Day 1, 2, 3...

Hey everyone.
I'm posting this a day late, but wanted to fill you all in on the activities of our first "real" field day. A.A and I met our advisor Hector, an undergrad intern he has working for him and Carlos, another assistant in his lab, at 6:30 on the docks outside the laboratories (Naos). Hector wanted to take us out into the Las Perlas islands so we could see the area we would be doing our field work. We also visited Contadora, one of the populated islands in the archipelago, so we could get a feel for the neighborhood and scope out the hotel/hostel rates as we may be staying on the island one or two nights during the season.

The first step of the process was to load the boat into the water. Due to the high volume of rain and storms during the wet season, many boat owners opt to keep their boats out of the water in marinas when not in use. There are several boats that get sunk every storm due to the high waves and you can see several masts sticking out of the water throughout the gulf. (I had a cool video of the boat being lifted out of the water but I'm having trouble uploading it - so guess i'll have to try again some other time when I'm back in decent wifi :P)

Needless to say we were all very impressed....

I also got some artsy shots of pelicans while we waited for the boat
(cue the scenes from Finding Nemo)

Picture of Panama City with the usual 5-6 giant cargo ships
lining up to pass through the canal

Sadly I did not get many photos on Contadora due to the rain that started to come down (one thing that can never be avoided here is the rain). On the way out and back we ran into two storms, and we had to cut right into the middle of a rainstorm on the way back. The purpose of our visit, aside from trying to locate an economic location for us to stay, was also to pin point where the large tourist boats drop their passengers off. 

There are many different types of whale watching vessels operating around Panama. There are a couple that advertise their services as whale watches, where people pay solely for that activity. More common however, are boats that advertise "day packages," where tourists are taken out into the Las Perlas for the whole day. They get to see whales on the way out and back, get to spend some time swimming and snorkeling from one of the remote beaches on one of the islands ad are provided with a catered lunch. All of this within one service. This makes tracking down whale watch tour guides and participants a bit tricky, as sometimes boats will drop the passengers off on the beach and then take a portion of them out to look for whales. This means that only a subset of the whole group disembarking has actually been watching whales, and we will have no way of knowing. 

Furthermore, there are a lot of abandoned hotels and facilities on Contadora (a lot of corruption, bad investments, fluctuations in the tourist seasons and bad money managing), so the operational-tourist based companies are always moving around. Hector pointed out to us where the boats used to dock but it appears they have since moved to another location on the island. I imagine that we will definitely come to stay here at least once this season, so I hopefully will be able to get some better photos. The rest of the island is made up of large, beautiful houses that stood empty. Not permanently, but many of their owners are rich Panamanians/foreigners who own "summer" houses on the island and only come out on weekends or holidays (apparently this group includes Oscar de la Renta who used to have huge model parties at his mansion that had its own private dock). 

On the way out to Contadora, we passed a few of the smaller islands in the archipelago. Hector is in the middle of doing some bird surveys so he wanted to check on the populations of nesting boobies (Blue Foots to be specific). I posted a video on instagram that showed a couple of the birds resting on the cliff face. Many of the smaller islands look like this, with rocky outcroppings looking out over the ocean about 20-30 feet up in the air. The majority of them are uninhabited by humans (except for the occasional eccentric billionaire who purchased an island and built himself a mansion with a heliport, tennis courts and private dock). A.A and I will likely be coming out to one or two of these islands for day-long observation trips. The islands look out over shallow regions of the archipelago where the mother humpbacks and their babies like to hang out. This means that with the help of some good-ol' binoculars, lawn chairs and a cooler we will have front row seats to all the action. By this I mean observing how the boats approach the whales (whether they are obeying regulations or not) and how the whales are responding.

Sadly we did not see any whales on our maiden voyage. Hector believes there may be some abnormal weather/temperature changes this year that could be delaying their arrival (he said he usually sees at least 1 or 2 lone males or females in the area). I'm eagerly awaiting the day that we see our first whale up close. In the meantime we are doing research on the ways to measure behavior changes (avoidance and approach from the whales in the presence of boats), biopsy techniques and general whale behaviors. 

We have also been trying to establish connections with some of the local boat owners and whale watching companies. To make things more complicated, there are some boats that are owned by locals (usually ex-fishermen) who will rent out their boats to tourists and take them out whale watching, even though they are not licensed companies. Alternatively, sometimes the owners of large catamarans and ferry vessels will rent out the use of their boat to a whale watching company that just consists of the staff (tour guides), as they don't own their own boat. And there are also some whale watching programs in Panama that are operated by international companies. They hire boat drivers and tour guides for the season and rent out locals' boats, but the company owner is not even in the country. 

We have some meetings set up next week with a boat owner and an excursion company. We hope that through our interviews/surveys with them we may be able to get some more information about the whale watching industry, their insights and opinions on whale conservation, and recommendations of who else we should talk to.

Apologies again that I haven't been the best at taking photos! I'll definitely work on that. We did get to have a mini reunion of some of the folks that were on my January trip and got to explore more of the old city (Casca Viejo)!

Until next time. Peace, love and pelicans 🐦