Panama way or free diving with the Ngobe-Bugle
Posted By Nicolas Danan on 4 May 2003
It is funny I am writing this article sitting on the floor of the St Louis, MI airport. Of all places, it is hard to put myself into context while all eyes are turned to the monitors watching "CNN WAR ON IRAQ". I am already missing the Panama way of life!
I was there for almost 9 months straight except for a quick trip to Boston in December. I ended up in Panama working on a construction project that was to become a base of operations for a non profit organization protecting the coral reef.
The Coral reef in Bocas del Toro just off the Caribbean side of Panama boasts some of the most unique hard and soft corals in the Caribbean. I dove on some amazing Elkhorn coral colonies, a wide variety of sponges and a whole lot of garden corals. Eagle and stingrays are common in the bay, I had the chance to have close underwater encounters.
Everyday I had a break from the construction site, I jumped in the water. The place we built is on stilt right on the ocean looking over Zapatillas Bay, part of the national marine reserve of Bastimentos. For the quick history Christopher Columbus "discovered" these islands and named this one Bastimentos for the abundance of food they found on it ("bastimentos" translates to "food" in English).
Luxurious jungle along with red and yellow mangroves, give birth to the most unique ecosystem on earth: the living coral reef. The bay is so vast, and so incredibly quiet it felt at times like I was alone on earth! When the seas are flat, the water is so clear that looking right down from the house you can see the strategically still barracuda waiting for a snapper to make the mistake of coming too close. Busy Indians (Ngobe-Bugle) go by all morning fishing mainly for lobster as the demand for these little critters is ever growing in the nearby "downtown" restaurants on the main island of Colon and many go for exportation.
Sometimes while swimming under their "Cayuco" (the local canoe carved from a tree trunk especially unstable for the Frenchy I am) they would make signs to call me to the surface. The Indians had a hard time to understand first what was the purpose of these ridiculously long "aletas" and second how I could maneuver without crashing into the dense coral underwater with such long blades. They clearly had never seen anything quite like it, I became the new attraction. The lobster divers thought that since I was probably a wealthy man (I had a motor boat, a definite sign of wealth in the bay), that I could provide a pair to each one of them so they could go track down the bigger bugs in the deeper water.
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