Table of Contents
Editor’s observe: TPG’s Gene Sloan accepted a free journey from Sea Cloud Cruises to expertise a crusing on Sea Cloud Spirit. The opinions expressed beneath are totally his and weren’t topic to assessment by the road.
Only a handful of passengers are awake as our large three-masted crusing ship, Sea Cloud Spirit, chases the dawn into Costa Rica’s distant Golfo Dulce — one of the vital eco-diverse bays on the planet. However for these early risers, it’s a deal with.
From the hovering, 136-passenger vessel’s teak-lined high deck, we watch because the rising solar lights up the fjord-like bay’s pristine and primeval shoreline — a verdant patchwork of palm-lined seashores, dense mangroves and twisty rivers.
It’s a prelude to a day of journey. After the ship anchors early off the tiny coastal city of Puerto Jimenez, we’re quickly zipping to shore in a young boat to unfold out seeking wildlife.
For extra cruise guides, information and suggestions, join TPG’s cruise e-newsletter.
A few of us head off on a nature stroll to a crocodile-filled lagoon. Others board a catamaran looking for dolphins. Nonetheless others, like me, journey a van into the rainforest in search of the elusive sloths that decision this area dwelling.
On the just lately opened La Perica Sloth Backyard, we discover them in droves, together with capuchin monkeys, scarlet macaws and different iconic denizens of the Costa Rica jungle.
It’s, in brief, a basic day of exploring the Golfo Dulce area and the wildlife-rich Osa Peninsula that makes up its north shore.
It’s additionally splendidly totally different from the outdoorsy experiences we had simply the day earlier than in and round Costa Rica’s extra northerly Manuel Antonio Nationwide Park and what we’ll see tomorrow as we head south to the 39 islands and islets that make up Panama’s Coiba Nationwide Park.
On this 11-night Sea Cloud Spirit crusing down the coasts of Costa Rica and Panama, nearly daily brings a brand new journey, together with — on many days — the expertise of touring beneath the facility of nothing however the wind.
Along with wildlife and nature experiences, there’s additionally a daylight crossing of the Panama Canal — an opportunity to see one of many nice marvels of human engineering up shut.
The ultimate day of the journey features a go to with the indigenous Kuna folks residing within the distant San Blas Islands simply off the coast of Panama.
It’s the form of range of experiences that’s onerous to rearrange throughout a land-based journey to Costa Rica and Panama until you might have much more time than 11 days.
Propelled by the facility of the wind
Sea Cloud Spirit, which Germany-based Sea Cloud Cruises unveiled in 2021, isn’t the primary cruise vessel to supply voyages centered on the coasts of Costa Rica and Panama. Small vessels operated by Windstar Cruises, Lindblad Expeditions, Ponant and Aurora Expeditions additionally supply such journeys.
Nonetheless, Sea Cloud Spirit often is the most intriguing ship to ply the route. 5 decks excessive and almost 500 toes lengthy, it’s a full-rigged, three-masted crusing vessel of the type that hasn’t been frequent on the world’s oceans for greater than a century.
As giant crusing ships go, it’s additionally notably genuine in the way it operates.
Associated: Why Sea Cloud Spirit is a vessel you’ll need to attempt
Sea Cloud Spirit is, notably, propelled by an enormous, old-style array of 28 sails which can be unfurled by hand by an unlimited crew of 19 deckhands — one thing you don’t see on virtually every other giant crusing ship on the planet.
Most different giant crusing ships providing multiday cruises, resembling the 2 crusing vessels Windstar Cruises generally deploys to Costa Rica and Panama (Wind Star and Wind Spirit), have automated sails that unfurl on the push of a button.
The result’s a a lot totally different expertise of coastal journey on Sea Cloud Spirit from the one you’ll get from every other ship.
Along with being sailed by hand, one other differentiator for Sea Cloud Spirit when crusing the Costa Rica and Panama coasts is that it gives a extra expansive exploration of the area than you’ll typically get with different ships. Many of the small-ship cruise itineraries within the area are seven nights in size. Sea Cloud Cruises, in contrast, sometimes budgets 10 to 11 nights for Sea Cloud Spirit to cowl the identical territory.
Even beneath full sails, the vessel usually solely meanders down the coast at simply three to 5 knots.
Name it the “sluggish journey” solution to do the Costa Rica and Panama coasts.
Exploring the Pacific facet of Costa Rica
Our crusing down the coasts of Costa Rica and Panama begins within the sleepy Costa Rica port city of Puntarenas, on the Pacific facet of the nation. However we don’t keep there lengthy.
