Sean Borca: November 2022

Fishing in the Costa Rican Osa Peninsula

I absolutely love fishing. What is it that I love about it. Can it be the ocean? Can it be the sky? Or maybe it is sitting on the boat and hunting? The great snacks and the fun and adventure of it. Whatever it is… I seem to like it a lot. You might even say that I love it. I myself am the kinda person who loves adventure. I love the thrill and I find that fishing fulfills a desire to hunt and conquer.

Recently I took a trip to Costa Rica. It was supposed to be a honeymoon type trip where me and my new wife bonded in a boat, catching fish. It was a bonding experience, but I am not sure it was as honeymoonish as my wife wanted. The trip was a partial gift and we took the opportunity to fly to Costa Rica and plan a fishing excursion neither of us would ever forget.

We were going to Crocodile Bay; this is a fishing destination that is located in the Osa Peninsula a little way from the main cities and reachable by bush plane. Once we landed in San Jose Costa Rica, we were immediately bombarded with pictures of sailfish. This is the HOLY GRAIL of fish. It is one of the sport fish that is not only beautiful, but it is rare and a hard catch. The pictures we saw in the airport made us super excited and we thought of the prospect of catching one. We hurried out to the front of the airport, and it was like we were plunged in a 90s drama where someone goes missing. There were all kinds of locals with beat up signs yelling the names of passengers or trying to give tourists a ride to their hotel. Honestly, I was a little unhinged and not feeling very great when we saw the man with BORCA on his sign. We approached him and he knew we were going to Crocodile Bay so we got into his car and felt pretty good.

Day 1

Fly – Airport – Hilton Hotel – Dinner – Workout – Sauna – Sleep!

The first night we stayed at a Hilton Property near the soccer stadium. We were on the 19^th floor or at least we were pretty high up. We had time to decompress, eat at the restaurant on the 18^th floor, listen to the honking of the locals below driving crazily… (I haven’t even gotten into the motorcycle situation there) and then take a dip in the pool and sauna. We were more than pleasantly surprised. We got views of the skybar and took some videos of ourselves.

Pool and Jaccuzi Top of the Hilton: https://youtube.com/shorts/8EhgO2e5gPo?feature=share

Stadium View at the Hilton: https://youtube.com/shorts/SWM1hhlFTTQ?feature=share

Cloud Bar at Hilton Costa Rica: https://youtu.be/Q4lJH2c66lE

Day 2

Breakfast – Fly – Land near cemetery – Lunch – Explore – Rainforest Tour

We woke up at the Hilton and we went down to have breakfast. The coffee in Costa Rica is very strong and even I was having a hard time with it. My wife was watering it down. There were all kinds of eggs and the normal American fare, however there was some Costa Rican influence of fruits, grains and dirty type of rice. They eat a lot of yucca there and all kinds of fruit. I told my wife to avoid the types of food that she doesn’t normally eat since I have had the experience of my stomach reacting badly when travelling. We ate in the sky longue, and it was beautiful. The weather was overcast, and we had learned that it was near the end of the rainy season so the clouds kinda clung to the mountains that we could see through the windows. After we ate, we ran back to the room and grabbed our bags and like everyone made sure we had everything that we needed. Tipping our Costa Rican friends who spoke great English it wasn’t even 8AM and we were leaving for the next airport to take a little bush plain to Jimenez or Osa Peninsula.

We got in our taxi and headed to the airport, unlike commercial airlines they weigh you and the bags to make sure that they have enough fuel to make it to the destination. This is NOT nerve wracking to someone who hates to fly. I am a tough guy all around, but flying is one thing that makes me a little nervous and flying in a tiny plane that fits about 15 people is tough on me. It was a single engine propeller plane. You could really feel the turbulence. My wife and I read our respective books. I was reading the bible and she was reading a romance novel that she was trying to hide from me.

