I just got back from a week in Panama (Coiba, Santa Catalina & Panama City) and PMed the OP a link to my trip report on another forum. If anybody else would like to read it, just shoot me a note.
Overall, I was very impressed with Panama. As with any city, there are parts of Panama City that you don't want to go to, but I always felt safe in the areas frequented by expats, even after dark. It's a thriving city with lots going on.
From Panama City you can get to both coasts fairly quickly. It took us about 5 hours to make the trek to Santa Catalina, but it's a long distance. Round trip transport for 5 people and gear was very affordable. It gets even cheaper if you're willing to navigate the public bus system.
We dove the Pacific side and I was impressed with it. No it doesn't have Caribbean viz. It's the Pacific. It was on par with the Pacific side of Costa Rica (go figure
). We had sharks on every dive, a school of a couple dozen mobula rays pass above us, frogfish, seahorses and a nice close fly-by by a 12' manta, just to name a few things. April water temps were a comfy mid 70's most of the time, although they did vary +/- 5 degrees depending on the site and the currents. We also got to spend 3 days/2 nights staying on a remote island in a national park with the dive sites and surface interval beaches entirely to ourselves. Heavenly IMO.
The draw for the DMs and others who live there somewhat permanently are the big pelagics that move through. We missed whale sharks by a few weeks. Another time of the year big whales migrate through. There's new stuff moving up and down the coast all of the time.
I had a great time and can definitely see going back.
Overall, I was very impressed with Panama. As with any city, there are parts of Panama City that you don't want to go to, but I always felt safe in the areas frequented by expats, even after dark. It's a thriving city with lots going on.
From Panama City you can get to both coasts fairly quickly. It took us about 5 hours to make the trek to Santa Catalina, but it's a long distance. Round trip transport for 5 people and gear was very affordable. It gets even cheaper if you're willing to navigate the public bus system.
We dove the Pacific side and I was impressed with it. No it doesn't have Caribbean viz. It's the Pacific. It was on par with the Pacific side of Costa Rica (go figure
). We had sharks on every dive, a school of a couple dozen mobula rays pass above us, frogfish, seahorses and a nice close fly-by by a 12' manta, just to name a few things. April water temps were a comfy mid 70's most of the time, although they did vary +/- 5 degrees depending on the site and the currents. We also got to spend 3 days/2 nights staying on a remote island in a national park with the dive sites and surface interval beaches entirely to ourselves. Heavenly IMO.The draw for the DMs and others who live there somewhat permanently are the big pelagics that move through. We missed whale sharks by a few weeks. Another time of the year big whales migrate through. There's new stuff moving up and down the coast all of the time.
I had a great time and can definitely see going back.
