| 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.
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.
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!
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
|