On the plane you could see the stretches of rainforest, you could see giant trees that I later learned were Kapok trees and you could feel ever blip and bump of turbulence. The buildings were not in as bad of repair as I expected from a central American country, many roofs were rusted and it added to the ambience. My wife and I started to get excited when we were over the water, you could see the jewel blue color and the waves from the plane looked like a still on the beach. When we were descending, I got worried because I couldn’t see where we were landing since the pilots head was in my way. As I said we were in a TINY plane. My wife assured me she could see the landing strip and a cemetery…. We were landing next to a cemetery. Really!

The landing was great we got out and admired the interesting culture of their small cemetery. Each grave had fences around it and many graves had silk flowers and interesting tile work. My wife wanted to take pictures of the cemetery and see it more, but I pulled her away anxious to get to Crocodile Bay and see where we were staying for the next couple of days.

A van that the locals call a troupe (troup-ee) is how they say it came to pick us up. We boarded and drove literally around the corner to Botanika a Curio property by Hilton. They were obviously in construction but had finished the main building and one of the main hotel buildings where we stayed.

The property was beautiful. Since the trip was a partial gift we didn’t expect it to be high end. However, the owner of Crocodile Bay had decided to work with Hilton to upgrade his hotel and make it a world class destination. The food was upgraded the rooms were 4 star plus. We were literally in a paradise that we hadn’t expected. We sat with the excursion and tour guide person to set up our trips. We decided on a rainforest tour, a farm/chocolate factory tour and 2 days of fishing. My wife wanted to do one day inshore and one day offshore and as an accommodating and wonderful husband that I am I agreed. But I did not agree to the sloth tour, which I regret to this day.

We had time to get lunch and eating Spanish/Mexican style food was especially amazing in Costa Rica. The flour tortillas in everything were amazing. We ate some quesadillas and tacos dropped our stuff off in the room, walked the property and checked out the boats and docks. Then came back to do our Rainforest trip.

Our tour guide that we had for this tour turned out to be just for us. Tours are not planned for just 2 people but they are so accommodating that they will do a tour just for you. Since we were at the end of the rainy season and they were still in the middle of construction and word hadn’t gotten out yet about the Botanika, they weren’t super busy. We learned that the people of Costa Rica make about 3 dollars American an hour. We asked about the cost of everything and had our tour guide take us to a local store and the gas station. The roads are in not super disrepair, but they were full of puddles and potholes and were all dirt roads.

We quickly learned that American products are stupidly expensive (but man don’t you want that RedBull or Monster Energy drink when you are in the middle of the rainforest), although our tour guide said that it wasn’t as bad other places in Central America since they are so close to the Panama Canal the imported goods were cheaper then say if you got them in Honduras.

We then took about an hour drive up the mountain and the tour guide was looking out the window for wildlife. The first thing we saw was a Roadside Hawk. We pulled over and he pulled out his scope and we were able to get a good look. I suppose I was surprised that it was a roadside hawk and I expected something more exotic.

Soon we would be deeper in the rainforest. I kept asking the tour guide. What it the name of that tree? Of that plant? Of that animal? He would tell me he knew a lot but he did not know the name of all of the trees because there were so many. He explained because of the 12 hours of consistent daylight year-round (the sun sets and rises at 6 AM -6PM) that every kind of tree in the world practically grew there. It was so diverse that you could study your whole life and not know the names of all the trees.

Even though, we still were introduced to the Giant Kapok Tree we saw this tree far off and were amazed at its height. It looked like a giant tree among tiny toothpick trees but really it was a giant among giants. Our tourguide explained that many people thought the Kapok tree was a gate into another world, many Macaws lived in the tree and many animal species depended on it. I realized that it was a gift from God and Costa Rica is a special place where you can see Gods creation displayed magnificently and majestically.

We finally got to see monkeys. We heard Howler monkeys and got out of the Troup-ee we saw two different kinds of monkeys, spider monkeys and the white-faced capuchin. They were really neat with their long tails swinging and jumping through the trees like big squirrels.

