From the UK

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.

National Geographic

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.

Travel and Leisure

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.

Gyotaku Fish Printing - Results

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.

Gyotaku Fish Printing - Process

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.

Gyotaku Fish Printing - Fishing

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 Fish Printing

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.

Clements Bird List - 321 Species

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.

Sea Turtle babies

Insect babies