Financial Times' Top Destinations 2012 - Panama lets you get a taste of the whole of Central America in one trip. This article has a reference to one place to stay in Bocas, but there are many options.

Stylist Magazine - The people are welcoming and the living is easy. This the description they gave to Bocas del Toro. Right on.

In its article "Best Trips 2012," National Geographic Traveler has named Panama as one of the best destinations for 2012. This article discusses Panama in general.

Emerging Terrains News references the National Geographic article and adds more information regarding why you should take a trip to Panama. This article references a few different locations within the country as options for travelers.

As part of its Hottest Travel Destinations of 2012, Travel and Leisure states that Panama is courting high fliers. This article doesn't reference Bocas del Toro.

We have the basic materials all ready now. We are anxiously awaiting our next rainy day… we shall see how many more prints we make.

Sunday morning, I searched the house for plain t-shirts for each one of us. Gayle, Jim and the kids went fishing again. This time they decided they wanted a few different species to print. After they had caught the required subject matter, they went to work. They cleaned the fish, set up the area for painting the face of the fish and then started printing and printing and printing.
All in all, over the two days they worked on this, they printed 6 art prints and 15 articles of clothing. Jim, Gayle, Yohany, Natalia, Boty, Tres and Ramon worked on all of these things. It was a lot of fun.

Gayle, Jim and the kids went fishing off the dock and in a kayak to catch some fish. The first day they printed one fish several times onto a square piece of cloth. Then Gayle decided to try it on her t-shirt. After we all saw Gayle’s shirt we each wanted one of our own.

Gyotaku is the art of Japanese fish printing. It is an amazing way to preserve the beauty of a fish. And because each fish can be printed many times you don't have to catch a lot of fish to learn about this art form.



We first learned about it in October 2010 from Doug Olander. Doug was here to write an article on Tranquilo Bay for Sport Fishing. He is the Editor in Chief for Sport Fishing and an author of a book of fish prints. His book Gyotaku Fish Impressions was released in 1994.

He explained the basics of the process to Jim while he was here. Jim looked into a bit further and purchased a few supplies. Over the course of the next year, Jim printed a couple of fish. You have to be prepared to print the fish when you return from a day of fishing and you need to allocate the time to do so. Jim is usually running tight on time after he returns from fishing thus the limited prints for 2011.

Thus far 2012 has surpassed our limited editions for 2011. Jim’s sister, Gayle, visited us last week. She is quite an artist so the two of them decided to try again on the prints.

We had a few guests here the first week of January who were here to bird. They had some great days and some rain. On one of the days they saw 101 species over the course of the day. We encountered a few new birds for the list during their stay here. There have been other additions as well, but Ramon and Natalia were on vacation so the list hasn't been updated since September. We have a number of guests and groups coming to look for birds over the next few months so we anticipate additions to the list over this period as well. You can see the updated Bird List here.

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Take a look at this New York Times Travel article - The 45 Places to Go in 2012. Panama is number one on the list. The article gives a brief description about things in Panama City and recommends Bocas del Toro. Bocas del Toro is much more than a backpacker's haven - it is a naturalist's dream. The province of Bocas del Toro hosts two national parks, one of which is a world heritage site. One park, Bastimentos National Marine Park, covers a large portion of the archipelago and is home to a variety of ecosystems that thrive at or around sea level. Expeditions into the parks are designed to cover a diverse range of ecosystems and terrain and can be tailored to meet your areas of interest, experience and physical abilities. You can find more on the specific excursions available from here.

May 2012 bring you health, prosperity, and love. (And maybe a visit to Panama to see us!)

Happy New Year from all of us at Tranquilo Bay.

Jay's son Scott (age 9) received an assignment in his elementary school to write a paragraph about a place in Bocas del Toro that he loves. Here is his paragraph which appeared in the Bocas Breeze newspaper this month.

There is a hotel on beautiful Bastimentos Island that sits next to the amazing turquoise colored Caribbean sea. The guests that get to go hiking under the big green trees get to learn about some species of bugs and trees. Almost all of the guests get to see different kinds of birds such as: black, white and orange Oropendolas, turquoise and blue Honey Creepers and more. The main building is big and beautiful. It is two stories tall. Upstairs it has a large dining room with pretty clean furniture and a bar. The main house has a porch that the guests can see an amazing orange and yellow sunrise. You cant see the sun during a sunset but you can see the red and green parrots flying across the sky. The hotel serves you breakfast, lunch and dinner. There are six cabanas and they are planning to build six more next to the tropical forest. There is a library for grownups and kids filled with books and games. The hotel has two rusty old bikes, but three good ones. It is to explore and discover all that Bastimentos is all about. That is why I like beautiful Tranquilo Bay.

I just received a fare alert this morning that shows inexpensive flights beginning on January 20, 2012 and running at least through February, 2012 from Houston to Panama. TACA is flying from Houston to San Salvador to Panama with one stop on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. If you schedule your flight to arrive and depart on one of those days then the airfare is running under $350 round trip. Check it out if you are planning to visit Panama next year.