We would get in and out of the troupee and the tour guide asked us if we wanted to hike or not. Since we had traveled a lot we told him to cart us around in the van and do roadside rainforest sightseeing. It was interesting to see the Scarlet Macaws which live for almost 100 years and mate for life in their family flocks. Side note-Theses would make good beneficiaries for taxes in Land Trusts. There was one green parrot who had found a window and was pecking at his reflection of himself angrily. The tour guide said it was something annoying that Parrots do sometimes since they are so smart they recognize their reflection as another bird. We traveled up the rainforest and saw a millipede, some cool butterflies’, toucans and a coaxtl which is a raccoon Costa Rican type animal. My wife wanted to see sloths, so we drove close to a wild beach to find the trees the sloths like, but we had no luck. We had fun and took a lot of videos of the different animals on the tour. We got back into the troup-ee vehicle and headed back and ate dinner at the resort.

Bush Plane: https://youtube.com/shorts/QMbMaB9kQRk?feature=share

Bush Plane Landing:

https://youtube.com/shorts/MCdtYOQ_Adc?feature=share

Hilton Crocodile Bay: https://youtu.be/czCL9Z_t9H8

Gas Prices: https://youtube.com/shorts/4qVfbjgjtPo?feature=share

Monkey Video: https://youtube.com/shorts/BJQZ8yvG0Sw?feature=share

Howler Monkey (My wife calling out to the monkey you can hear the Howler answer.): https://youtube.com/shorts/LavwAE4ezpM?feature=share

Squirrel Monkey: https://youtube.com/shorts/ukjtwi3Cgbg?feature=share

Toucan: https://youtube.com/shorts/LpyRfxfARok?feature=share

Costa Rican Cowboy (We saw him on the rainforest tour): https://youtube.com/shorts/16oO-0zAcnc?feature=share

Kapok Tree: https://youtube.com/shorts/9wr7rO5MiMs?feature=share

Brahman Cows: https://youtu.be/b9amuNAOg-s

Day 3

Breakfast – Boat – Inshore Fishing – Lunch – Back at Property

The third day we got up early to eat breakfast by the Hilton. We got locked in our hotel room. All the rooms have a ton of locks. We asked why so much security, and they said that theft was sometimes a problem, so they had a lot of security in place. They had guards that walked around the perimeter of the establishment, cameras, locks on every two doors, and then the hotel itself had a huge door that locked the entire hotel. When we woke up in the morning we were locked inside and couldn’t figure out how to get out. We waved our arms around and pressed different buttons. There technology was better than southern Florida. It turned out you needed to PUSH the door gently after you scan, but why do that? So, we took the Emergency Exit and headed to breakfast.

There were three different breakfasts, there was the American Breakfast, Traditional Breakfast and Costa Rican Breakfast. Since we were there for three days, I decided to try all three different breakfasts. Each was about 25 US dollars and so carried a pretty good price tag even by American standards. The breakfasts were amazing though and came with coffee and juice and so much food that it was way too much! It is hard to say what breakfast was the best. At this property the restaurant was relatively new, and they are very highly priced for Costa Rica so they are attempting to do full table service, 5 course. This ends up taking too much time from the servers though who are constantly trying to keep up with which spoons and forks are supposed to be on the table at the time than with actually getting you something you need like more coffee.

After breakfast we headed down to the dock, you can walk about 6 minutes to the pier or you can take a complimentary golfcart ride. We walked down to the pier and along the long board walk to our first boat and met our first Captain.

The first boat we had was a 26ft Boston Whaler that we would use for inshore fishing. We had a captain who would take us out for the whole day but no first mate. Which works out well for inshore. We were going to go out for a full day of fishing, and we were leaving at 7AM sharp. We had a friendly Captain who instructed us that the first thing we would do would be to go get the bait fish. If you fished in America often you might buy the bait or bait fish. Here we need fresh live bait fish and so our first experience would be to go out to some good fishing holes in the gulf bay area. The locals referred to the waters near Osa Peninsula as a gulf because it is a gulf.

We got on the boat and got a comfy spot, and I snuggled up with my wife, it was cloudy, and the surf was great that day we had real choppy water and probably 3 to 5 feet. In the gulf in the morning, it was the calmest and we came to a spot that they called the “mothers belly” basically pregnant belly, because there were so many different fish around the reef that you could catch.

