Safari Mangrove Tours are located in the central pacific of Costa Rica, specially in Manuel Antonio and the surrounding areas, with more than 10 Years in business and over 14 eco-friendly activities and tours, Safari Mangrove offers high quality tours either visiting the quiet canals of the tropical mangrove forest of Damas Island Sanctuary, the great Manuel Antonio National Park or the community rural reserve Los Campesinos and more than 14 eco-tours though the reserved areas of the costarican central pacific.

This eco-friendly experienced company owned and operated by Costa Ricans is your best choice while visiting the central pacific area of Costa Rica. A company 100% commited to the preservation of the mangrove ecosystem and give eco-sustainable fun to tourist from all over the world.


"Don't pass up this opportunity to see one of the most amazing and important ecological systems of the planet at work right here on the Damas Island Mangrove Tour." Roger Arce, Safari Mangrove.

"At the intersection of land and sea, mangrove forests support a wealth of life, from starfish to people, and may be more important to the health of the planet than we ever realized" National Geographic.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wA2MvmAvCg

Costa Rica's shorelines are home to five species of mangroves. These pioneer land builders thrive at the interface of land and sea, forming a stabilizing tangle that fights tidal erosion and reclaims land from the water. The irrepressible, reddish-barked, shrubby mangroves rise from the dark water on interlocking stilt roots. Small brackish streams and labyrinthine creeks wind among them like snakes, sometimes interconnecting, sometimes petering out in narrow culs-de-sac, sometimes opening suddenly into broad lagoons. A few clear channels may run through the rich and redolent world of the mangroves, but the trees grow so thickly over much of it that you cannot force even a small boat between them.

Mangroves are what botanists call halophytes, plants that thrive in salty conditions. Although they do not require salt (they in fact grow better in fresh water), they thrive where no other tree can. Costa Rica's young rivers have short and violent courses which keep silt and volcanic ash churned up and suspended, so that a great deal of it is carried out of the mountains onto the coastal alluvial plains. The nutrient-rich mud generates algae and other small organisms that form the base of the marine food chain. Food is delivered to the estuaries every day from both the sea and the land so those few plants--and creatures--that can survive here flourish in immense numbers. And their sustained health is vital to the health of other marine ecosystems.

The nutrients the mangrove seeks lie not deep in the acid mud but on its surface, where they have been deposited by the tides. There is no oxygen to be had in the mud either: estuarine mud is so fine-grained that air cannot diffuse through it, and the gases produced by the decomposition of the organic debris within it stay trapped until your footsteps release them, producing a strong whiff of rotten eggs (the mud also clings so tenaciously it can suck the boots from your feet). Hence, there is no point in the mangroves sending down deep roots. Instead, the mangroves send out peculiar aerial roots, like spider's legs, to form a horizontal platform that sits like a raft, maintaining a hold on the glutinous mud and giving the mangroves the appearance of walking on water. The mangroves draw oxygen from the air through small patches of spongy tissue on their bark.

Mangrove swamps are esteemed as nurseries of marinelife and as havens for water birds--cormorants, frigate birds, pelicans, herons, and egrets--which feed and nest here by the thousands, producing guano that makes the mangroves grow faster. The big birds roost on the top canopy, while smaller ones settle for the underbrush. Frigate birds are particularly fond of mangrove bushes and congregate in vast numbers along the swampy shorelines of the Gulf of Nicoya (see "Birds," below). The bushes in which they build their nests rise some six to ten feet above the mudflats--just right to serve as launching pads.

Mangrove swamps, especially those fed by freshwater streams, are marine nurseries of astonishing fertility. A look down into the water reveals luxuriant life: oysters and sponges attached to the roots, small stingrays flapping slowly over the bottom, and tiny fish in schools of tens of thousands. Baby black-tipped sharks and other juvenile fish, too, spend much of their early lives among mangrove roots, out of the heavy surf, shielded by the root maze that keeps out large predators.

High tide brings larger diners--big mangrove snappers and young barracudas hang motionless in the water. Raccoons, snakes, and, as everywhere, insects and other arboreal creatures also inhabit the mangroves. There is even an arboreal mangrove tree crab (Aratus pisonii) which eats mangrove leaves and is restricted to the very crowns of the trees by the predatory activities of another arboreal crab, Goniopsis pulcra.

Mangroves are aggressive colonizers, thanks to one of nature's most remarkable seedlings. The heavy, fleshy mangrove seeds, shaped like plumb bobs, germinate while still on the tree. The flowers bloom for a few weeks in the spring and then fall off, making way for a fruit. A seedling shoot soon sprouts from each fruit and grows to a length of 6-12 inches before dropping from the tree. Falling like darts, at low tide they will land in the mud and put down roots immediately. Otherwise, the seedlings--great travelers--become floating scouts and outriders ahead of the advancing roots.

The seaborne seedling can remain alive for as long as a year, during which time it may drift for hundreds of miles. Eventually, it touches the muddy floor and anchors itself, growing as much as two feet in its first year. By its third year a young tree starts to sprout its own forest of arching prop roots; in about 10 years it has fostered a thriving colony of mangroves, which edge ever out to sea, forming a great swampy forest. As silt builds up among the roots, land is gradually reclaimed from the sea. They build up the soil until they strand themselves high and dry. In the end they die on the land they have created.