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Russo Salvatore on 06/09/2007
very interesting and enjoyable article with very nice underwater pictures that made me too to have the trip to those wonderful places.

Gary Fredrickson on 31/08/2007
A fascinating read and your underwater pictures are breathtaking. As for the hermit crabs with inadequate housing how about dropping a whole lot of indo pacific junk shells as a housing project. You'd get happy hermits and you'd drive the next trawler crazy trying to explain the range extensions.lol

Federico Gutiérrez-Aliaga on 31/08/2007
Muy buenas fotos Marcus, y el artículo también. ¿Y en español? ¿Cuándo? (Para evitar la fatiga....)

Pedro Castillo Gomez on 30/08/2007
Marcuas:muy interesante el articulo y el viaje.Preciosas fotos.Espero que se repitan los otros articulos y fotos toda vez que viajen.Gracias.Saludos. Pedro

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Collecting in East Panama by Marcus Coltro
 

After the COA convention in Portland, Oregon, I flew to Panama City via Miami and met Jimmy Ernest. I spent one day with him looking at some great shells that he had collected recently. The next morning, I took a small airplane to El Porvenir to meet Tony McCleery on his sailboat Marina EM. Although El Porvenir is quite close to Panama City, the plane made two stops on the way - it transports workers and locals including Cuna Indians.


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El Porvenir International Airport (yeah, International....) is a tiny airstrip on a small island. Tony was waiting for me on the boat dock nearby. The sea was very calm although it was cloudy - Tony said thunderstorms had been frequent at the end of every day recently.

Once more, we boarded Marina EM with Tony’s companion, Columbus the Cat. I stored my things in my cabin and caught up on the news with Tony. We both greatly anticipated the trip, and Tony was glad to have me help with his MS Access shell database (I had convinced him to switch to it from an old DOS program he used for years).

A nice large crab was waiting in a bucket for our dinner - Cuna Indians travel all over the islands in small canoes and sell seafood to boat people. A pair of large crabs goes for $5, a lobster $2 and a medium-size fish just $1! That meant we would not be restricted to eating only pasta that I cook all the time.

The Cunas have devised a singular and effective way to sell food to boaters. Some arrive in larger canoes with fresh fruits and vegetables - very handy in a place without grocery stores. The Cunas also sell the local handicraft – molas - beautiful and interesting textile panels created by the San Blas women. Designs vary from geometric to birds, village scenes, animals, or symbols depicting cultural or religious themes. Sewn by hand, the complicated stitching requires hours of meticulous work.

Tony joined me on my first snorkeling to show me a bit of the place. Tony said the water was warm enough to wear a Lycra Skin. But after a few hours I was freezing, and that was the only day I did not wear my heavier wetsuit. I took my camera housing, but no camera: on my last trip some water leaked in and nearly wrecked the camera - so I wanted to test the housing before using the camera again. It was OK, and I was able to take some underwater pictures later.

The Caribbean Sea is not as prolific as the Pacific Ocean for the number of shells, so I did not expect too much. At least this area has one of the most beautiful and rich faunas to be found in the Caribbean. Some places look like an aquarium, full of fish, corals and colored animals. The first indication that shells were scarce was the lack of hermit crabs and dead shells. Those hermit crabs may have trouble finding adequate homes; I saw some of them “wearing” shells much smaller than needed (imagine if Jose had to wear my clothes!).

The next morning, we sailed toward Chichime Cay on our way to the Holandes Cay group where we would spend the night. On the way, we dredged at 100 meters; the sea was calm, very good for a specimen of Homo sapiens subspecies urbanus like me, who needs at least a few days to stabilize on a boat, even with Dramamine. Dredging was relatively easy considering our last experience when we got stuck several times and lost a dredge. The dredge was working nicely and brought up grit every time. It also brought up a few small shells such as dead Conus, Nassarius, and a few others.


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When we arrived in central Holandes Cay, I made my first dive; Tony went with me straight to the bottom at 25 meters so he could collect some sand to search later for small Marginellidae. I left him down there and came up to a shallow spot where I spent almost three hours (I don’t breathe much air....). I just found common shells like Astraea latispina, Fasciolaria tulipa, and a few bivalves. Back to the boat, and a Cuna man with his family arrived to offer fish and molas. We bought fish to eat as sashimi that night - I had brought soy sauce and wasabi paste from Miami. It was very tasty and Tony liked it very much.

Later, Tony showed me a shallow area where I snorkeled for a long time. I found some shells on grass such as Turbo castaneus, Tegula fasciata, Oliva ernesti, Columbellas, Modulus and other common shells. I saw several juvenile Strombus gigas, and a few dead quite thick fossil-looking adults.