Our first fishing method that we would use was jigging. I never really jigged before, however I do really love to bottom fish, so jigging is a lot like bottom fishing and I was really good at it. To catch bait, we used sabikis. You put on silvery or shiny hooks that catches the fish’s’ eye. There is no bait or fake bait that you mimick is alive by letting out the reel, you just keep reeling slowly up. If you are lucky you will have a line that has 4 or 5 sardines on it by the time you get it up to the boat. You remove the fish by hand and they go in the live bait tank to be used later. Fish love live bait and are fooled by them better than anything else. Makes sense right. We caught about 20 sardines and green runners. In two or three different fishing spots. In Costa Rica you cannot drop anchor because there is so much reef and you would destroy it, so the Captain is constantly circling and angling the boat back and forth over the fishing spots. Bite is on for a few minutes and then the boat needs to be moved back over the fishing spot.

I wanted to bottom fish for a bit and caught a baby snapper and a dog faced Tuna and an Albacore Tuna. I threw all of them back and later regretted throwing back the Albacore Tuna because well, it could have been dinner. My wife and I were joking because the first fish she caught was a jack, and she fought it hard. We joked that she got “jacked” but then that was her theme for the rest of the day. She ended up catching three more jacks. So four of Kind!!! Ha. Every time I thought she had something good on like a sport fish Rooster it would be a jack and I would get upset and stop filming. So, we didn’t get that much footage of her catching her jacks. The overall theme for her that day If we get jacks, we get jacks!

After fishing for the bait and doing a little bottom fishing, we stopped to see some of the big humpback whales which are in the peninsula area calving. So, you see mama and baby whales breach quite a bit, and they are quite large, and it is majestic to see.

The next part of the day was to find the area where the Roosterfish roost. We took the boat for a ten mile plus journey out into the ocean and out of the gulf or bay. When we got into the ocean it was a lot choppier and we were staying close to shore because it was inshore, we tried a couple of spots, but we were having problems since the waves were so high. So, we took another hour trip to find some calmer water. Eventually we got there, and we found a place where it was only 2 foot swells we were probably 400 feet from shore and maybe 60 feet of depth.

We took turns with whoever getting a bite completing the fight. My wife got a jack or two and then I ended up with a Rooster. I never understood why people like fish that you can’t really eat. The Roosterfish is both beautiful and gives a great fight. The fish has a great personality. It jumped out of the water 7 feet and fought me for a good 10 minutes. I finally reeled that fish in and held him in my hands. That fish was smart. I think he knew he was going up to get his picture taken. He wanted it done. We released him, because the roosterfish is really done for the picture, they aren’t great eating at all.

We tried a few other spots and fished for awhile. Since we were so far out since the waves were so choppy we had to head back. We had a great day and I learned why people were so excited by the Roosterfish. We headed back went home, relaxed ate and watched some TV in the hotel.

My wife turned out that on our cloudy inshore fishing day that she had ravaged her skin and burned like crazy. She looked like a cute tomato. Since we are from Florida, and she sees a lot of sun… and because it was cloudy she didn’t wear ANY sunscreen. This was to her folly, me with my Scottish heritage was not as badly burned as she was. She looked at me and told me she would be fine but that her skin hurt to have sun on it. She would need a long sleeve shirt to survive the sun for the next day of fishing. We went back and she was burnt out and she took a shower and passed out.

Humpback Whale: https://youtube.com/shorts/w_9km_pw2Ag?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/wA2zuGylBYQ?feature=share

Baby Snapper: https://youtube.com/shorts/7w0QSHQVK7A?feature=share

Dogtoothed Tuna: https://youtube.com/shorts/-6e4JBRCCUc?feature=share

Here Comes the Rooster: https://youtube.com/shorts/_t6JDEvVSGc?feature=share

My lovely wife Phoebe Horton Borca with a Jack!

