Permanent Residency

Well, after an extended period of time it appears that by the end of the day today, the Kimball family will be permanent residents of Panama (Boty of course doesn't need any papers - she is Panamanian by birth). This has been a long and drawn out process. We have crossed two different administrations during this process. We started with one firm on one type of visa only to start over several years later with our current counsel with our original plan. The laws have changed many times over. Each time the law changed it required us to provide incremental information. However, now we are at the precipice. We have been told that our application has been approved so we are on our way to the Immigration offices in Panama to get our permanent cards. It is a great day! Now we wait for the Viola's turn.

Return to normal

Well, we are working on returning to normal around here. We had a really great large group with us here for almost two weeks. They were early risers. Wanting to get away from here at 6:00 am most mornings. They were offsite all day long. This meant that breakfast and lunch were sent on the road. They maximized every hour of sunlight available to them. This meant that they returned here to Tranquilo Bay at dark most days. We are especially grateful to our community here in Bocas. So many people pitched in to make it happen. Was it a lot of work? Yes. Was it a lot of fun? Yes. Would we do it again? In a heartbeat.

No photos to share at this point. We will do a whole series about the experience at a later date. It was wonderful for all of us – we melded together as a team. And this team worked really well together.

The past two weeks taught me that we are up for just about any challenge. Ask us if we can do it. If we can, we will let you know.

Happy Holidays from Tranquilo Bay

Tranquilo Bay Posters

Here are a couple of posters that I made for Jim to take to a trade show a year or so ago. I realized that I never posted them here as I was working on the blog recently. Email me if you want a copy of them to print out. Have a great weekend!

Sunset over the forest

Motley Crew

Do you know anyone in this photo? There are of course the usual suspects: those of us who live and work here at Tranquilo Bay. Then there are four guests. These four guests came down to go fishing and had a wonderful time. Each one of them caught a Tarpon. They also caught several other species of fish. Do you recognize the gentleman in the center? The one with the kids? What about his lovely partner next to the kids? For those of you who are NFL fans - you should remember this former Miami Dolphin. For those of you who are fishermen, you might recognize him from his television show called NAPA's North to Alaska. What I can tell you is this - this gentleman, his partner and their friends from Alaska were great fun and super people. I am glad the suggested we get a group photo. We do not do this often enough.

Happy Belated Birthday to Nuri

Nuri is our wonderful cook. She and her younger brother work together to make all the delicious food we have here at Tranquilo Bay. She is a remarkable person. We are so fortunate to have her here.

One of my favorite blogs - and here is why

We were fortunate enough to have a neat family from California visit us two years ago for about a week right at the new year. The whole family was a joy to be around. They are super laid back, but not. The father is a professor at Stanford and an accomplished business writer. The mother is former managing partner from a large firm who now heads up a large Girl Scouts organization in California. Their teenage children are all accomplished in a variety of ways. Suffice it to say we had fun.

There were a number of things that fell into place in getting them to Tranquilo Bay. The mom originally found us on the internet. She decided they should try to come see us. The dad travels a lot for his book promotions and has used one travel agent to help him with all of his plans. So, dad told his travel agent about us. The travel agent then went through another company we work with to put the trip together. Prior to arriving at Tranquilo Bay, the dad, a blogger, began reading our blog to get an idea of what he might be in for down here in Panama.

After visiting us, the blogger, decided that our story was one that needed a wider audience than it had received thus far. He sent out a few emails to some folks he knew either personally or through his work in promoting his book. One of those people, Leigh Buchanan bit. She called and asked us more about our story. This ultimately led to the article about Tranquilo Bay that ran in INC. Magazine in May 2008. (See this post.) That article has introduced us and our story to a variety of other people over the past year or so. There is a television show airing on The Outdoor Channel - Randy Jones Strike Zone - in early May 2009 that is directly a result of the article.

