Snorkeling Around Bocas del Toro: The Good, the Bad, and the Slimy

Beautiful tableau of sponges, sun anemones, spiny lobster, arrow crab, and a little Mithrax crab

Boy, we miss the brilliantly clear water of the Bahamas! Here in Bocas, you can only see the bottom when it’s really shallowing up, so our hopes weren’t high for snorkeling (and if you’ve read this blog before, you know that we adore snorkeling and being in the water in general). Anyway, you’ve got to try, and that’s what we did, jumping in the water whenever we had a chance. What we discovered was that, no, snorkeling here isn’t like in the Bahamas or the eastern Caribbean, with clear water, big coral heads and reefs, and abundant large fish. It’s different, and in an entirely cool way. It’s invertebrate heaven! Okay, maybe since my (Anne’s) research has always focused on marine invertebrates, I’m biased. At first glance, the substrate is mostly rubble, some grass, some coral, but take a closer look, and wow! Shrimp, crabs, sea cucumbers up the ying yang, sea stars, you name it, and not just the one, maybe two species you see elsewhere, but loads of species living in the rocks and holes. Here’s a small sample of some of what we’ve seen. The pictures aren’t terrific because it can be difficult holding position underwater while trying to focus on the small stuff, but hey, when I look at my pictures, it puts me right back in the water, and that’s what I take them for.

Critter-covered mangrove root

Batwing coral crab

Look into my sponge...

Pederson cleaning shrimp (blue and white, left and center) and banded coral shrimp (red and white, right)

Ocellate swimming crab Portunus sebae

Lovely reticulated sea star

What's NOT growing on this coral - not much!

Jungle Hike at Rana Azul

A man and his machete wandering the lovely jungle

Lovely flowers

Great buttress roots on this tree

In addition to great drinks and delicious food, Rana Azul also has a trail that circles thought the jungle. We’re always up for a good hike, so we packed a knapsack full of cold water, binoculars, camera, and bug spray. Amazingly, we saw only one mosquito, and heard another, and we really had no bug problem at all. Location problem…well, that’s another thing. We started out at the restaurant. Though the area all around looks kind of like coarse grass, sometimes you’d sink in up to your ankle, not surprisingly, since this is all cut out of the mangroves. The area is criss-crossed with shallow channels full of fiddler crabs, though there are lots of crabs in the grass, too. The path passed through a mangrove swamp, over a couple of small bridges, and under an open tunnel of hibiscus shrubs into an area of fields and pastures with open gates in the wire fences. Every so often was a sign with words of wisdom, a quote by someone – one was even attributed to J.K. Rowling. Beautiful tropical flowers abounded. Yellow wooden arrows nailed to trees pointed the way up the rather steep path. Incredible trees, plants, flowers, bugs (not pesty bugs, but interesting bugs), and loads of intriguing sounds. One sound – a high-pitched warble – was very similar to the poison-spitting dinosaur that gets Nedry in the original Jurassic Park movie. Finally we found the source – oropendolas! – large black-and-yellow birds that we first saw in Trinidad. They build large hanging nests that dangle from the tree limbs (like weaver birds, if you know what their nests look like). A croaking call turned out to be, not frogs as we expected, but toucans! Unlike the toucans in Trini, which had black beaks, these had beaks of pale green and other colors. The one we watched also had a bright red patch under its tail, and was doing a dance, sharp movements of its body and beak, while it called. We don’t know what it was trying to communicate, but it was fascinating to watch. The path led up to what seemed like the ridgetop, or close to, but the vegetation and trees were so heavy we didn’t have a view down. Now the path started downhill. We followed the yellow arrows, and at one point there was a fork. We went right, but the “path” seemed too much like a stream bed, so we went back and went to the left. This also was like a stream bed, but smoother, and it eventually led to mangrove swamps. Adventures with mud! Chris went first across the narrow planks/posts that (incompletely) traversed the mud. At one point he stuck the machete into the mud to steady himself, and it sunk in about a foot. Eventually, with the help of a long stick I picked up, we were both across. The mangroves opened here into the bay, but a trail led along the shore. More balancing across the mud, this time on mangrove roots and some boards, and we trudged uphill into a meadow. There was a house there, and another beyond in the mangroves. Unfortunately, they were not Rana Azul. After poking around we realized that there was no way through to where we wanted to be, so we backtracked through the mud pits; at least I still had my stick. After following a couple of dead ends, we finally found a yellow arrow…pointing to where we had just come from. Argh! We proceeded slowly, carefully checking for a path, and found one. Was this it? Good luck – Chris found the arrow that should have pointed it out, upside-down on the ground by the tree. He propped it up so others wouldn’t get lost, and on we went, following the now-plentiful yellow arrows and obvious trail. It came out at an area cleared on a hillside with a view down to the lagoon and Mr Mac. Beautiful, but hot in the sun. There was a makeshift wooden table, but we didn’t tarry. Back into the lovely shade and downhill to where we started. The one-hour hike took us four hours, but then, we stop a lot to look at stuff. Oh, and we saw lots of pretty frogs, apropos, since Rana Azul means blue frog.

Sun-backed bamboo

I don't think we're on the path anymore...

Oropendola nests

Spider with legs spread is about as large as my outspread fingers - don't walk into that web!

Poison-arrow frog