A Jurassic Park Hidden Amongst a Surfer's Paradise in Santa Catalina

“Think of the number of fish you have seen elsewhere and double it. Think about the size of the fish you have seen and double that as well. That sums up the promise of diving… Coiba.”

-       Diver Magazine, May 2005

When I began my journey three and a half months ago I had planned no more than to start in Costa Rica and head south, with hopes of ultimately reaching Patagonia. Everywhere I ventured was based on the recommendations of fellow travellers. And Santa Catalina was no exception. It was rumoured to have every type of break you can possibly imagine, including the best point break in all of Central America. I decided to spend my remaining days in Panama surfing here, but little did I know what would lie just twenty-two metres under my board...

Upon arriving to Santa Catalina late January 4^th, 2014 I hitched a ride from a Panamanian man to where he claimed was the best spot in town, Hostal Surfer's Paradise. It was a quaint, family-run hostel perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I pitched my tiny, single-man tent on a patch of grass under the shade of a palm tree at the edge of this cliff. In the evenings it gave me a front-row seat to the most gorgeous sunsets and, in the mornings, to Santa Catalina’s infamous point break, ‘La Punta’.

Stoked to discover that Santa Catalina has not one, but several fruit & vegetable trucks!

Crowd starting to gather at La Punta

La Punta was a challenge to get to: I cut-up my feet while getting into the water, had to negotiate numerous rocks and paddle 350 – 500 metres to get to the break. However, the beautiful, ‘A’-frame –shaped wave was well worth the hassle. Besides the fun wave, the water was crystal clear such that I could see the rocks just a few feet below my board as I surfed. Unfortunately, out of my time in Santa Catalina I only managed to get in four days of surfing due to a lack of swell. On the other hand, this also prompted me to make use of my new PADI certification and scuba dive, which proved to be a real adventure.

Santa Catalina (A) & Coiba National Park (B)

While I was well aware of the world-class surfing Santa Catalina had to offer, I had no idea that it was also a huge diving destination. Located in the Gulf of Chiriquí, Coiba National Park’s underwater topography was linked to that of the Coco and Galapagos Islands by way of the Cordillera mountain range. This means that all three spots provide habitat to many of the same species. Nevertheless, I was skeptical of the quality of diving here due to the poor visibility I experienced spear-fishing in the Pacific Ocean. But after several days with no surfing and lots of reading, I was itching to do something...

Scuba diving was the solution. After checking out every dive shop in town I decided to go with Scuba Coiba, the first to open in Santa Catalina. A group of us boarded the boat early in the morning and began the hour-long ride to Coiba National Park. Within minutes I saw dolphins jumping straight-up and completely out of the water as if putting on a show for us in an aquarium. The closer we got to the national park the more and more it seemed we were going back in time to the Jurassic era. There was not a sign of human life among the numerous, densely forested islands. The water was clear and ranged from shades of turquoise to baby blue. Before long we dropped anchor at our first dive site, ‘Iglesia’.

Iglesia dive site

Hasta luego

Diving at Iglesia was a wild experience. The thermoclines here were incredible. I could see a clear line where there was a significant and sudden drop in temperature by what felt like 10ºC - on the cold side of this thermocline, one could see a mirage resembling the waves of heat rising from a barbeque. Furthermore, when we descended to twenty-two metres we were immediately at the mercy of the ocean current, just as in the movie Finding Nemo. I felt as if I were diving in the rapids of a river; we would establish neutral buoyancy and just let the current take us over the terrain, taking hold of rocks or ducking into eddies behind rocks if we wanted to pause to look at something a little more closely.

While there was no colourful reef as there was in the Caribbean, the animals here were bigger, more plentiful and more spectacular. The jacks, barracudas, and every other fish I saw was bigger than I thought possible. They often swam in schools of hundreds, creating the impression that they were even larger. Even the conches were of gigantic proportions. But there were also small creatures, such as seahorses that wrapped their tails around vegetation on the ocean floor as monkeys do around tree branches. But for me, the highlight was swimming with the white-tip reef sharks. I was definitely a little nervous at first, which may explain why I ran out of air in only 39 minutes as opposed to my 45-55 minute norm.

White-tip reef shark

School of mobula

Eel

Sea horse

Frogfish

After lunch we headed to our second dive spot, ‘Wahoo’. This spot is famous because of it’s saturation with algae and plankton which attracts giant mantarays, whale sharks and, depending on the time of year, whales. While we didn’t spot any of these on our dive, we were fortunate to witness a school of mobula fluttering near the surface of the water, several massive eels hiding between rocks and a frogfish chilling on the ocean floor.

While it was disappointing that I didn't get to witness the full potential of Santa Catalina's breaks, I am thankful for the small swell for it encouraged me to dive in Coiba National Park. Prior to this experience I was unaware of the variety of animals that roamed just metres under the surface of the ocean, and I must say that this revelation has piqued my interest in scuba diving.