Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica
This morning we began our week on board the National Geographic Sea Lion, by visiting one of the crown jewels of the Costa Rica National Park System, Manuel Antonio. With one of the smallest surface areas, around 3600 hectares, this park harbours numerous amounts of medium sized mammals. In a way it is a dream comes true, it means that we may encounter them as we walk the trails; on the other hand it is not such a good thing, as it also means that the park is too small for larger mammals which are normally their predators.
We explored the trails of this area with great expectations and were rewarded ten fold. Two-toed and three-toed sloths, coatis, White-faced Capuchin monkeys, northern raccoons, basilisk lizards, black ctenosaurs (iguana-like lizard), and many species of birds led the way, to share with us the wonders of the rainforest. We left Manuel Antonio before lunch and headed south towards the Osa Peninsula.
On our way to Osa, we were pleasantly surprised by the sighting of a mother humpback whale and her calf, they presented us with a rarely seen spectacle. We approached them, but stopped our engines about 150 yards away. By national regulations a vessel cannot on purpose approach a marine mammal, but if the mammal decides to approach the vessel that is another story. Both individuals breached, lobtailed and slapped their flippers, the large female slowly came towards us, as close as 50 yards from the ship, and dove under us. When she resurfaced, she was so close that we could see the callosities on her head and the double blowhole typical of baleen whales blowing hot air into the warm atmosphere around her. We were all in awe. As if this was not enough, we counted more than one hundred sea turtles, between Pacific green and Olive Ridley turtles, right on the surface around our ship. A couple of Pantropical spotted dolphins quickly visited us as we again made our way south.
Later in the afternoon, we divided into two groups to go on Zodiac cruises, to explore a small river called Agujitas – needle fish river – to look for yet more wildlife and take a quick dip in its fresh water.