Day 4 Breakfast – Captain and First Mate – Outshore Experience – Lunch – Second Lunch – Swimming – Gift Shopping -Dinner (Italian Night) – Bed

On the fourth day we woke up and my wife was extremely burned from her previous day. She wore one of my black long-sleeved shirts and black pants to try and cover as much of her skin as possible. I told her she would be hot and she let me know that she knew but she had to sweat it out, because if she got sun on her skin it hurt. She slathered on sunscreen, and we headed out. There is nothing like an injury on a vacation to ruin the next vacation day. She pulled herself together and we headed for breakfast.

The property is peaceful in the morning and the vacationers are friendly. In the center of the room complex there is a sitting area and garden. My wife encountered a large bullish looking frog there. In this place you could relax and use your wifi and enjoy the property. Everyone said Hi, as well as let us know where in the United States or world they were from. We met people from Hawaii and from the UK as well as some Costa Ricans. All the elevators to the rooms are keycard locked, so don’t lose your card. At least once on the trip we lost our card and we weren’t able to get upstairs to our room in the elevator and we didn’t know where the stair access was, so we had to go to the main building to get a new card. On the walk up to the main building, the grounds are impeccably kept. They have a night creature tour, which we didn’t do but heard that it was quite nice. You walk the grounds at night and meet all the animals active at that time. They have a suspension bridge over a swampy area that is pleasant to walk, as well as they are working on building bike trails around the grounds. You can pick up a bike and check out all the scenery the gardens have to offer.

Breakfast is my wife’s favorite meal and I enjoy drinking LOTS of coffee. This was the day that we realized you could sit outside in the rainforest setting and enjoy your breakfast. However, we had already been seated inside, but we decided that we would eat dinner on the boardwalk area where they have a mini rainforest garden preserved for your pleasure. I can’t remember exactly what breakfast that I ate, except that I thoroughly enjoyed it and that the wait staff and the chef were very accommodating. One of the servers asked us if we caught any fish and did we bring them back for dinner. And since we had only caught a Roosterfish and a lot of Jacks and I didn’t keep the Albacore, I was upset that I had not brough home any DINNER.

I announced to my wife that today the focus was DINNER and that we would ensure that we caught DINNER! We would feed ourselves. We would feed the wait staff. I was going to go offshore fishing to slaughter fish. And this time, my belly would be full.

After breakfast we walked down the boat to the dock. The dock is on a wild beach. You forget since Florida beaches are manicured and built up for tourism what a wild beach really looks like. Osa Peninsula is on the Pacific side. The beaches are mucky and sandy and have a lot of crabs and crustacean like creatures walking on them. There were always a local or two near the beach walking their dogs. The dock was long and thin and the boats were anchored near the docks but not on them. We walked along the pier at about 7AM in the morning ready for an exciting day. The weather was not quite as good as it was the previous day, but we had come at the end of rainy season (October) and there were storm clouds in the sky hanging ominously. I told my wife that we could handle a little rain and that we would be fine. We went and found our Captain, First mate and boat. The captain’s name was Charlie and he said we would have a great day fishing. We asked him about the sailfish probability, and he said that it was about a 50/50 to get a sail. We asked our itinerary for the day and he said we would spend the first hour getting bait and then we would head offshore. He had radar and so we would avoid any rain as best as we could. He said that it was very rare to cancel due to weather and that they had no problems going out, since it looked like it might rain.

We had a 35 Foot striker boat. I won’t talk about the price tag, but for just me and my wife it was over 2K, but it was worth it since she had never offshore fished before. The striker boat has the captain up top and where you can sit on the bottom.

We got on the boat and Captain Charlie gave my wife a ten-minute explanation of how to use the onboard toilet. She looked like she would rather die than use it, but you never know if you might need it. It is nice to have. The toilet was inside the boat. They also went over what was in the cooler for us to snack on. There were Costa Rican style potato chips, which we loved cookies, and the packed lunches that we selected when we chose our excursions the first day in the lobby. There was also plenty of drinks and some beer. My wife and I do not drink but that option is there for people.

Captain Charlie explained where we could sit and his job was to navigate the boat and sit in the striker tower. The first mate who had been working on the boat for more than 15 years, set up all the tackle and rods and he also fished. However, if he got a bite he would give the rod to me or my wife.

