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Content: However, Cristóbal, at the Caribbean terminus of the canal, had the
        only important port facilities in the late 1980s. The numerous islands
        of the Archipiélago de Bocas del Toro, near the Costa Rican border,
        provide an extensive natural roadstead and shield the banana port of
        Almirante. The over 350 San Blas Islands, near Colombia, are strung out
        for more than 160 kilometers along the sheltered Caribbean coastline. The major port on the Pacific coastline is Balboa. The principal
        islands are those of the Archipiélago de las Perlas in the middle of
        the Gulf of Panama, the penal colony on the Isla de Coiba in the Golfo
        de Chiriquí, and the decorative island of Taboga, a tourist attraction
        that can be seen from Panama City. In all, there are some 1,000 islands
        off the Pacific coast. The Pacific coastal waters are extraordinarily shallow. Depths of 180
        meters are reached only outside the perimeters of both the Gulf of
        Panama and the Golfo de Chiriquí, and wide mud flats extend up to 70
        kilometers seaward from the coastlines. As a consequence, the tidal
        range is extreme. A variation of about 70 centimeters between high and
        low water on the Caribbean coast contrasts sharply with over 700
        centimeters on the Pacific coast, and some 130 kilometers up the Río
        Tuira the range is still over 500 centimeters.