Pearl Islands

I just had the most singular experience. We flew out of Panama City after hours of sorting things out. The plane was a twenty seater Twin Otter. I got a look at how large Panama city was before heading out over the ocean.

The waves passed under me for maybe a half an hour before I saw the straight cut of the a runway a cross the island a head. San Jose is it’s name, one of the Pearl Islands off the Pacific coast of Panama.

As we taxied to the end of the runway a pickup truck paced us along one side. The plane came to a halt at the end of the grass runway. There was a small bamboo building of sorts and a man to greet us. The man shook my hand and said something but Don was already rolling tape and I was trying to get out of the shot. As it turns out the was the owner of the island and the Airline we just flew on.

We loaded the gear onto the truck and started driving. The island has a series of really nice dirt roads. Our driver spoke no english so we looked out the windows as he drove on. There were deer and wild pigs about. I saw a big butt rat rabbit thing eating something off the road. It ran away as we came by, it’s big butt bouncing up and down. A comical thing, but when it got to the edge of the forest it jumped many times it’s length like it was shot out of a cannon revealing a hidden power beneath it’s awkward appearance.

This island had gone over a hundred years untouched and unoccupied. It has been privately owned and is largely undeveloped. Once pirates stayed here, now it has a resort. What has remained the same is the beauty of the place with it’s sand beaches, coconut tree and dark rock cliffs. (More jungle so insert one of my previous descriptions here.) The island was way bigger than I thought as it took quite a while to get to the resort. The resort is so far beyond the means of a paraglider instructor as to be unthinkable. But... I’m here!

My room is a bamboo cabin over looking a paradise of a beach. At the main lodge the view is of slack jaw quality. It’s maybe a hundred feet up on a ocean cliff. There are tiny rock islands with tufts of trees, like heads of hair. On the railings toucans eye the cherry in my drink. I try to make friends with one that lunges for my drink. It, instead, gets a firm bite of finger. This my third altercation with things biting me. One toucan, one crab and that dam tripod I’ve been carrying around everywhere.

The sun set, we have dinner on the porch. The tree over us is full of macaws making a racket, hanging upside down and biting each other. After dinner the planning begins, what to shoot, how long will it take. I make some, hopefully useful comments, but find I falling asleep in my chair. But I cant’ quite hang it up yet and that beach is calling to me.

So I take a nigh time walk. The waves are crashing. The stars are brilliant in a clear sky. In a few minutes I’m far enough away from the resorts lights that my night vision comes on. Occasionally I scare something in the jungle which at least scares me as much as it.

At the end of the beach I find a absolutely clear river. I walk along it for one bend so that I’m now completely blocked from the resort lights and sat down, shutting off the head lamp.

Darkness and quiet. I let my thought drift for a bit, eyes closed. These moments are so rare on this trip, it’s like a powerful drug coming on. I pull off my shoes and wade into the river. As I step into the water a cloud of roiling grains of light swirl around my feet. I take another step and then another. With each one the swirls of light come tiny yet sharp. Then I’m crawling through the water watching the lights around my knees, my hands.

I remember first hearing about bio-luminus plankton when reading “Kontiki” as a kid. There was a passage about the balsa wood raft out in the middle of the pacific, under the stars, leaving a glowing trail of light behind it. Since then I had always wanted to see it for myself. Now I have, first just months ago in Mexico and then at Gondoca the night of the turtle patrol, but nothing like this. This was pure magic, the late night, the warm wind, water and the woozy tint of sleep depravation made it all intoxicating.

I pulled myself away after a while headed off to my room to sleep.