Our guide was Anne Gordon, a well known animal trainer that has done work for TV series and movies in the past. She now lives in Panama where she has married an Embera Indian and organizes tours of an Embera village. She recently started doing whale and dolphin watching tours as well. You can find out more here and here. While I don’t for one minute believe her “spiritual” stuff, or that she communicates with the whales or worse, that she can heal people over the phone by channeling ”Dolphin Energy”, Anne is nonetheless a remarkable woman that has deep knowledge and respect for the animals, especially the whales. At our request, she respectfully kept all of that “woo woo” stuff out of our trip, so don’t let her website scare you away (I nearly cancelled after reading her website).

Anne organized the whole trip including the plane tickets, the lodging, a fishing afternoon and the whole day on the catamaran with Capt. Pascal. So this was a pleasant and worry free trip. If I was to do it again though I might elect to take the 1.5 hour ferry ride to the islands. While Air Panama only takes 20 minutes to get there, you need to arrive 1 hour ahead of time and we had 2 hour delays both ways. On the ferry you might actually get to see whales on the way there too!

Our first afternoon a group of three went fishing and caught 3 large dorados (mahi mahi) and 6 mackerels. These were dropped at two different restaurants on the island (Romantica and Gerald’s) where they were cooked for us for our two dinners on the island. All 9 of us slept in the comfy Contadora Island Inn B&B.

The second day we boarded the 44′ catamaran at 9:30 ( I think we should have gone out at 8 am since we were all ready, but it was what it was). The boat is very modern, roomy, stable and comfortable. Capt Pascal is a very nice guy and he cooked us a nice lunch too. The only disadvantage of the catamaran is that it is very slow so you can’t rapidly get to the whales when you spot them. But other than that, it was the ideal platform to spend a day on the sea looking for whales while respecting their space.

Things augured well when Pascal told us he was awaken by a couple of whales that came right up to his boat in the bay where he was anchored. Only a few minutes after leaving Contadora island, we spotted a smaller boat surrounded by a group of whales so we immediately aimed for them and it took us maybe 15 minutes to get there.

Adobe has just released anew version of my favourite photo processing software, Lightroom 3 and it really kicks butt. I’ve been using it since Beta 1 came out and I can tell you that it is a big step forward. They have improved and streamlined the UI, improved performance, added new features like lens correction and a greatly improved watermarking facility, etc.



Sunrise in Altos del Maria

Here is a picture with the sun rising behind us and hitting Mount Picacho across the valley, while the moon is setting.

Attention: everyone with a camera, amateur or pro. Please join us on Sunday, May 2, at 15:00 (U.T.C./G.M.T.), as thousands of photographers simultaneously record “A Moment in Time.” The idea is to create an international mosaic, an astonishingly varied gallery of images that are cemented together by the common element of time.

How do I submit my picture?

Call up this form, submit.nytimes.com/moment, which should be self explanatory. That’s all there is to it. (If you’re looking at the submission form before Sunday, May 2, or after Friday, May 7, you’ll find that you can read it but can’t actually use it. )

How long do I have to submit my picture?

Five days, until 15:00 (U.T.C.) on Friday. We recognize that not every photographer will be near a computer on Sunday. Some of you may not be able to get to a computer for days. This extended deadline is for you.

via A Moment in Time (or, F.A.Q. on U.T.C.) – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com.

1. Casco Viejo, without a doubt my favourite photo-subject in Panama, with a mix of French and Spanish architecture spanning 3 centuries, old ruins, beautifully restored buildings, city views and lots of colourful people.
2. Azureo Peninsula, beautiful beaches, micro-climates and Tuscany-like rolling hills. Azuero even has a desert!
3. Altos del Maria, this gorgeous and huge development is my home and it provides superb and varied vistas, hiking trails, tumbling rivers and waterfalls, green lush vegetation, many exotic animals and lots of colourful flowers, birds, bugs and butterflies.
4. Chiriqui, this beautiful province which covers the western part of the country and borders with Costa Rica is still mostly pristine and varies from gorgeous islands in the Golf of Chiriqui to the highlands and Volcan Baru. The possibilities are endless and I am just beginning to explore this area.
5. Kuna Yala and the San Blas Islands, these tropical islands are still almost completely undeveloped and are thankfully still controlled by the very colourful Kuna natives. This is the place for gorgeous Caribbean islands with crystal-clear turquoise waters and reefs and a very unique indigenous culture.

What do you think? Any place I should explore and add to this list?