Shells, trees and trash.

That’s primarily what you’ll find if you spend any time beachcombing on any of the 370 small islands that make up the San Blas Islands, or Guna Yala, the archipelago off of Panama’s Caribbean coast. Lots of the former and too much of the latter.

The vast majority of the islands aren’t more than a few feet above sea level. According to scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, sea levels around the islands are rising at a rate of about one-half to three-quarters of an inch annually. At that pace, most of the islands will be underwater in the next 20 to 25 years. I hope to return before they disappear.

A discussion about where I’d love to visit again: that’s what’s prompted today’s look back to the archives.

But, yeah, beachcombing.

The shells are big, bold and beautiful. A proverbial dime a dozen, but too big to take with you. (And most often illegal to take, too. Check before you pack.)

There’s the driftwood, trunks and palms, that when uprooted expose the fascinating submerged wiry world of the trees that most people equate to some sublime form of paradise.

Then there’s the trash. As in other parts of the world, plastic mostly, some thrown overboard and some left behind. But by most estimates, the majority of the flotsam is land-based which has drifted for hundreds if not thousands of miles before winding up on the shores of one of these sinking islands. The North Atlantic Gyre, the vast rotating system of ocean currents driven by global wind patterns and home to the North Atlantic garbage patch, stretches to this section of the Caribbean and brings with it its share of plastic bags, containers and water bottles. And at least one styrofoam heart.

Nineteen more images below.

Photos from 14 June 2013.