Seahorse Point Nature Reserve
Visits & Tours
Bastimentos Island, Bocas del Toro, Panama
Café • 30 minute visits • Day visits • Kayaks • Special events
Where
Bahía Honda, Isla Bastimentos, Bocas del Toro
Opening times
Thursdays and Fridays, 10am to 4pm, or by appointment
Contact us
You have arrived at one of the most quietly extraordinary corners of the Caribbean – a secluded ten-acre nature reserve, boutique eco-retreat, tropical garden and living marine science campus on Bastimentos Island in the Bocas del Toro archipelago of Panama.
Seahorse Point is reserved for a single party at a time. When you stay, the entire reserve — its forests and mangroves, its channel and deep bay, its studios, gardens and café — is yours alone. This is a place designed for discerning travellers and organisations who want their time in nature to mean something: rare privacy, effortless comfort, and a genuine hand in the regeneration of the ocean that regulates our climate.
A secluded world, wholly yours
We host intimate three- and four-day stays for individuals, couples, families and groups. Seahorse Point and all of its facilities are dedicated entirely to your private use, with a personal chef and our team devoted to a visit tailored around you. We have 4 double bedrooms and one twin bedroom, all with ensuite and views from over the bay towards Isla Colon
Looking up through the rainforest canopy at Seahorse Point
- Swimming pool
- Canopy tree-net walkway
- Kayaks & sailing dinghy
- Electric panga for river exploration
- Ceramic & clay studio
- Forest walks and tropical garden
- The Forest Library
- Casa de Liana
- The Seagrass Café & Heliconia Lounge
- North Dock Casita for sunset dining
- Guided nature & marine experiences
A voyage that became a mission
Who we are...
Seahorse Point is the vision of Dr Howard Dryden – a marine biologist who built one of the world’s most effective water-filtration technologies – and Diane Duncan, a scientist and specialist in economic development for remote islands and rural communities. For more than six years, they sailed the mid-Atlantic aboard their research vessel Copepod, gathering data on plankton, microplastics and black carbon in some of the ocean’s most sensitive waters and carrying that message as far as the COP26 climate summit. Howard gave one of the first talks at COP on how the oceans affect the climate.
Sailing into Bocas, their spirits lifted. After an Atlantic crossing with almost no marine life in sight, they ran aground on a sandbank in Bahía Honda — and a quick snorkel revealed healthy, beautiful coral reefs. That evening, over the most fabulous sunset, they walked the trails of a small boutique hotel that happened to be for sale. The rest is history: a land-based centre for research, regeneration and climate resilience, set on a deep tidal bay ringed by mangroves, seagrass and coral. Seahorse Point Nature Reserve was born.
The Seagrass Cafe
It is here, sharing and preparing food, that we discovered a new depth of meaning in the idea of biocultural leadership. Our menus draw on the foods, plants and traditions of Bahía Honda, reimagined with ingredients grown steps away — from coconut breads and herbal infusions to our own take on Ron Don fish soup and spicy pumpkin served with fresh coconut-flour bread. Cookery lessons and private tasting sessions you will find nowhere else in Bocas are on their way.
The name returns, as everything here does, to seahorses. The local long-snout seahorse is a poor swimmer that shelters in the mangroves and hunts in the seagrass – a delicate indicator that the water is clean enough to sustain life. Where seahorses thrive, the ocean is well.
Nature and walks
Sloth Point & the Whistlestop Tour
Seahorse Point is also known locally as Sloth Point; we look after and care for the mangroves, the almond trees and the trumpet trees upon which the two-toed and three-toed sloths depend. The net result is there are lots of sloths and tour boats; come to see them from the outside.
Rather than crowd the mangroves by boat, we invite you along our elevated ‘Sloth Point’ walkway. Each morning our team checks on the resident sloths and their favourite trees, so a quiet, gentle tour offers a near-certain sighting — without disturbing the seagrass and mangrove ecosystems that make it all possible. Racoons and iguanas navigating the forest lianas are frequent, delightful company.
Inside out Bocas
As opposed to viewing mangroves and sloths from a boat, we have a boardwalk running for 200 ft through the mangrove. You will see sloths and, if lucky, some iguanas, anteaters, lizards and parrots.
Curated over three years, this immersive two-hour journey moves through In, Out and Up. In the laboratory, take water samples and meet the zooplankton beneath a microscope. Out in the forest, walk among mangroves and ancient plants that outlived the dinosaurs, pausing for coffee in the forest library. Up in the canopy, hold on to the rare feeling of being wholly immersed in nature – a memory we hope stays with you long after you leave.
Caribbean Coral & the Leafcutter Clay Studio
We make the clay from the soil dug out of the ground by leafcutter ants, mixed with clay dug from the forest of flavours.
Corals need substrate to grow. Gathering and firing our own local clay into the right shapes and sizes, we are returning hand-made coral sculptures to the reefs of Bahía Honda. In our Build a Coral for the Caribbean workshop — led by our coral specialists and artist Louis Hiemstra — you will learn how corals communicate in colour, why they are nurseries to a quarter of all marine life, and how to shape your own substrate platform to leave behind for the ocean or take home as a keepsake.