Familiarly, we set out to the different spot to catch bait, we were catching green runners and sardines again in the gulf. We would hang over a spot and sabiki, which is where you have the silvery hooks and yank up and down. We didn’t seem to have as much luck with the live bait as we did the day before where we were pulling up 4 plus sardines on the line. This time it was 2 or 3 sardines sometimes 1. We were drifting more in the bigger boat and I would say we went to 3 to 4 different fishing holes including the mother’s belly hole. The captain would tell us about how far down the fish were. As I have pretty good fishing experience this helped me catch the bait. I was able to drop the sabiki where the fish were and then snag them on the way up. My wife struggled a little more with the sabiki and she suspected her hooks weren’t as shiny as mine. I told her the fake fish were good as if it was dulled a lot it meant that it was bitten a lot. She looked a little upset so I told her not to worry. But everyone knows that you can get discouraged when you don’t get a bite on your line for awhile and someone next to you is. You wonder why and what you are doing wrong. Sometimes, it is just like that and you need to get your grit and move on. Charlie being the excellent captain that he was moved the boat if we didn’t get a bite after a minute or two.

We fished for an hour to an hour and a half getting the bait and filling up the tank. My wife asked what happened to the live bait and would there be enough. We had 20 to 30 fish in the live bait tank. The first mate said that they dumped the tank every night when they cleaned the boats so they needed new bait every day they went out. They showed us the humpback whales in the gulf who were also enjoying the sardines and green runners. Then we hunkered down in the boat and started to head offshore. Captain Charlie said it would be about 40 minutes before we got to the spot. The boat kicked it into high gear and we had a snack and watched as the first mate started to set up the reels for trolling as we headed offshore out of the gulf.

I told the first mate about fishing in Florida and how you need to go about 75 miles offshore into the gulf stream to go offshore fishing. The offshore depths were much quicker to get to and they were more similar with the distance that you would travel if you were fishing in the Florida Keys which is closer to the shelf. Once you were out of the gulf and the waters protected by the peninsula it was only 10 to 15 miles offshore and were in 4000feet of depth. We asked what was in season in that time of year and they said 50/50 for sails and marlins on a day out and that Mahi season was just starting up.

The first mate started dropping the lines in and we slowed down to start trolling. This is when you run lines with bait behind the boat. We had two rods on outriggers, two up top and four in the boat so we were always running six to 8 rods. 2 of the rods had big teasers on them, a couple of the baits were dragged on the surface and a couple under the surface. We had live bait that the first mate showed us that were still alive. The bait was hooked through the eye and then dropped in the water so that it moved exactly like a live fish (because it was). Almost immediately after putting in all the rods we heard the reel start spinning and it was FISH ON! The first mate jumped into action and started reeling in the rods so the lines didn’t get tangled. I told my honey to grab the rod and she had the first fish. She said, “Wait, No! You can do it! I am OK! I don’t want the first fish!” She protested but I handed her the rod and told her to catch it. She exclaimed she didn’t know what to do. The fish pulled out more line and we were telling her pull up and reel down. Pull the rod up to keep tension on the line and then as you drop the reel to keep the tension even you reel in the line. She couldn’t believe how strong the fish was and kept saying she didn’t know what to do and asked for me to help her.

I wanted to help her and was so worried that the fish was going to get away, but I told her over and over, “You got this” and I wouldn’t help her as she whimpered and fought the fish. My worry of the fish fleeing and getting away was very real. The fish jumped and we realized it was a HUGE Mahi. It took about 5 minutes to reel in. We had to get the belt for her and she had to sit down for a bit as well. I did not help her as much as I wanted to be in control, I wanted her to experience the fight that the sportfisherman cherishes. I wanted for her to know that the fish was caught by her. When the fish finally came up to the boat, the first mate leaned over and speared it with the gaff. He hooked it into the boat where it flopped and fought some more. My wife was laugh-crying and she couldn’t believe her eyes. She said it was insanity. I was telling her what a great job she did. It was an absolutely HUGE Bull Mahi. And I said, “Way to go Honey! You got Dinner!” We sat down and took pictures with the fish. She wanted to take pictures with me, so we did it together. After the pictures, we put the fish in the ice cooler and the first mate cleaned the blood up off the boat diligently and put the rods back into the water. We sat down as Charlie congratulated us and we started moving again at about 8 miles an hour.

