Diving in Panama?

[divinggirl]

Hi all,

 

I am curious if anyone here has even been diving in the Bocas del Toro archipelago on the Caribbean side of Panama. We are doing a houseboat thing there in a couple weeks (technically a cruise!! :D ) and was curious about any other experiences. I will be sure to post a review here and at scubadiving.com for anyone who is interested when I return. Thanks!

 

Nikki

 

PS Orcrone, on your DW not diving thread, the only option is divorce!! ;)

[Latitude 20]

Hi Nikki,

 

Only info we can provide is ancient. Leo was in Panama in the early 1990s when he was in the Air Force and says the diving was excellent but doesn't remember where it was.

 

However, we're super interested in more info on your houseboat trip! I posted a question for you on another thread but you must have missed it.

 

When you post your review (or even before then if you have time), we'd love information on the company you're going with, web sites, etc. It sounds like a super trip!

 

Hope you have a blast!

Kathi & Leo

[divinggirl]

I'm sorry I missed your other question, I never miss an opportunity to spread the word about Bocas, although we don't want TOO many people to know! :D

 

We are staying overnight in Panama City, most people going to Bocas usually do due to the flight schedule of Aeroperlas, who flies to Bocas. The first four days are on a 35' houseboat (bocashouseboats.com), and then we are staying at Punta Manglar for the final 5 days (puntamanglar.com). We debated staying the whole time on the houseboat but decided to do both boat and ecocabin, and if we love the boat that much we'll stay there the whole time next trip! The dive operator we're using is linked to both Bocas Houseboats and Punta Manglar--Bocas Watersports (bocaswatersports.com). Jamie Jaramillo is the contact for both the dive shop and Punta Manglar. He is very accomodating, at least by email. All these websites have great maps.

 

Thank you for your kind words, and hopefully what Leo said is still the case, Panama is the most undiscovered spot in the Caribbean, at least for now. I will be sure to post a full review upon my return, probably in this forum simply because I don't know where else it would go!

 

Thanks again,

Nikki

 

PS I see from you sig that you did the Tahitian Princess--did you dive? How was that? We'd love to do that but it's REALLY expensive to fly to Tahiti from the East Coast, unfortunately. Like more than the cruise... :eek:

[Latitude 20]

I see from you sig that you did the Tahitian Princess--did you dive? How was that? We'd love to do that but it's REALLY expensive to fly to Tahiti from the East Coast, unfortunately. Like more than the cruise... :eek:

 

Thanks for the info Nikki, we're definitely going to look into it. Leo's really pushing for Central America as a retirement spot so we're slowly but surely checking out various countries (we've got about 20 more years to figure it out!).

 

As others who read these boards know, we are HUGE fans of diving in Tahiti. The south Pacific is so much better for diving than the Carribean. Top three experiences:

 

1. Great color on the reefs (although you'll hit a dead one once in a while). You'll see tons of reef fish (keep an eye out for what they call Kokiri in the Cook Islands and O'okiri in Tahiti--what they call Hamahama fish in Hawai'i and we call triggerfish in the US). Plus giant purple clams, eels, turtles, etc.

 

2. Sharks, sharks and sharks. So many (very docile) black-tip reef sharks you get blase about them after the first few minutes plus the lemons who like to hover above to provide the perfect "Jaws" subtext. Downside are the tons of remora who just love to suck onto divers!

 

3. Random pelagics--we ran into a school of rainbow jack (more colorful cousins of what we would call yellowtail in Southern CA), giant snapper and an enormous Napoleon Wrasse (literally the size of a small cow). The last was easily the most impressive fish either of us has ever seen.

 

We used the Princess's dive vendors for all of our dives and were happy with the operators in Raiatea and Bora Bora (not so happy with their vendor in Moorea). However, we were there two years ago when Tahiti was a relatively unknown cruise destination and most of our dive buddies were cruise ship employees. We've seen "cattle boat" complaints about the Tahiti operators since then so use your best jugement.

 

You're right that you'll spend more in airfare getting to Pateete than you'll spend on the cruise but at least Princess heavily discounts the cruise fare just to get folks over. We also found that for Tahiti, using the cruise ship's airfare is a better deal than booking separately (exactly the opposite of what we usually do).

 

Thanks again for the info. We're looking forward to your trip report!

 

Kathi & Leo