elkhorn coral, Acropora palmata (Picture 4) were dominant at this site and resting among these large corals were resting Nurse sharks Ginglymostoma cirratum (Picture 5).  The currents were fairly strong at this first site and it made swimming a bit of a challenge, however we pressed on despite the water pushing us around.  The fishes and corals did not seem to mind at all though (Video 1).  We snorkeled around for over an hour at this first location.  It was so much fun to see so many different organisms, and things that we have been learning about out in the wild where they grow naturally.  We then piled back into the boat and headed for another site.

This site was still near the Zapatillas but a little more west of the site that we just explored.  In a similar fashion as all of our snorkel trips have been thus far, we threw on our gear and flopped off the sides of the boat and into the water like fishes in reverse.  At this site, the current was a little less troublesome which was nice and our friendly boat captain offered to circle around us and pick us up down the way in a drift dive fashion which was very nice.  We puttered around the site, admiring all of the large corals that we have been learning about.  There was more Elkhorn coral at this site, but there were other massive corals too like Siderastrea spp. and Diploria spp.  The latter of which are the Brain corals which this author has a fondness for.  There were a few fishes of all sorts swimming around but more on the reef crest.  The author dove a few times down along the reef wall and did not see as many fishes on the reef drop off, and those that were there either hid or swam away.  The drop off was quite deep and fun to dive, and made for some good photography opportunities (Picture 6).  We swam around this site for about an hour or so before making our way back to the boat.  We all climbed aboard and we all agreed that it was time for lunch.  It was also about that time of day as well, however we were ravenous after a morning of blissful snorkeling.  Our wonderful captain took us to a beach on the Caribbean side of the western Zapatilla.

The view from today's lunch is something that we will not be able to forget.  White sandy beach, surrounded by mangroves and turquoise water, it really doesn't get much better than this (Pictures 7, 8, & 9).  We all spent the next hour or so recuperating and refreshing.  Eating delicious food prepared by the wonderful kitchen crew here at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), and lounging in the warm Caribbean waters.  Sebastian grew up on these islands and took the some time of the lunch break to go and see some of his family.  Once he got back, our lunch break in paradise was unfortunately over.  We all gathered our things and a large assortment of trash that Richard had collected during the lunch break, and climbed back into the boat.  We headed for a site away from the Zapatillas, Coral Caye, which has large amounts of soft corals like Sea fans and Sea Whips.

This site was a small boat ride away from our paradise lunch location.  We threw on our gear and jumped into the water.  We were greeted by warm water and more tidal currents.  Swimming was a small challenge but there were large amounts of soft corals to view.  They were swaying underwater like trees blowing around in a rough storm.  Fishes were swimming all though the soft corals.  It was really cool to see.  Some of the sea whips were quite large (Picture 10).  This site also had patches of exposed sand where we found different kinds of echinoderms, large sea cucumbers and buried sand dollars.  This site was different than the other two we dove at today, because of the soft corals.  They were more prevalent here than at the other two sites.  We swam around here for about 45 minutes before getting back into the boat.  By this time, we were all pretty tired, and rightfully so.  It was a wonderful day of snorkeling around some of the more pristine waters of Panama.

We climbed back aboard the boat and motored back to STRI.  The ride back was just as scenic as it was coming out there, but this time it was much more quiet.  Everyone was a little more tired than we were at the start of the day and the lack of conversation on the boat was due to the exhaustion.  It was simply just because we were tired from such a fun day.  However, this fun came at a cost.  When we got back to the dock and offloaded our selves and things that's when most of us noticed our various sunburns from the day.  Some were worse than others, and many of us had nice boot tan lines on our ankles.  They were more red than tan though at this point, but that is okay.  If that is the price that we have to pay for a super fun day, then this author is okay with that.  We all had some time to refresh and get ready for lecture before dinner.

Lecture this evening was a continuation on reef fishes given by Richard.  We learned more about the local parrot fishes here in Panama, their importance in tropic regulation of coral and algae, as well as damselfish distribution.  It was quite informative and fun to learn about some of the fishes that we saw today and throughout previous escapades of reef snorkeling.  Then we all gathered around the dinner table at the usual 6:30pm for another exquisite meal.  After dinner we had time for writing in our journals and it was this authors turn to write the daily blog post in lieu of such activities.  Tomorrow we are supposed to have time to do work on our projects in the morning, more lecture and another snorkel trip planned in the afternoon.  We may even do a night snorkel. 

This study abroad program has been a blast, and with all things that are fun, the time seems to be flying by.  A small caveat about the images to follow, they really don't do justice to the wonderful spectacle of nature that we were lucky to be immersed in today. 

Hasta tu sueños,

Mitchell Hebner

Pictures and Video

(Picture 1) - view of the back of the boat, all of us on and ready to start the day

                  (Picture 2) - view of the front of the boat, clear skies ahead.

(Picture 3) - Our first glimpse of the Zapatillas.  Beautiful white sand beaches and coconut palms glistening in the warm tropical sun light.

(Picture 4) - A massive Elkhorn coral at the first dive site.  This colony was clearly old judging by the size which was at least two meters across.

(Picture 5) - The author of this blog post hanging loose with a resting Nurse shark on the reef floor.

(Video 1) - Footage from the first dive site of the day, lots of Elkhorn coral and fishes.  They were abundant at this site. Quality may have been altered to fit the format of the blog.

(Picture 6) - Swimming up from the deep water drop off of the reef at the second dive site, another massive Elkhorn coral.

(Picture 7) - OIMB goes to Panama 2019 enjoying the warm tropical waters on our lunch break.

(Picture 8) - Our boat for the day, anchored offshore of our wonderful lunch beach.

(Picture 9) - Panorama of the lunch beach.  Not too many days like today.

(Picture 10) - Sea whips at the Coral Caye site, the third place we swam around at.  There were fishes swimming through these pliable fronds, and it was reminiscent of monkeys swinging through tree branches.