Dawn the morning we sailed for Contadora Island was the deepest gold of any dawn that I have ever witnessed.
For once, I wasn’t seasick. I can only attribute this to mystical powers associated with that golden dawn, for I have no other excuse and recent history has conditioned me to always seek a seat at the boat’s edge.
Contadora (The Accountant) received its name from its early days as host to a counting house and storage facility for the pearls that the Spanish harvested from the surrounding Pearl Islands. It now serves as a picturesque getaway for tourists, retirees and the occasional celebrity.
Patches of coral reefs surround the islands. Although the reefs near the heavily touristed beaches suffer some of the negative effects of tourism and fishing, those just a little further off are rich in life, both in the number of species and in the numbers of members of each species.
Somewhat regrettably, the abundant sea life included an abundance of jellyfish larvae, sometimes (erroneously) referred to as sea lice. I can’t call these invisible irritants pains in the ass because my ass was one of the few places not affected by them.
The demon larvae did not deter us from our marine explorations, nor did our adult-sized masks and fins deter Charlie from his. Every day on the island saw us investigating the reefs and their abundance of life.
Skin and Ruins
Explorations of the island’s nude beach led us to the surprising discovery of large ruins. Ruins of any size seemed out of place on an island as heavily touristed as Contadora and these were not small. The bones of an entire 300 room resort lie moldering among weeds and vines along the island’s largest beach (Playa Larga, in keeping with the archipelago’s utilitarian naming scheme).
Once the jewel of the island, the Hotel Contadora Resort fell to ruin after its owner, Carlos Arango, fell to his death in an overgravitied flight in 2005, leaving the resort heavily in debt. With a high price and rumors of drug cartel involvement in the debt, no buyers stepped forward to rehabilitate the hotel and the resort now serves as a novelty ruin on an island of luxury.
Gone Fishing
You would think that finding fish on an island where most locals fish would be easy. You would be wrong. When we lived in Mexico, we grew accustomed a rhythm among fishermen and fishmongers. The boats go out at night and the markets open up as they come in in the morning.
When do the boats come in? I inquired at local shops.
Whenever they’re done fishing, was the most accurate reply.
Combining our desire to eat fish with Tim’s desire to catch one, we hired a panga to take us fishing and island hopping. Daniel, the captain, cast lines from his boat and ferried us to Isla Chapera, one of the archipelago’s uninhabited islands.
The difference in reef life was stark. While the reefs of Contadora teemed with fish that were either too fast or possessed brains too small to be bothered by the steady boat and snorkel traffic, the reefs of Chapera included bigger animals like olive ridley sea turtles and moray eels.
If Only Darwin Had a Snorkel
I have to break from storytelling for a moment here to be a biologist (I am actually a biologist) and tell you something mind-blowing about moray eels. There are approximately 200 species of morays, many of which occupy the exact same ecological niche. That is to say that they eat the same food, are active at the same time and make their homes in the same spot. Literally the same spot. You can turn over a rock and find multiple moray species all living together. This flies in the face of what we’ve learned about evolution.
One of Darwin’s key observations was that the long-term occupation of different ecological niches has been shown repeatedly to lead to species differentiation, when one species evolves into others. By this reasoning, a species that remains in the same niche would have no reason to differentiate into many species. So why has that happened with moray eels? As far as researchers can tell, jewel morays do not breed with snowflake morays, which don’t breed with leopard morays, etc. How do they maintain their separation? Could they breed if they wanted or for some reason had to? Great questions for an ambitious grad student unafraid of bodily harm.
Three Hour Tour
No adventure is complete without mishap, so we were overdue by the time we boarded the ferry back to Panama City. The unexpectedly ironic name of our vessel was the Island Escape and it only barely lived up to that title. We came to a stop less than a minute out and remained bobbing on the water for two seasickness-inducing hours while the crew attempted to fix the engine.
What’s the plan, in case you can’t fix the engine today? I asked the captain.
I have to make a phone call, he replied reassuringly.
Three or four hours into our one hour passage, we returned to Panama City in time for Tim and Libby to catch their flight home.
