We took our second boat tour today. This was was free, an effort by the local tour operator to show how sorry they were for some of the problems with our missed airport connections on New Year’s Day. This was a nice gesture of good will. But as an excursion, it was basically worth every penny we spent for it. The trip today hit three of the main attractions of Bocas: dolphins, coral, and beach. For us, it also illustrated the environmental perils that tourism can cause.
I thought our boat yesterday was full, but today we had fourteen people, and from the dock I watched a boat leave ahead of us packed with eighteen. All these boats were trying to see some of the same sights - and that is the problem. The first stop was Boca Toritos or Dolphin Bay, a stretch of water between some of the cays that Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins use as a feeding and nesting area. Each of the boat operators tried to get his boat closest to where a dolphin can be photographed. While we were out there, John counted 18 boats literally chasing the dolphins.
There is the occasional sighting as the animals do have to come up and breathe. But for the most part this destructive tourist practice simply is helping to destroy the local dolphin population. Like many English majors, bits of poetry come to me at odd times and I thought of the lines from Lycidas: “Look homeward angel now and melt with ruth, And O ye dolphins, waft the helpless youth.” It seemed to me that the angel’s pity now should be saved for the dolphins.
There are a number of groups now raising concern for the dolphins and the protection of their habitat such as the Bocas Dolphin Project. Maybe visitors can come to realize that people watching is such a great Bocas pastime that we do not need to harass the poor sea mammals. Look at El Delfin, and leave los defines alone!
The tour really did not get better after this. They took us to Coral Cay. Here were were let off on a dock with a restaurant and a bar and told we should order lunch. The food would be ready after we finished snorkeling. The restaurant featured the usual long menu - we have learned that generally in Panama this means nothing because most of the items are not available on a given day - and the prices were not cheap. John was really pissed off about attempt to force us to pay 20 dollars for a miserable red snapper fillet and a cup of coconut rice.
We declined to order. We did notice as the far end of the dock there was a little store selling provisions to local sailors. We checked it out and noticed that they had some soda for sale. We had also brought he last of our New Year’s Eve crackers. So we figured we could make do on our own.
The snorkeling was almost as depressing as the dolphin hunt. The coral reef here was in bad shape. Is this the result of a dozen tour boats unloading hundreds of people each day? It is hard to say because coral reefs are in decline all over the planet. But the human activity can hardly help. Plus, since the Almirante Bay is fed by a half dozen rivers, it is really an estuary and as you would expect the water if therefore a little murkier with sand and organic sediment. So what coral was still left was not exactly easy to see.
The day would have been a total waste except for the visit to Red Frog Beach. Red Frog, on the Isla Bastimentos, is hardly undiscovered. There is a significant amount of development in the area, mostly vacation homes and rentals. But they have managed to keep most of this away from the beach itself, and it is one of the loveliest stretches of Caribbean coast I have seen.
The Beach takes its name from the tiny red frogs. These creatures, found from Nicaragua to Panama along the Caribbean coast, are poisonous, but not a danger to humans. In a book John is reading set largely in this area, the author talks about how native children get up in the morning and catch the little frogs on leaves. They then spend the rest of the day charging tourists to photograph them. Well, as John walked down the beach some children came up to him with a frog, and he was only too happy to part with a dollar to get this picture of the tiny creature.
After a couple hours on the beach getting a bit too much sun, we took the boat back to Bocas town. We cleaned up. We met up with our friends Amy and Jolie. They were going to Guari Guari, the most celebrated restaurant in Bocas. We tried to get reservations but could not get in. So we used our free drink pass from the hotel.
We ordered our drinks from the bartender known to all simply as “Darling.” I think there is a story there.
We did not much feel like sitting down in a restaurant by ourselves. After all, when you have spent the entire day together, there is not that much to say while you wait for the food to arrive. We walked around for a bit and enjoyed the balmy night. We came across a man who had turned gourds into lighting fixtures. I really did not want one, but I still though they were rather cool.
After strolling, we picked up some soda at a chino, and we ordered some Chinese food to go from the restaurant right by our hotel.
Tomorrow we will be spending one more night in Bocas, but this time at a new hotel on Playa Bluff, the surf beach.