Mangroves, seagrass and coral make up the big three; together they sequester around 20% of the world's carbon dioxide and are the nursery for over 25% of all marine life that lives in the world's oceans. Understanding coral, making it with your own hands from leaf-cutter clay and planting it in the oceans. There can be no better way to connect with and understand nature
The Forest of Flavours & Infusion
Working with leading Panamanian growers, we are extending our nursery and kitchen garden into a Forest of Flavours – herbs, salad leaves and rare varieties destined for the Seagrass Café table and for the wildlife and community around us. And through Infusion, our series of music, food and art evenings devised by composer Amelia Langlois, song drifts across Bahía Honda while Caribbean colour infuses the teas, the cocktails and our own coconuts, pineapple and ginger. Science, we find, is all the richer in the company of the arts.
There are lots of medicinal plants in our garden and forest. Humans evolved in a forest environment; our biology has evolved eating a very wide range of plants, many tree fruits and nuts. The modern diet is devoid of these ingredients, and by adding them to your diet, you instantly feel better. Not because they are medicinal, but because they were lacking from your diet in the first place, and you have restored the balance and essential nutrients that your body requires to be fit and healthy.
Nursery and growing of fruit and vegetables
There are lots of challenges in growing fruit and vegetables in Bocas. Like most tropical environments, dealing with insects is always a challenge, but we don't want to use any toxic chemicals, so it's all natural solutions.
It takes a great deal of work and knowledge to practise regenerative agriculture; this is where biocultural training comes into its own. Guests are encouraged to get their hands dirty and join in on the fun
Chocolate and wine tasting
There can be no better combination: unique chocolate flavours from our own garden and locally sourced, processed in our kitchen with flavours from the garden: ginger, chilli, sea salt, honey and herbs.
We don't produce the wine, but your host Diane (sommelier in training) has selected the best from South America to complement the flavours of the chocolate.
Bocas chocolate is very healthy; it is known to be among the best at doubling your body's stem cells to help rebuild damaged cells and organs. The chocolate and wine are organic, with no glyphosate or horrid chemicals, just pure flavours and health.
Beyond a stay — a partnership
Seahorse Point is a rare setting for organisations that value privacy and purpose in equal measure: executive and leadership retreats, board offsites and incentive experiences; research collaborations and field programmes with academic and conservation partners; intimate private events and celebrations; and location work for film, media and photography. Every engagement is fully hosted, wholly private, and grounded in real environmental impact — an experience your guests will not find elsewhere.
Unrivalled access to the Big Three ecosystems
Nestled on Bastimentos Island in Panama's stunning Bocas del Toro archipelago, our 10-acre site is uniquely positioned — directly adjacent to the 33,000-acre Bastimentos Island National Marine Park, a world-renowned Mission Blue Hope Spot. It gives students, researchers and ecotourists immediate access to the following:
- Coral reefs: some of the best-conserved reefs on Panama's Caribbean coast.
- Seagrass meadows: critical carbon sinks and nursery grounds for marine life.
- Mangrove forests: protective coastal barriers, vital to terrestrial and marine health.
Science-driven leadership
The Seahorse project is driven by the groundbreaking research of Dr Howard Dryden, a world authority on water treatment and climate disruption. His work – famously presented at COP26 – revealed how "forever chemicals" and plastic pollution have decimated 90% of marine life since 1900, creating a catastrophic feedback loop for our climate and leaving just 10 to 15 years before a trophic cascade collapse of ecosystems. At Seahorse Point we don't just study the problem; we implement nature-based solutions.
The Seagrass Cafe, a perfect venue to have a great cup of coffee and traditional food, located among the palm trees and mangroves
We have a 100% electric boat, batteries charged by solar for pollution-free expeditions through the mangrove tunnels or into the national marine park
Who belongs at Seahorse Point?
Seahorse Point is an exclusive venue for guests to book; we have 4 double rooms and one twin room, all ensuite. We do not rent out a single room; when you book with us, it is for the whole site. Minimum booking is 4 nights. You have your own private chef, full access to the property and organised events.
We invite a diverse community of biocultural leaders — and anyone who cares about nature — to join us.
- Families or small groups that care about nature and want an immersive experience
- Students & academics conducting field research across nine distinct ecosystems.
- Indigenous leaders sharing and integrating ancestral wisdom with modern science.
- Young activists joining immersive learning camps and "Life Changer" expeditions.
- Business & government leaders confronting the existential threat of ocean acidification — the "evil twin" of climate change.
- Artists connecting people with nature and carrying the call to action through music and art.
We can host small conferences and seminars for up to 50 people for business and government organisations. Seahorse Point can be rented for weddings and special events.
We run special nature-based art programmes, such as the sculpture of coral using leaf-cutter ant clay prepared at Seahorse Point
A harmless nurse shark gently swims by our dock; bottle-nose dolphins and cow rays are also frequent visitors