Simply hours after passengers arrive on the ship, which is tied up on their own at an in any other case empty dock, Sea Cloud Spirit units off on a six-day exploration of Costa Rica’s Pacific coast — a area identified for ecotourism of all kinds, from recognizing monkeys and colourful birds in nationwide parks to zip lining by means of lush rainforests and horseback using alongside unspoiled seashores.
After rounding Costa Rica’s famous-for-its-surfing Nicoya Peninsula, Sea Cloud Spirit factors northward towards the northwesternmost nook of the nation close to the border with Nicaragua.
It’s right here, after a day of cruising beneath full sails, pushed by the facility of the wind alone, that we land at Playa Panama — a secluded and quiet crescent of darkish sand seaside that serves as a gateway to close by Palo Verde Nationwide Park.
After motoring to shore in Zodiac boats, lots of the ship’s passengers head to the nationwide park for a ship journey by means of its marshlands seeking monkeys and crocodiles, in addition to the various colourful birds for which it’s identified. Others go to a hacienda for horseback using with the native cowboys and zip lining by means of the encircling forests.
Associated: The 18 finest small cruise ships on the planet
A handful of us, together with me, signal on for a catamaran journey alongside the rocky shoreline to a reef for snorkeling with colourful fish, margaritas on deck and spectacular sundown views over the ocean on the way in which again.
It’s the form of numerous outdoorsy pursuits {that a} vacationer may expertise whereas staying at one of many space’s resorts, such because the 4 Seasons we handed on our solution to our snorkeling website.
However in contrast to these land-based guests, we might see a a lot wider array of Costa Rica’s allures over the approaching days.
Heading south from Playa Panama, we spend one other full day cruising alongside the Costa Rica coast beneath full sails earlier than reaching Quepos, the gateway to a different of Costa Rica’s iconic eco-destinations: Manuel Antonio Nationwide Park.
Outings to the nationwide park and different personal reserves within the space are the order of the day right here after we land by tender boat on the small dock in Quepos.
Not eager to rise on the morning time, as is required for the Manuel Antonio Nationwide Park tour, I as a substitute select a day hike over swinging bridges and previous tumbling waterfalls at a small rainforest protect referred to as Rainmaker Conservation Park.
It turns into an ideal day, partly as a result of I sneak away from the tour group with one different tour member (with the information’s permission) to climb a too-steep-for-most path to a spectacular collection of hanging bridges. Now we have all of it to ourselves.
The subsequent day Sea Cloud Spirit brings us to Costa Rica’s Golfo Dolce, talked about above.
With the stops at Playa Panama, Quepos and the Golfo Dulce’s Puerto Jimenez, we’ve got visited all three main segments of the Pacific coast of Costa Rica — the north, center and south — in only a few days.
Whereas we solely make quick day stops in every space, it’s a style of the nation that isn’t obtainable to the standard customer who involves Costa Rica for per week and stays in a single location.
Off-the-beaten-path Panama
After six days alongside Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, Sea Cloud Spirit drives southward into the waters off Panama, the place our first cease is the cluster of 39 islands and islets that make up Panama’s Coiba Nationwide Park.
Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Website, the largely uninhabited island group is understood for its untouched rainforests and wildlife that exists nowhere else, such because the Coiba Island howler monkey. However for our functions, it serves largely as a spot to cease for a seaside day as we land by Zodiac at considered one of its many sandy seashores for snorkeling and sunning.
In contrast to lots of my Sea Cloud Spirit compatriots, I skip the snorkeling, scared away by a warning within the ship’s every day planner in regards to the occasional presence of plankton and jellyfish within the water that ship out “stinging microscopic harpoons.” However I discover diversion in a small one-room nationwide park guests heart simply off the seaside that goes into nice depth on its wildlife.
It’s right here that I discovered that the actual island the place we landed, the island cluster’s most important island of Coiba, as soon as served as a penal colony identified for brutal situations and the disappearance of political prisoners in the course of the dictatorships of Panamanian strongmen Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega.
Two days later, after one other full day of crusing down the coast, we get a second seaside day with snorkeling at Mogo Mogo Island, a part of one other cluster of islands and islets off the Panama coast referred to as the Pearl Islands.
Right here, I courageous the plankton and jellyfish stings to wade out previous the rocky shallows to snorkel the sting of a coral reef teeming with foureye butterflyfish and honeycomb trunkfish.
Not solely is the water crystal clear and the fish pretty, however it’s an outing that I survive with no single strike from a stinging harpoon (a number of of my snorkeling companions, alas, do report such strikes, although they are saying it’s not terribly painful).
The marvel of the Panama Canal
The subsequent day of the journey brings an journey of a special type as Sea Cloud Spirit transits by means of the Panama Canal.