We moved to East Holandes Cay and found a few different shells, but no sign of Conus granulatus, which was one of my goals on this trip. After lunch, Tony took me by dinghy to a nearby island and met some friends on the way - one of them loves shells and showed me a beautiful Conus granulatus she collected there a few days earlier. So, after returning to the boat, I went back to the reef where his friend said she found the Conus. I found no granulatus, but it seemed to be a good place for a night dive, so I suggested that we move the boat closer, then I could do a night dive without having to run the dinghy too far in the dark. Tony had to do some Database work and preferred not to dive with me, so he would leave me at a spot near the reef and a small island where he was going to pick me up an hour and a half later. It was a bit tricky since the place had several shallow places and absolutely no visibility at night. I set a beacon for him - one of those luminescent plastic tubes, but it was not as bright as I thought it would be. (Don’t rely on these if you have to find your way back…)

I am not very fond of solo diving at night, but have done it a few times. This place was not easy to dive; it was pitch black since the sky was cloudy, no houses or boats around except Tony’s. Tony helped me prepare all the gear on the dinghy, so I could enter the water while he handed me things, but I did not notice that my collecting bag was dragged off the dinghy when I slid into the water - of course I never found it again. Tony returned to Marina EM and I submerged, hoping not to encounter those blood-sucking isopods like they had in Costa Rica. No sign of them, but there was this tiny beautiful blue fish attracted to my flashlight. So cute! “Hey, here are a few more... 10, 20, one billion!” They virtually blocked my light making me swim away with my lights turned off. I had a small compass with me – but then I remembered that it does not work well when I need it. It gets stuck most of the time, pointing in a wrong direction. After a few minutes I was dragging on shallow rocks and had to crawl back to deeper water after getting scratched several times. Minutes later, guess what? There I was again! This time it was even shallower, and when I moved closer to a rock I hit my wrist hard against a sea urchin! Yes, one of those long venomous spines... I don’t think anyone nearby understood Portuguese language, otherwise they would probably have blushed at what I screamed. I stood up on the rocks to take a closer look at the damage, when my tank slipped from my 15-year old BC strap. I think that night I invented the “Jerry Lewis dive style”. Happily, Tony arrived a few minutes later and brought me back to the boat. I took an antihistamine, but my wrist was painful all night, and I could hardly move my whole hand for two days.

From there, we moved to Coco Bandero Cay where Tony had found a nice Strombus pugilis some time ago. The place was close to a reef and not far from where we anchored. I geared up and went straight to the bottom to check for S. pugilis. Indeed I found several of them at 12 meters on muddy sand, placed them in a bag and left it near the dinghy’s anchor. I saw a dead colony of lettuce and finger coral; I had read in American Conchologist magazine that was the habitat for Conus granulatus (thanks Karen Vanderven!). Digging under the coral, I had a pleasant surprise when a beautiful granulatus fell in my hand! “Wow, I must come back here at night” I thought to myself. So Tony and I made a smooth night dive, but no more granulatus....

The next day we dredged once more. The sea was not so calm this time, but we managed a few dredge hauls. I know that some things living on the bottom can burn and sting, so I wear gloves sometimes. I should have worn them this time: there was a sponge with tiny spicules and I got a few in my hand. Tony handled a big chunk of sponge and his finger looked like a porcupine! I still feel a burning sensation on my hand until today (Is it caused by the sponge? Or by that sea-urchin… or fire coral? I don’t know!)

We moved to East Holandes where I saw those juvenile Strombus gigas earlier; I prepared my dive gear and headed to the reef. By that time I was exhausted, so I lasted just one hour. I like to put my BC on in the water, so I usually prepare it and hang on the dinghy’s side handle while I put on my mask and fins. After the dive I reverse the procedure before getting into the dinghy and then pull the tank from the water. I went back to the boat to tell Tony I was going to snorkel again after eating and taking a short nap. I meant to leave the tank on the dinghy and pull it up later, so I ran the dinghy to the shallow spot when I noticed that the tank was not there! Could someone have taken it while I was sleeping? No.... I forgot to take it out of the water after my last dive! So, we rushed back with binoculars near the place where I had dived - luckily there was no current and I saw it floating there. What a disaster it would have been if I had lost it!


see photo presentation »

In the afternoon, we snorkeled and hand-dredged for Marginellas and Olivas. We found Prunum pruinosum, guttatum and a few beautiful Prunum hollandae. That was another place worth returning to at night so we had dinner, rested a while, and went back at 8:00 P.M. We did find more Marginellas and other shells and took nice pictures after returning to the boat. That night, the wind was strong and we could hear the anchor chain dragging on the rocks. We both got up to see if everything was OK - we thought it was better to drop the second anchor, so Tony started the engine to move the boat. Then he heard an alarm from the hydraulic system – nearly the entire oil tank had leaked into the hull! He managed to stop the leak and we went back to sleep. The next morning, he spent hours pumping oil into buckets to reuse it. He is very capable of fixing anything on the boat, and he was able to use the electrical system to do most jobs usually handled by the hydraulic system, such as pulling up the anchors, moving the sail, and lifting the dinghy. He was calm about the whole event, but I admit that the possible prospect of getting stuck there waiting for help was quite scary.

While Tony was working on the engine in the morning, I cleaned and packed shells. After the boat was running again, we headed to Lemon Cay so that I would be close to the airport for departure the next day. There was a thunderstorm on the way and the sea got rough again. The rain was heavy and Tony had to do some more work on the engine, but I wanted to dive again. I had air left in the tank and wanted to use it up, but when I plugged in my regulator, lots of air escaped - the O-ring was lost while the tank was floating loose after my clumsy dive. Tony replaced it with a spare, but when I opened the air tank again at the reef, I noticed the O-ring had cracks. Not wanting to return empty-handed, I tried to snorkel instead. The sea was very rough and it felt like being tossed around in a washing machine. I did not want to test my Dramamine further, so I returned.

In the afternoon, we went to El Porvenir for my last night there. My flight was very early in the morning, had to get up at 5:00 A.M. and Tony left me at the airport where I caught the flight to Panama City and from there to Miami. After traveling for 24 hours, I got back safely to Brazil the next morning.

English checking by Jeannette and John Wolff

 

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