When Vasco Nunez de Balboa stood on that peak in Darien (September 25, 1513), he got there the hard way. Going from the Caribbean to the Pacific is easy now, but there's still a hint of adventure traveling by ship and through the Panama Canal. On board the Pacific Explorer the Canal was the reason most passengers gave for signing on. The eco-sights of coastal Panama and Costa Rica were considered a bonus.

While we passengers scarcely defined ourselves as "Explorers," the 100-passenger coastal cruise vessel clearly went where mega-ships could not go. Hugging the shore we sailed alongside fishing boats, dugout canoes and yachts. Going ashore usually meant wet landings from Zodiacs (motorized rubber dinghies). Not that it was exactly castaway style: on the beach we were met with set-ups of fresh cold water, beach chairs and the helping hands of the English-speaking crew.

On the trail in the rain forest, one of four qualified naturalists, all Costa Ricans, accompanied each small group. Rudy Zamora, the Exploration Leader, gave pre-dinner briefings with the emphasis on environmental impact, while after-dinner films, slide shows and a library with reference books about regional flora and fauna rounded out the soft-learning experience.

Hikes (graded easy, moderate and difficult) went from early morning birding and rain forest walks in nature reserves and national parks to a 90-acre private botanical garden specializing in orchids. In addition to identifying plants and trees, the ship's naturalists set up their portable telescopes to show us a sample of the birds and animals that occupied the canopy overhead.

Eventually nearly everyone could tell a sleeping two-toed sloth from a sleeping three-toed sloth even at 30-feet (hint: length of coat) and while everyone had seen parrots and toucans; some even swore they had spotted a scarlet macaw. The jaguars, ocelots, tapirs and giant anteaters had long since retreated into the deep jungle, but the social monkeys, harmless iguanas and indifferent cut-leaf ants were all in view. High point of a Zodiac river venture was a young boa constrictor watching us from a branch barely out of reach.

The ship docked at Portobelo so we could see the forts raised ineffectually against pirates; the statue of the Cristo Negro (Black Christ) said to have resisted all attempts to relocate it to another town; and watch folk dances outside the Royal Customs House. In the late 1500s, Portobelo was the way station for plundered South American treasure on its way to Spain and was said to be the richest and busiest port in the New World. Now the streets are quiet, the cannons rusting, and the residents are mostly descendents of runaway slaves.

If Portobelo was asleep to tourism, the San Blas archipelago was waking up fast. Only a few years ago the Kunas were hunting with poison tipped arrows but today even the youngest child knew that a camera should be greeted with the cry of "One dollah!" Wichub Huala Dub (Sea Grape Island) was a mall of molas, the reverse applique embroideries made and sold by Kuna women.

At sea we were alerted when the ship was visited by dolphins surfing the pressure wave created by the moving vessel and when schools of leaping fish in our wake were seen circled by sharks. As we approached the Canal we encountered our first seagoing traffic. Rusty freighters, neat cargo ships and palatial cruise liners alike were waiting their turn to go through or emerging from the other side. The captain said he hoped the Pacific Explorer, smaller than the rest, would be able to slip in ahead of the big ones. Fortunately this happened so we were able to watch the operation of the locks while it was still daylight. However, by the time we had completed the 50-mile transit and reached the Pacific, it was close to midnight.

From the world's greatest engineering feat to visiting indigenous people in their jungle habitat was all in a morning's sail. By noon we were on the southwest coast of the Darien jungle where the only approach was by water.

Playa de Muerto (literally Beach of the Dead Man) a village of friendly Embara people was everyone's favorite stop, though how long this isolation and presumed innocence will last is problematical. For the present, the arrival of the Pacific Explorer was enough to declare a school holiday, bring out the musicians and dancers, sell palm nut carvings and play soccer with the shipıs crew (5 game series all tied up). Passenger donations have provided the school with chairs, desks, blackboards and chalk; this time the goal was to be an outboard motor so older students could go to the nearest high school, now two hours away by sea.

The crew was still showing off soccer bruises when we arrived at Coiba Island, a Panama National Park and UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. Snorkelers saw the best tropical fish of the cruise along the most extensive coral reef in this part of the Pacific, and lunch was a barbecue on the beach.

Reaching Costa Rica's Golfo Dulce we visited the 90-acre Casa Orquideas, a private botanical garden specializing in orchids, created and maintained by its expatriate owners Trudy (Tennessee) and Ron (New Hampshire) McAllister. Thimble-size hummingbird nests hung at eye-level; parrots swung in close; marching ants nipped unwary toes. Though their home can only be reached by water, the McAllisters see about 1000 visitors a year, most of them coming on small craft from resort hotels.

We were now definitely in tourist country. Manuel Antonio National Park is so popular Costa Rica has put a limit on the number of visitors per day. Even so the nature trails were crowded with people. "Time to go home," one passenger said.

The Pacific Explorer does not supply hard-core adventure travel, but like all the ships of Cruise West, its parent company, aims to fill the gap between the formal cruise and back-pack exploration. Its policy of responsible cruising includes no waste discharges, in fact no dumping at sea at all. Every member of the crew picks up and cleans up the points of landing before returning to the ship. When they say "we...leave only our wake behind" they mean it.

UNESCO World Heritage Biosphere or not, the place where Balboa stood is now considered too dangerous to visit. Colombian drug traffickers, paramilitaries and generic robbers prowl Darien National Park. As for Balboa, although proclaimed "Admiral of the South Seas" for life by the King of Spain, he was arrested on a trumped-up charge in 1517 and executed at age 42 by a jealous countryman whose name is seldom recalled.

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