As the sun brightened the sky over the mountains of central Costa Rica, the Sea Voyager dropped anchor off the northern beach of Manuel Antonio National Park. Breakfast was quickly consumed and people anxiously made their way to the zodiac loading area. Once onshore people scattered into different groups to walk the trails and look for wildlife. It was a very successful morning for everyone. Two species of monkeys were sighted, mantled howlers and white-throated capuchins. Two species of sloths, three-toed and two-toed. One of the two-toeds was not more than a stones toss behind our landing spot on the beautiful sandy beach. Good looks and good photographs were taken by all that desired to see this typical mammal of the neo tropics. And not to forget the numerous species of birds and of course plants that were inspected. Topping off the morning was a quick refreshing swim before returning to the ship.
Underway just before lunch we made our way through the glassy, calm waters off the coast. Brown boobies occasionally joined us hoping a fish would be scarred away from the bow so the bird could dive down for a quick meal. A few mobula manta rays were also seen flipping out of the water for some unexplained reason. We enjoyed this placid seascape until the middle of the afternoon when we dropped anchor again.
Refugio Curu is a private reserve still owned by the longtime residents, the Schutt family. Part of their property has been set aside to protect the dry tropical forest that is severely being removed from the northern Pacific side of Costa Rica. Our last stop of the voyage allowed us to see some of this seasonally deciduous forest. In addition to more white-throated capuchin monkeys and some new bird species, the coatimundis were very active in the tops of coconut palms. Chewing through the rind of new tender green coconuts, the coatis were rewarded with a high calorie drink. Our observations though had to be done from a safe distance as when the coatis were finished the coconut some times comes plummeting to the ground. At the end of this final outing the sunset behind the forest of Curu brought to a close the last day of a very special expedition to Central America.
