BLACKBOOK ISLAND IDYLL From left: Terraza, the open-air dining pavilion and restaurant; a terrace at the four-bedroom Casita Grande, one of nine guest casitas at Islas Secas The lodge is relatively accessible and yet the archipelago seems a world apart islands, the mainland’s forward guard, lay between us and the eastern Pacific. Once beyond them, Jairo throttled the twin engines, and the boat nosed up. Soon large swells were rolling in, orderly saltwater hills. Rob shouted that they were stirred by a storm across the Pacific – unimaginable distances. What came to mind was the word oceanic. What else came to mind was the phrase sea change from Ariel’s song in The Tempest. (“Full fathom five thy father lies / Of his bones are coral made … ”) The hour-long boat ride to Islas Secas, just 30 kilometres off the mainland, draws a watery cast over the imagination, much like the longer journeys to the Cyclades or St Kilda or Fantasy Island. The lodge is relatively accessible – on my return trip, I left at dawn and made it home to the US for dinner – and yet the archipelago seems a world apart. The sleight of hand succeeds because Islas Secas replaces the modern necessities of cars and television with walking paths, dark-sky nights, seabird colonies, barely fished coral reefs and beaches with shells like carved agates dropped by careless gem merchants. In scale and scenery, the archipelago feels akin to a private national park. Panama beyond the Canal Zone remains ill-defined for many prospective visitors, but geography defines the country as a point of intersection. Between two continents and two oceans, its seemingly contradictory assets include wellmaintained infrastructure for trade and intact ecosystems of global importance. Unspoiled nature more often survives at the far corners of the globe. Islas Secas is an undiscovered near corner. It’s like Costa Rica without the crowds. From sea level in the Gulf of Chiriquí, Islas Secas first appears as green dashes on the horizon: Morse code transmitted in geologic time. On closer approach, the green dashes substantiate into junglecovered heaps and rocky islets, courtiers to the central splendour of Isla Cavada, the largest and only developed island in the group of 14. Mariners’ logs from the 16th century marked these islands secas, or dry, not because they lacked fresh water but because extreme tides drain the bays to a low ebb. Jairo cut the throttle and entered a shallow cove with a dock. All told, there wasn’t a lot of development to see – 75 per cent of the archipelago has been put into conservation easement by owner Louis Bacon, an American hedge fund manager and founder of the Moore Charitable Foundation, which focuses on environmental conservation. Bacon’s real-estate portfolio includes other properties that encompass ecologically sensitive landscapes. His most expansive acreage lies in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado, where he paid the Forbes family a reported 5 million for the 70,000ha Trinchera Ranch, which today is run as an outdoors-focused lodge. Other properties include Taos Ski Valley in New Mexico and Tordrillo Mountain Lodge in Alaska. At Islas Secas, the development on Isla Cavada mostly insinuates itself into the lush greenery. In addition to the boathouse where we arrived, the PHOTOS IAN ALLEN 26 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