Passengers line the teak walkway in entrance of Sea Cloud Spirit’s bridge early within the morning to observe because the vessel glides by means of Balboa Harbor close to Panama Metropolis to the beginning of the canal on the Miraflores Locks.
It’s the first of three units of large rectangular chambers that may raise the 4,228-gross-ton vessel up and over the Continental Divide to the Caribbean, and it’s a sight to behold.
After we enter the primary of the chambers, seven-story-high metal gates slowly swing shut behind us, and the basin begins filling with tens of millions of gallons of water. At 1,050 toes lengthy, the lock is roughly the dimensions of three soccer fields — so lengthy {that a} second cruise vessel, the 100-passenger Emerald Azzurra, suits into the chamber behind us.
Greater than 100 years after its development by the US, the 48-mile-long Panama Canal stays a marvel of recent engineering — and an alluring attraction for cruisers on journeys to the area.
As passengers be taught throughout an onboard lecture the day earlier than our transit, 1000’s of staff toiled for a decade to carve the passageway out of the dense Panamanian jungle. Along with constructing large locks at either side of the canal (close to each the Pacific and Atlantic entrances), its builders needed to assemble what on the time was the world’s largest dam alongside the Chagres River, which in flip created one of many world’s largest man-made lakes.
Dubbed Gatun Lake, the 21-mile-long physique of water makes up a big a part of the waterway vessels use to cross the nation.
Sea Cloud Spirit spends a lot of the day crossing the canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic because the ship’s onboard lecturer, Stephen Weston, gives a working narrative from the highest deck.
Your complete technique of transferring between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans takes simply seven hours.
The indigenous folks of San Blas
The ultimate cease on this journey is the San Blas Islands, a sprinkling of a number of hundred largely uninhabited spits of white sand and palm bushes that relaxation off Panama’s Caribbean coast.
Managed by the Kuna, an indigenous folks unfold throughout three politically autonomous reservations in Panama and Colombia, the islands are largely off-limits to vacationers and undeveloped for mass tourism, because the Kuna prefer it. However the Kuna permit small teams of holiday makers, resembling these aboard Sea Cloud Spirit, to go to sometimes.
Anchoring off the Kuna-inhabited island of Wichub Wala, we tender to a small dock to wander the sandy paths between the Kuna’s bamboo and palm leaf huts, previous the dugout canoes they use for fishing.
It’s, for a lot of passengers, a possibility to buy a memento from the journey that’s hand-made and native, as the ladies of the village line the pathways hawking the colourful needlework panels referred to as molas that they make each for their very own use (historically, they sew them onto the fronts of their blouses) and for vacationers.
Molas that we’re instructed take weeks to make promote for about $15 to $20.
The temporary go to to Wichub Wala additionally features a quick dance efficiency by the Kuna of their most important sq. earlier than we’re again on the tender to the ship. It’s a morning cease paired with a day name at one other sandy island for extra snorkeling and swimming.
The journey ends the subsequent morning in Colon on Panama’s Caribbean coast.
Backside line
A voyage alongside the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and Panama on Sea Cloud Spirit is an intriguing solution to see the highlights of each international locations in a single journey.
One of many largest passenger crusing ships ever constructed, Sea Cloud Spirit takes a go-slow method to journey down the coast from Puntarenas, Costa Rica, to the Pearl Islands of Panama, adopted by a daylight crossing of the Panama Canal to the Caribbean facet of Panama. Alongside the way in which, it visits a number of of the most well-liked vacationer areas within the two international locations and gives passengers a comparatively uncommon alternative to expertise the thrill of crusing the area on a tall ship.
One caveat in regards to the journeys: Sea Cloud Cruises, which is predicated in Hamburg, Germany, has an enormous following in Germany, and its Sea Cloud Spirit sailings usually are heavy with German audio system. That stated, the vessel’s onboard program is bilingual (the comparatively uncommon variety of bulletins on board are made in German and English, and many of the workers speaks each languages). You’ll probably discover at the least some English audio system amongst your fellow passengers.
For extra particulars on what it’s like on board, see TPG’s first-look information to Sea Cloud Spirit.
Ten-night Sea Cloud Spirit sailings to Costa Rica and Panama begin at $9,530 per particular person, primarily based on double occupancy. For extra info, name 888-732-2568 or go to seacloud.com.
Planning a cruise? Begin with these tales:
- The 5 most fascinating cabin areas on any cruise ship
- A freshmen information to selecting a cruise line
- The 8 worst cabin areas on any cruise ship
- The final word information to what to pack for a cruise
- A fast information to the most well-liked cruise traces
- 21 suggestions and tips that may make your cruise go easily
- Prime methods cruisers waste cash
- The final word information to selecting a cruise ship cabin
