Definition of CAMARADERIE : a spirit of friendly good-fellowship

Or as the local populace would say camaradería. Weather its the daily pushing and pulling of boats in and out of the water with or against the tides or its everyone sitting around enjoying an ice cold beer after a night of fishing the town of Gorgona panama gets it. The fisherman are comprised of a fleet of probably 25 pangas, small fishing skows that have mostly all seen their respective better days, but that doesn’t deter this co-op. Day after day the fishing boats come and go, mostly leaving in the evenings for their overnight fishing sessions, which usually end in a wide assortment of a catch.

Saltwater Catfish are a prevalent species in the waters around Gorgona as the daily catch isn’t ever without more then a handful of the whiskered. A wide variety of other fish make there way to the shores of Gorgona as we saw Snappers big and small, triple tail, Crovina, and Snook. The fish come and go quickly as everything is quickly weighed, put on ice, and then shipped out via pick-up truck delivery trucks strapped with monster coolers which make their respective ways to the surrounding towns.

Gorgona lays nestled on the central Pacific coast of Panama, about an hours drive from Albrook, or about 1.5 – 2 hours from Tocumen Airport in Panama City. Its bordered by other small beach towns which run together, the most notable is Coronado, which is a gated community. The black and white sands mix almost as frequent and erratically as the locals and obvious foreigners. Next to 13 story high rise condos live single level lean-to’s, or old family concrete houses. The arrangement a snapshot of a battle field of concrete and nature.

To the east lies an unpopulated estuary with two tributaries that kicks out into the pacific creating some fantastic and private surfing waves that we saw overhead height. That was a great find, but around the estuary brought a welcomed site to us as at least 1000 birds swarmed eating the hatch from the previous night. The bay is constantly home to frigates and seagulls who seem to have one of the more consistent diets I’ve seen any bird have. Mid March seemed bait hatch time as Stephen Kings words fail to describe the magnitude of birds that could be seen for miles along the beach.

Overall Gorgona is a beautiful place, which is mostly home to weekending panama city residents, but the fishing as it is everywhere in panama, is top notch. There isn’t much to do but relax and enjoy the beauty, but some times that just the right thing to do!