The same family came down to Panama again last year for the New Year's holiday. It was great to see them again and catch up on all the things that have happened over the past year. I do stay in touch with them via email on occasion, and I read Bob's blog on a regular basis. There are two posts this week that jumped out at me.

Diego Rocks - this is a post about a post that a friend of Bob's wrote on his own blog and then ended up on Harvard Online. I like the post for two reasons, it is a sound argument and because it includes Travis Pastrana. Travis is a hero in our house. He is capable of all kinds of things according to my children. He is almost as cool as Superman. He and Ricky Carmichael are the bomb.

The Helicopter and Lemonade Story: A Favorite from "What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20" - Bob posted a few days prior to this post about a new book by Tina Seelig who is a good friend of his. He puts an example of a story in her book in this specific post. What I took away from it is that although Bob thinks he needs to be reminded of the things in Tina's book, he lives it more than he knows. His small acts of kindness that he has shown us have made a big deal in our lives.

Thanks to you Bob, Marina and the rest of the family for showing us the kindness that you have over the past few years. We really appreciate it.

The Knot

The Knot Magazine has its annual 50 best honeymoon spots included in its national Spring Summer 2009 issue. Tranquilo Bay was featured in the section of 10 Best Bargains.

Bocas del Toro: Why? The archipelago is more quiet than Panama City and makes a great outpost for exploring nearby islands. Where to stay? Tranquilo Bay is a chic eco-lodge in the middle of a rainforest.

Check it out on news stands now!

Going back to TB

Ramon caught this photo of several of our guests leaving the Zapatilla Cayes a few weeks ago. It was a beautiful day. Everyone had a lovely time.

Sitting Pretty in Central America

My brother emailed me last week to let me know that we had been included in an article in Continental’s in flight magazine. I went online to look it up today. I must say that it is truly a compliment to be included in with such a great group of hotels. Take a look at the article. We are the last hotel listed for Panama and the only one of our size!

Sitting Pretty in Central America

Updated Tranquilo Bay Website

I just wanted to point out that we have updated several of the pages on the website to include videos where appropriate. The pages with videos currently include:

Accommodations

Beach Excursions

Beach Hiking

Diving & Snorkeling

Fishing

Kayaking

We are continuing to take video footage and will add more video to the site as we develop it. Have a great week!

Facility Tour

Here is another one of the vidoes I put together which gives you an idea of what the boat ride out to Tranquilo Bay is like as well as giving you a feel for walking around our grounds and into one of our cabanas. It is so difficult to give you an accurate feel of the enormity of the jungle and what it is like to be inside it. It is an amazing experience. I will attempt to put it into words for you.

When you step into under the canopy of the jungle, the temperature immediately and noticeably drops. You feel a calm pass over you as if you took a deep breath and shook out your shoulders and there was no need to do either one. The green you see all around you - above, in front of, behind and below you. There is life all around you. Plants, animals, insects and bugs all coexist in this environment. We are all familiar with how difficult it is to calm a crying newborn baby - sometimes no matter what you do, you just cannot calm them down. The jungle does not fail. It can calm even the most disturbed baby just by welcoming the baby into its arms.

We live in the jungle. Some of our facility has been carved out of it, but the jungle is never far away. You can walk on one the pathways to get to the cabanas and you are in the middle of the jungle. You can go on one of our trails and you are in the jungle. However, one of the wonderful things about being here in Bocas del Toro, Panama is that we are also on an island in the middle of the Caribbean. So we have the crystal clear waters and beautiful beaches. Since we are in an archipelago we also face the mountains which house the volcano that made this amazing archipelago so many years ago. All of these things come together here at Tranquilo Bay. How very fortunate we are.

Snorkeling the Bocas del Toro Archipelago

So, I am on a bit of a video kick these days. I have been working on getting some of our photos and video footage into short clips for people to get a feel for what it is like to spend some time with us here at Tranquilo Bay. We are also preparing for a once a year trade show for Latin American businesses so I also have a bit of a deadline to meet.

