10/3 -- Isla Iguana

Today was a lazy day -- drive 1.5 hours to the landing for Isla Iguana, board the boat, ride about 15 minutes to the island off the Pacific coast of the Azuero Peninsula, hike and swim and eat for a couple hours and go home. We actually DID get rained on -- a light shower on the way over and the way back with a more serious shower about a half hour before departure time, while we were in a park shelter. 

There were no boat docks, so we had to wade out to the boats and back to shore at the other end, but we had been prepared and everyone wore sandals or shoes that could get dunked. There were a couple paths on the island, so we set off right away to work up our need to swim. We saw a LOT of hermit crabs--some places there were so many, we were worried about stepping on them -- a few iguanas, and several yellow warblers, who were not accustomed to sitting still for long. There were also a few perched vultures and a lot of flying frigate birds, similar to the ones we saw in the Galapagos, but with more white on their chests. In the Galapagos, they were nesting and many of the males were on the ground nests, but here they were all flying.

They used round bumpers as rollers to get the boat to the water.

Isla Iguana in the distance.

Those dots over the island are frigate birds.

Hermit crab

Jim on the path to the beach on the other side
of the island

The little beach where no one was.

Our first iguana

Palm tree on the path sprouting from a coconut

Vulture atop a dead palm. There was a whole
circle of topless palms and no clue why.
Frigate bird in the background.

Our first glimpse of 'our' beach from the path across the island.

Iffy photo of a warbler, but the only one I caught.

Jim held (and dropped) this crab so I could take this fun photo.

A  more grown up iguana back at the main beach

After our walk, I went 'swimming' -- that is to say, I walked into the water neck deep and tried to swim, but the waves made a crawl impossible, I am too out of shape to breast stroke, but could back stroke. Jim went snorkeling and his experience of having a wave enter his snorkel reminded me of why I demurred. He did say he saw 30 varieties of fish on the reef from tiny to 1.5 feet. He stayed out there at least 30-60 minutes, so it must have been interesting.

We had a box lunch and then as the weather threatened, stayed in the shelter and talked or read books until it was time to pack up and head back.