Barú Lagoon Coral Gardens

On the sheltered lagoon side of the Isla Barú peninsula, a shallow coral garden stretches from 2 to 14 m across a gently sloping reef platform where brain corals the size of small cars anchor extensive gardens of elkhorn and staghorn colonies in various stages of recovery following bleaching events. The protected waters behind Barú give the garden exceptional calmness even when the outer reef is choppy, and this tranquility supports one of the healthiest seagrass beds in the national park, grazed by juvenile green turtles and Caribbean reef fish in extraordinary variety. Parrotfish scraping activity here is audible underwater, a sign of a coral community with genuine top-down herbivory still functioning — increasingly rare across the wider Caribbean.

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