I started telling my wife that when you go offshore fishing in Florida that you overage about 1 big fish per hour. So I fully expected not to have another fish on for an hour. We grabbed a drink from our lunch cooler, and we sat and chatted and not even 30 minutes later it was FISH ON again. This time I tried again to get my wife to do it. She told me she was happy enough for the entire day and didn’t need any more fish. It was my turn and I needed to get the fish.

I grabbed the reel and it was another MAHI, she was swimming alongside the boat and was a great fight for me. She didn’t fight me as hard outside of the boat as when she got inside. She was so mad she flopped on the deck for a few minutes spattering blood everywhere when she finally calmed down we got a picture with her she was a great size but no where as big as the first bull that my babe caught.

We helped clean the boat and learned a little of the boat maintenance. The first mates and boat captains are super meticulous about keeping their boats cleanly. As soon as we took pictures and put this fish in the ice box (MORE DINNER) he was cleaning. If you clean the blood right away apparently it is much easier to keep the boats clean and with such expensive boats that you take tourists out on, you always want them in pristine condition. Since I was upset that we hadn’t brought any dinner back the day before, and we only had one day left I knew that we couldn’t eat more than 1 fish, in fact the Mahi that babe caught would feed us for a few days. I wanted to provide for others so I asked if I could gift a fish to the Captain and First mate and then if we caught another, I would gift it to the kitchen staff. Captain Charlie said it would probably be OK, but that Crocodile Bay had a 1 day a month for the employees. The crew were only allowed to take fish home once a month. I argued that I wanted to gift it and it was my right, so they finally accepted graciously.

The weather was holding up pretty good for thunderclouds in the distance, we could see storms on either side of us, but Captain Charlie was maneuvering us through them using his doppler radar, which was awesome, and I was impressed by his efficiency of use. Again 30 minutes later there was another bite. This time the fish was on the outrigger furthest away. I told my wife that we were very lucky, and it was her turn. She protested again but took up the rod, talking to herself the entire time. “Pull up, reel down!” over and over again like a mantra. Since the fish was so far away on the farthest outrigger, it took her 6 minutes plus with the belt to reel this fish in. It was a big mama. Like the bull she caught the female Mahi was almost as long as she was. We put this girl in the icebox too.

For the rest of the time offshore we caught 3 more Mahi, my wife gave them all to me and I was happy enough to reel them in. They all gave me a good fight. And I was happy to bring in Dinner for everyone. My wife hadn’t caught a Roosterfish before and I had caught one the day before. So for the last hour or two we went back inshore fishing to see if we could find her a Rooster.

We went back inshore and Captain Charlie found a reef that was 30 feet from shore and we were in 50 to 60 feet of water. There was a good fishing spot above a reef. In this area I caught my dream fish (besides sail) I caught a Yellowfin Tuna. My wife managed to get a beautiful African Pompano and a Jack. We threw the African Pompano and Jack back because we had enough fish for dinner and gifting people at the resort. And well these Jacks were not good for eating. We ran out of time and needed to head back in. So we hunkered down in the boat happy with our 5 Mahis and 1 Yellowfin Tuna a great day of fishing. Back on shore the first mate told us that our fish the yellowfin and the first Bull Mahi would be at the restaurant that night. We also found that you could have your fish packaged and taken to another restaurant that was pretty good to eat at according to the locals.

Done fishing we went back to our rooms and stuffed our laundry bag with our fishy clothes to be cleaned before we went home. We then took showers ate another lunch at the resort and took a dip in the pool. We hadn’t even enjoyed the pool that much since we had gotten there.

After that we went and found a resort worker to let us into the tourist shops. We bought shirts for our three boys at home and a couple of shirts for us.

