Columbus called this bay Portobelo when he stumbled in with his ships in November 1502.
70 years later Francis Drake used this port as a base to rob Spanish merchantmen.
The warehouses of Portobelo were filled with gold and silver coming from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast by mule trains and then sailed off to Spain.
No wonder the place attracted constant raids by buccaneers, including Henry Morgan in 1668.
The british Admiral Vernon destroyed the Portobelo forts in 1739 and the great commercial fair never returned.
Today Portobelo is a small little town with a smooth anchorage under the remains of Fort San Fernando.