Costa Rica and the Panama Canal on the Sea Lion
This was a W&L trip and here's the full NG Lindblad link about the trip: http://www.voyageportfolio.com/home.aspx
Friday March 4, 2016- RIC to San Jose
The third time wasn’t the charm. We usually plan to get to the
origin of a trip a day early just in case something messes up. This time it
worked against us. The day we left it snowed a tiny bit but enough to make the
plane to Charlotte late. When we got to Charlotte the plane had to sit on the
runway for about 20 minutes because the gate was occupied. For once I was
fairly cool, especially compared to guy across the aisle from me who was going
on a romantic getaway with his girl friend and knew he was going to miss his
connection. He was hitting the seat and anything else in range.
So we did miss our flight to San Jose by about a minute (the AA
lady said “they don’t hold any planes for any reason in this airport”). AA
rebooked us through Miami and everything was fine for that part. Well, except
for two little things- we had had first class seats and we got moved to the
last row of the plane (still trying to retrieve a refund), and, somehow our
bags did not make it with us to San Jose.
To go back to the third time idea- earlier in the winter I was
going to the Bahamas to bonefish and got snowed out by the Blizzard of 2016.
Then in February we were going to Key West and it snowed so we lost a day of
that trip. This time it was a missed flight, back of the bus, and missing luggage.
Saturday March 5- San Jose to Herradura and the Sea Lion
The question of the day was whether our bags would reach us
before we had to be back at the airport to meet the group and take off for the
ship. Luckily they did with about an hour to spare. We met the group and hung
around the airport for a while then had a two hour bus ride to Herradura (near Jico Beach), which
looked like a very nice place to rent a house. The marina was private and
modern and full of sportfishermen.
Sunday March 6, 2016- Manuel Antonio NP
This first stop seemed to be on a thin peninsula. We had a fairly rough wet landing in the DIBs (Demaree Inflatable Boats, formerly referred to as Zodiacs- not sure why the terminology has changed). On our side the beach seemed private but if you walked a little on the trails soon you came to a very public beach, complete with monkeys waiting for food left behind or handed out. Here we had the first of several walks with our guides (here Margrit) explaining a lot about the rain forest and its circle of life. We hiked the rougher Cathedral Point Trail and then part of the sloth trail. We did see sloths, 2 kinds of monkeys (almost the third one, spider, but they were too quick and the forest too thick for me to see them), an agouti, a raccoon (just like ours but not a problem if you see them in the daytime- no rabies), and leaf cutter ants (they bite). Saw some birds already on the list and a couple of new ones. Great view of a blue crowned mot mot (whose call is "mot - mot").
Pearls of wisdom from Margrit- there are 10,000 spiders for each human visiting the park; and a bird call is just conversation while a bird song is about seduction. By the way, Margrit's other job is as a fitness instructor and she is in a race to reduce her body fat from 13% to 10% for a contest she is entering- at meals she eats two full plates, but pretty much only salads, veggies and nuts.
Monday, March 7- Today, two stops, one in the Caletas Reserve, and then in the San Pedrillo section of the Corcovado NP on the Osa Peninsula.
While I thought the other wet landing was rough, this one was rougher, especially dodging the big rocks. When we got ashore Connie and I went with Christian on the long walk.
When we got to San Pedrillo we chose the stair master walk. Not that tough but I found a tick on me from there two or three days later. $&@#% it!! Here I got 4/6 new birds. Learned more about the rain forest.
Tuesday, March 8- Golfo Dulce and Casa Orquidea, followed by Tigre River
Casa O is an unbelievably beautiful botanical garden cared for by a couple of expats who have been there about 40 years. We went for a short walk to see the trees and other plants but also got to see Scarlet Macaws and many other birds. I was carrying around my laminated 6 pages of Belize birds but quickly found out there is a difference in many species between the Caribbean side and the Pacific side. We had a chance here to paddle board and swim which was very refreshing since the air temperature was about 90 plus with jungle humidity.
In the afternoon we had a 2 mile kayak paddle thru the mangroves. Lots of egrets and pelicans.
After dinner Brian Murchison, from W&L law school, gave a short presentation on the evolution of law and court cases regarding the environment, with special emphasis on the Tennessee snail darter court cases.
Wednesday March 9- Coiba NP
This was probably the best day of the trip, with stops at two tropical islands in the park.At the first stop, Canal de Afuera Island, Connie stayed on board while I went in for some paddle boarding- an easy wet landing.
