Manuel Antonio National Park & San Josecito
We started our first day aboard the Sea Voyager by visiting one of the smallest of the national parks of Costa Rica: Manuel Antonio. It might be one of the smallest but at the same time it is one of the most popular and famous, due to its easy accessibility, beautiful beaches and forests and abundant wildlife.
There we were able to witness the dynamics of a forest in the tropics, of which the plants are the dominant participants. Their branches, leaves, spines and roots tell us a history of struggle and survival of the fittest: some trees exchange thickness for speed so they can grow faster than other species while other plants modify their branches and leaves to form hooks and tendrils so they can cling to the taller vegetation and get their share of sunlight. At the level of the understory, plants arrange their leaves to avoid shading one another and adopt the characteristic recessed venation and elongated tips on their leaves so as to drain water as quickly as possible. A moist surface on a leaf would mean an invitation to small non-vascular plants such mosses to grow and then reduce the photosynthetic area of the leaf – not a good thing for a plant that already struggles to get the limited sunlight filtering through the forest canopy.
By late morning we were back on board and lifting anchor, sailing off on our way to San Josecito on the Osa Peninsula, escorted all the way by brown boobies, pantropical spotted dolphins, eastern spinner dolphins and green sea turtles.
San Josecito is a beautiful place on the Costa Rican coast, where we were received by scarlet macaws and enjoyed an afternoon of kayaking, snorkeling, birdwatching and just relaxing at the beach.
What a way to start this beautiful trip; our adventure to the Panama Canal and The wonders of Costa Rica!
We started our first day aboard the Sea Voyager by visiting one of the smallest of the national parks of Costa Rica: Manuel Antonio. It might be one of the smallest but at the same time it is one of the most popular and famous, due to its easy accessibility, beautiful beaches and forests and abundant wildlife.
There we were able to witness the dynamics of a forest in the tropics, of which the plants are the dominant participants. Their branches, leaves, spines and roots tell us a history of struggle and survival of the fittest: some trees exchange thickness for speed so they can grow faster than other species while other plants modify their branches and leaves to form hooks and tendrils so they can cling to the taller vegetation and get their share of sunlight. At the level of the understory, plants arrange their leaves to avoid shading one another and adopt the characteristic recessed venation and elongated tips on their leaves so as to drain water as quickly as possible. A moist surface on a leaf would mean an invitation to small non-vascular plants such mosses to grow and then reduce the photosynthetic area of the leaf – not a good thing for a plant that already struggles to get the limited sunlight filtering through the forest canopy.
By late morning we were back on board and lifting anchor, sailing off on our way to San Josecito on the Osa Peninsula, escorted all the way by brown boobies, pantropical spotted dolphins, eastern spinner dolphins and green sea turtles.
San Josecito is a beautiful place on the Costa Rican coast, where we were received by scarlet macaws and enjoyed an afternoon of kayaking, snorkeling, birdwatching and just relaxing at the beach.
What a way to start this beautiful trip; our adventure to the Panama Canal and The wonders of Costa Rica!
