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What an amazing day it was! When you are sitting in front of your computer at home, it is hard to decide if you should even need to take an 18 mile taxi ride over some ‘adventurous’ roads (not to mention the bridges with big holes in them) to go on a boat tour to see a wildlife sanctuary. Thankfully, we did. First, the day was simply beautiful! Our tour guide was a guy named Josh who was an American. The people who owned the sanctuary were also American and bought the 800 acres some 20 years ago. We toured with one other American couple who are here on their honeymoon. The ocean was blue, and the sky was filled with beautiful white clouds against a stunning blue sky. The boat was just big enough to hold the eight of us comfortably, and we set out at 7:30 am to drive around the bay. This bay is a breeding ground for humpback whales. They also have a pod of rare dolphins called the spotted tropical dolphin. The pod was originally very small, but has grown to around 200 over the years. These dolphins are notoriously playful, and they have several babies in their pod right now. They are gentle, and the kids could even get in the water with them and ‘plane board’ which is being pulled behind the boat with the dolphins. They balance coconuts on their heads, and come up along side of the boat and turn an eye up to see you. They are very curious, and very friendly to people. At least that is what they told us. We never saw them. And it wasn’t from a lack of trying. Oh, no. We travelled that bay for a long time. You would think a giant pod of 200 playful dolphins would be easy to spot...but, we never could find them! An interesting fact about this particular pod is that they never leave. They never leave the area of this inlet. Most dolphins go in and out to the sea, but they remain to themselves. They have been the study of countless scientists, and some have even concluded this pod has developed its own language and behaviors that are not similar to other spotted tropical dolphins. Isn’t that interesting? Upon leaving Puerto Jimenez we did see a pair of bottle nosed dolphins. They are much more solitary. They may travel in pairs, or alone, but not is a big 200 dolphin pod. They are MUCH larger than the spotted tropical dolphins too. They also tend to shy away from people. We needed to be at the sanctuary at 9am, so we travelled around the bay looking for the illusive spotted dolphins, but, Josh gave us quite an education on the way there. First of all, the area across from Puerto Jimenez is a national refuge whose name I forget, but it means “white rock national park.” The President of Costa Rica recently came to this area and declared it a point of national beauty, and banned all fishing in the area. Since then locals have seen a huge influx of tropical fish, the thriving dolphin population, and a resurgence in the coral reefs. Somehow, aside from a few people who populate this area, it has remained untouched for 500 years. It pretty much looks the same as when the Portuguese sailors arrived in 1514. They liked this area because it is a true tropical fjord, meaning the ocean is 600 feet deep, and then it rises straight up into a tropical rainforest. This allowed sailors and explorers like San Juan De Marco to bring large sailing vessels into the area, and get off to gather fresh water from one of the plentiful fresh water streams that flow out of the great mountains of the rainforest into a small valley. This island was also the point of several movie shoots. It was where the fly over scene was filmed for Jurassic Park, and the sounds of the howler monkeys were recorded there and used to make the dinosaur sounds in the movie! In addition, scenes from Gorillas in the Mist were filmed in this rainforest. Most recently, 1492 the Christopher Columbus movie was filmed here...specifically, the scene where they ’find land’— Josh said it was quite a scene to see three HUGE Columbus style ships sail into the gulf—makes you wonder what the locals thought. Finally, and this one I love the most—That show Man Vs Wild—Ya, well, apparently he was in Corcovado National Park, and the bugs got so bad, he had to be airlifted out of there...and finished shooting the show AT THE WILDLIFE SANCTUARY—with the very same monkeys we were interacting with he acted as if they were WILD monkeys—What a farce! Other interesting facts we learned included the dolphins use about 90% of the oxygen they breathe, while we used only about 30%. This is why dolphins can stay underwater for up to 20 minutes. We also got quite an education on coconuts. Obviously, coconuts are nothing more than giant seeds. But, did you know they can float for a year?? That is why they are all over the world! If you find a coconut that is yellow or green on the ground, pierce it open, the fluid inside is very watery. It is also sterile, so you could use it to wash out your eye! That same coconut water was used during WWI for a plasma replacement type of thing. In those coconuts, they have many more electrolytes than Gatorade! And, we have seen several on the beach that have ’sprouted’—well, supposedly when you crack those open they have a spongy yellow ’meat’ inside that you can also eat that is very sweet. Did you know all that about a coconut??? As I mentioned before, this gulf is a calving ground for the humpback whales. We did see those out yesterday. One reason the humpbacks (and many other types) calve here is because the Orca whales don’t come into this gulf. It is too shallow for them, which seems weird since I think Humpbacks are much bigger...but, maybe because the Orca’s like to dive and carry on and the humpbacks just sort of lumber along. Many scientist have studied these whales and discovered they come from as far off as Antarctica and Alaska! Another animal we saw from a distance was a blue footed booby. They hang out on floating logs and debris feeding on the many fish below. They have duck like feet, and they can dive and swim to catch their food. Food in this area is so plentiful, many times when you pull up to them they can barely fly off because their bellies are so heavy! We also saw two sea turtles. One was an Olive Ridley sea turtle (the one with the blue eyes!) and it is apparently quite rare to see. They are on the threatened species list in that area. And, in doing research on them, I found this site...You think I can convince my man Audrey and I need to go to Costa Rica in January?? Hmmmmm After that educational portion of our ride, we arrived at the wildlife sanctuary where we were greeted by “Sweetie” a spider monkey.
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