Later we went ashore on the second island, Granito de Oro, where we snorkeled. The current was pretty strong but there were lots and lots of fish. Before snorkeling, Ann Murchison told me she was a little nervous about it but wanted to give it a try. When I saw her afterwards, I asked her how it was and she said "I didn't die!".
After dinner tonight the bioluminescent jellyfish put on quite a show.
Thursday March 10- Bona Island, Panama and the beginning of the Canal
Activity here was a DIB ride around the island looking at the nesting brown boobies, pelicans, and frigate birds.
After the island exploration, Sea Lion left for the Canal area. We tied up to a designated buoy and waited for the Panamanian pilot and word from the Canal Authority about when we could proceed. For small ships like ours the authorities try to pair ships of similar size up to go through the locks together.
Rob Fure in the W&L Alumni College office had sent us all a copy of David McCullough's book on the Canal. I read all 631 pages. I have to admit almost zero knowledge about the canal before this trip. I did not know about the failed French attempt, I barely knew about TR's gunboat diplomacy and how he helped "liberate" Panama from Colombia, and I thought we just dug a sea level trench to make the canal.
Here are some facts courtesy of the book and of our guide Deibys' excellent narration as we traversed the canal- the first US canal engineer John Stevens was a railroad man, was dedicated to making the zone livable before doing any digging, conceived the canal as a railroad project in that one had to do something with the material dug up, especially on the Pacific side as he dug thru the Calabra Cut (angle of repose still not found yet). When the US got started we still hadn't decided on a sea level canal or a canal with locks. Stevens took the spoil from Calabra and elsewhere and moved it the 50 miles across Panama by rail to build the Gatun Dam, which solved the spoil problem and the problem of controlling the Gatun River. So now the canal goes up 85 feet on the Pacific side through 2 sets of locks ( Miraflores and Pedro Miguel) across a huge man made lake from the Gatun River and then down 85 feet through the Gatun Locks.
As for our trip, we went through the first locks at night. The transit system is amazingly simple, just about like it was 100 years ago- a rope crew comes on board, throws ropes to two men in a row boat; the rowers then attach the rope to a rope from a railroad engine on either side of the canal (to keep the ship in the middle), and the rail cars accompany the ship through the lock, the lock fills floats the ship up and releases. On the other side of the lake it is the same thing in reverse.
Other canal factoids- a big cruise ship will pay a fee of about $425,000 to go through; the lowest fee ever paid was 38 cents by Mr. Halliburton who swam the canal (in the lake there are crocodiles!), the biggest ships are the cargo ships called Panamax which have very little room on either side of the locks, but the canal is about to open a new lane for even larger super Panamax vessels.
Friday, March 11- Gatun Lake, Barro Colorado Island, Gatun Locks
As one might imagine, the transit is very quick since it is only 50 miles. However we stopped in the lake at a Smithsonian research site for another long hilly rain forest walk, complete with a major advance warning about ticks and chiggers.
Then we completed crossing the lake, went through the Gatun Locks with a companion ship, and docked in Colon on the Caribbean side for the evening.
Saturday, March 12- Panama City to Miami
We left the ship so it could get ready for the next group, which included Duke alumni travel tourists, and rode back across Panama to Panama City on the Pacific side by minibus. To fill time until our flight the planned activity was a visit to the Miraflores Lock operation but our part of the tour rebelled and asked to visit the Frank Gehry Museum of Biodiversity. It is quite a structure! Gehry designed it for free as a gift to his wife's country.
Uneventful flight to Miami, very glad to have GOES passes to avoid the passport line, but that means a long wait for luggage. Because of Richmond's unsynchronized flight schedule, we spent the night in the Miami airport hotel and then flew into Richmond via Charlotte the next day.
New birds-
Crested Guan; Cherrie's tanager; stripe throated hermit; short billed
pigeon; scarlet macaw; riverside wren.
Mohonk Knit in Style
Thursday,
March 17- Sunday March 20
This was a special event for Connie, and she even counts it as her 35th
Anniversary present. Mohonk is an old (1869), sprawling, old school hotel in
Upstate NY (New Paltz) along the lines of the Greenbrier, but without the
emphasis on bright upholstery. The food, buffet for breakfast and lunch, and
off the menu at dinner, was great; the room overlooked the lake and had a
fireplace (which I was silently hoping no one would use); the exercise room was
more than adequate; there were 100 miles of trails; and there were plenty of
places for me to hide and read while Connie was in knitting class. During one
of the breaks Connie and I went over to Hyde Park to the FDR Library, which was
very, very interesting. It was cold but tolerable. There are no TVs in the
rooms but there are two community TVs and we had them to ourselves at night to
watch basketball. A very nice short trip- I would definitely go back.