This was one of the most fun nights for eating. We went back to the hotel and it was Italian night. There was a buffet and you could order food or participate in the buffet. We decided we would do both. We had Italian salads and spaghetti and the head chef came out to discuss how to cook the Tuna and the Mahi for me. He did a breaded Mahi with tartar sauce and he did a seared tuna filet. I can now say that Tuna fresh Tuna like this, is the filet mignon of the sea. We stuffed ourselves and called it a day.

Leaving in the Morning: https://youtube.com/shorts/aAKX4woywfY?feature=share

First Bull (Longer video): https://youtu.be/dPb57fyMVQU

It's a Bull: https://youtube.com/shorts/sU7Aa_fUK44?feature=share

Mahi Sneak Attack: https://youtube.com/shorts/5s6HrMXU4ho?feature=share

Big Girl Mahi: https://youtube.com/shorts/Dl3fKTxZz7I?feature=share

Yellow Fin Tuna: https://youtube.com/shorts/1CPmR1-gCeM?feature=share

Longer Tuna Video: https://youtu.be/qeg87-mTlso

African Pompano: https://youtube.com/shorts/5Nz-JdZpgsU?feature=share

Day 5

Breakfast -Chocolate Factory Tour -Lunch -Swimming -Packing

Last day at the resort in rainy season and it was finally raining. When we woke up we ran downstairs to find that it was pouring. There are umbrellas for guests in many different areas. We grabbed umbrellas and then went to breakfast. I asked the people who worked there if they had a chance to eat some of the fish that I gifted the kitchen staff. They said that they hadn’t but that they were very grateful and that the chef was going to make fish for all the employees that night. This made me feel much better than the first day when I didn’t even get dinner.

I knew as a man who just did two days fishing that I needed to do something for my wife. She had thoroughly enjoyed the rainforest tour and I knew that she would love the chocolate factory tour. So we hung out for a bit and then at 11AM we met to go to the chocolate factory. It was about a 30 minute drive away. On the way there were saw Palm Oil farms on the side of the street as well as Teak Wood farms. These trees grow exceptionally well in Costa Rica. We had a different tour guide, he was more soft spoken and we had to ask him to speak up a bit for us.

We arrived at the farm. It was a traditional Costa Rican farm. The government 50 or 60 years ago had given away plots of lands to people. These plots often had traditional farms. These kinds of farms grew all the food that someone would need. Many of the traditional farms had been lost but on this one everything was organic as well as part of the farm was wild.

It was pouring out and we had big umbrellas. We learned about different kinds of plants as we walked around. They had the cacao trees and different kinds of big cacao seed pods. Our tour guide picked one off the tree and we ate raw cocoa seeds, which were white. The sweet part was the gummy flesh on the outside of the seed. Most locals prefer this part of the cacao plant. We were introduced to many different trees for food inside the farm. My wife ate some white peppercorns off a peppercorn tree and later she regretted it.

After touring a lot of the farm we went to the piece de resistance, a huge Kapok tree. It was incredible to say the least. We took a picture of the tree and admired it. We also drank coconut water and threw the coconuts into a river into a hoop.

After the Kapok tree we went to the main pole barn and we got to try our hand at making chocolate. We saw the process of drying the chocolate seeds. We were able to crush the seeds. To separate the seeds and then crush them into paste and sweeten the chocolate with powdered sugar. Chocolate has many great properties but one property is that it is great for your skin. My wife and I did a chocolate face mask. We then were made a traditional Costa Rican lunch. There was yucca, rice, chicken, beans, green banana salad and it was delicious. There were two chocolate hearts that we had for dessert. We went back to the hotel and enjoyed the rest of the day by swimming and eating. The next morning it was back on the bush plane and taking off to the mainland to catch our plane back home.

Neat Plant at the Chocolate Farm: https://youtube.com/shorts/mgG7_9vtGNo?feature=share

Kapok at the Chocolate Farm: https://youtube.com/shorts/1Fq9mx38M20?feature=share

Chocolate Farm Pole Barn: https://youtube.com/shorts/pKfuvHhSSQs?feature=share

Chocolate Farm Separating Chocolate: https://youtu.be/5enBsUNoHAI

Chocolate Facemask: https://youtu.be/714ljFpYEK