A gift to conservation: French Ambassador to Costa Rica Fabrice Delloye breaks a champaign bottle over his country's donation, Cocos Patrol 1, a boat equipped with GPS and 10 beds that will police the waters around Isla de Cocos.

Keely Kernan | Tico Times

The bottle broke, the champagne poured out and the ship was off.

The Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Telecommunications (MINAET) launched Cocos Patrol 1 on Friday from Puntarenas on the Pacific coast. The 48-meter patrol boat will trek 535 kilometers from the coast to the Isla del Coco, Costa Rica's treasure island. A national park, the island is world-famous for its rich marine biodiversity.

The boat is a donation from the French government's French Global Environment Fund and will police the national park for illegal activity such as fishing.

Marine biologists agree that overfishing is one of the greatest threats to marine life. Falling fish populations near Costa Rica's Pacific coast have forced fisherman to look for their catch further out, sometimes pushing inside of Isla del Coco's park boundary, where fishing is illegal.

Patrollers and conservationists find hundreds of fishing hooks and nets within the park boundaries every year, used to capture and kill sea turtles, sharks, dolphins and other protected marine species.

Environmentalists have criticized the Costa Rican government recently for not doing enough to protect the marine park.

“This boat is an important tool to help us improve our capacity to conserve this area,” said Fernando Quirós, director of the Isla del Coco Marine Conservation Area (ACMIC).

The boat is equipped with a GPS system, a kitchen, bathrooms and 10 beds, which will allow crews to patrol the island for several days at a time.

For good luck, officials broke a bottle of champagne over the boat's stern before its launch.