This video shows some of the aerial views of the places where we go snorkeling, the beaches nearby where we snorkel, and the sights underwater while you are snorkeling as well as a few folks actually snorkeling - imagine that! Take a look.

Punta Valiente Video

Here is a short video I just finished on our excursion to Punta Valiente. For those of you who haven’t been here yet - this is one of our don’t miss excursions. For those of you who have visited us maybe it will bring a smile to your face to remember your trip to Punta Valiente. Have a great Friday!

Updated Photo Galleries

We have updated all of the photo galleries with photos from the past year. Here are a few of my favorite new ones:






We are unable to include all of the photos we have taken or that our guests have provided to us. Each one of these has a story - they all bring a smile to our faces when we see them. We hope that they do the same for you. We also hope that they help you get a feel for what it is like to spend some time with us here in paradies.

We have broken down some of the larger categories into sub categories so that you can see an example of the diversity that we have down here in plant and animal life. This link takes you to all of the plants which you can use as a jumping ground to get to different plant types. This link takes you to the animals for all of the different types of animals we encounter on our excursions. This link takes you the entire group of photo galleries. Spend some time checking them all out.

Fun on the Internet

I was reading one of the blogs I check out on a regular basis and she had a link to a website called Wordle www.wordle.net. It makes really cool word clouds. I took the text off of our home page to see how it might end up represented in a word cloud. Here are a few of my favorites that it came up with...

Tranquilo Bay in Sport Diver

In the June issue of Sport Diver there are a variety of articles on where to go expat.



Panama and specifically, Bocas del Toro, made it as one of the destinations - the Wild West. Check out the article here - http://www.sportdiver.com/article.jsp?ID=21392105. The reference to Panama is toward the end of the online article.

Paradise the Hard Way

I can't begin to describe how cool it is to read someone else's account of what we have been up to down here for the past few years. I just read the article Paradise the Hard Way in Inc.'s May 2008 issue about how Tranquilo Bay came to be what it is today. Obviously you can't capture all of it in 5000 words or less, but the folks at Inc. did a pretty good job. We came down here and built Tranquilo Bay for a change in lifestyle. We got what we bargained for and then some. All of us share ups and downs on the island. Fortunately there have been more ups than downs. We are celebrating this article as a definite up!

We have been pretty busy over the last few months as my lack of posts indicates. I am going to try and post some of the photos from the past few months over time in order to give you a feel of what it is like to be here. We have done all the hard work for you. You just have to come down and enjoy. Give us a call - we will find the right time for you and your group to visit.

Wow!

I can't believe that it has been over a month since my last post, but alas it has. We have been busy - which is such a good thing.

We were very fortunate to really catch the attention of one of our guests during the holiday season. Bob Sutton is a professor and an author. He teaches at the d.school at Stanford and has heard a variety of stories about start up companies. He thought ours was an interesting one and he decided to tell a few people about us. He wrote to Leigh Buchanan at INC magazine. She found the story also to be intriguing and in less than one month she was here interviewing us and learning all about what it took to build Tranquilo Bay. The photographers, Rob and Brandon, followed shortly thereafter. We worked with Leigh and Ryan at INC to verify the facts in the story as it was being edited. Then we waited. Yesterday, Jay, Stefanie and Scott went to the USA to visit family and they found the May issue of INC on the newsstand. Jay tells me that he and Stefanie are pleased with the article. Jim and I are waiting for someone to fax a copy of it to us as it is not posted on INC's website just yet.

We are very appreciative of all the attention granted us from Bob, Leigh, Ryan and all the other people involved in making this article a reality. I thought that some people might be interested in getting a better grasp on what it took to build this place so we put together a new section of the website that goes through the story year by year. Each of the photos on the pages and the text blows up so that you can see them clearly and the gallery on each page takes you through the photos for that year.

Thanks to you all for making Tranquilo Bay a reality ;-)