On Monday after Meg and Jill’s horseback ride, Jill and I headed into town to get some lunch. You never know what you’re going to see on the roads in Costa Rica. Jill and I were enjoying a delicious lunch at the local bakery when we saw a Mack dump truck and a bus have a standoff on the one lane road that runs in front of the bakery.
Once we got home we were in for the day and floated around the pool until sunset. Jill captured the sunset below.
Then Rich and I went out and got a couple of pizzas for dinner.
We were up early on Tuesday morning because we had a fishing charter lined up. Mia was a little under the weather so Jill, Rich, and I rolled out of the driveway at 6AM to head for the beach in Mal Pais about 30 minutes away where we met Alvaro who runs the charter operation out of Mal Pais, the village down the peninsula from Santa Teresa. Alvaro introduced us to De, who was our captain for the day.
It took about 5 minutes for Alvaro and De to roll our boat and trailer down the beach and into the water and then retrieve the trailer with a winch. It was one of the more ingenious beach launch setups I’ve seen. We were fishing in a 23′ panga-style boat. Panga is the go-to design in Central America and the Caribbean because they are stable, can handle a lot of weight, don’t draw much water and are easy to push with a 80 hp outboard motor. Jill, Rich, and I waded out into the water and climbed aboard via the transom. We left at high tide so there were no rocks to dodge.
De turned out to be a great captain. He’s from Mal Pais and has been fishing all of his life so we were basically fishing in his back yard.
This was Jill’s first ever fishing trip outside of fishing off of her family boat when she was young. She enjoyed being out on the boat and watching me and Rich fish.
One of the more practical drawbacks related to getting older for me is that my equilibrium clearly isn’t what it used to be. The big place that manifests itself is on boats. I’ve been on the water fishing my entire life, but in the last few years I’ve become very susceptible to seasickness. It’s manageable with Dramamine, but I now have to take a Dramamine the night before I get on a boat and another one the morning of. I previewed this with Alvaro (in Spanish 🙂 ) the night before the charter and he assured me that the sea was going to be “muy tranquilo.” I think he passed that along to De as well, because De did a good job of keeping the boat under power and stable at all times while we were out and I had no trouble.
De did a good job of putting us on the fish. We caught 5 tuna between us and ended up keeping a couple of nice fish.
The highlight for Jill came near the end of the charter when De spotted a pod of spinner dolphins off in the distance. He eased up on them and we rode along side them for about 15 minutes. There were several hundred dolphins in the pod and several of them took time to play in the bow wave of our boat. Jill was giddy.
When it came time to head back to the beach, De really earned his pay. We came back in at low tide and what had looked like a sandy beach when we launched was now a minefield of exposed rocks. De found the right channel on the edge of the rocks, waited for a swell to lift us up and over to give us a little more margin for error, and eased us to a soft landing on the beach. It was one of the most impressive pieces of seamanship I’ve ever seen.
Once we were on the beach and boat was back aboard the trailer, De got started cleaning our catch for us. Alvaro asked if we’d like a little sashimi from our catch and we all eagerly said yes. About 2 minutes later Jill, Rich, and I had a bowl of fresh tuna, with soy sauce, lime, and a little dash of tabasco. It was fantastic.
Once the fish were all cleaned we said our goodbyes and headed back to headquarters. Along the way, Jill let Yendry and Geovana know that we had fresh fish to add to the dinner menu for Tuesday night. They stopped by the house a little after lunch to pick up the fish and incorporated it into our dinner for both Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
After the ladies picked up the fish, we went next door to the Yoga resort and sat at the bar drinking adult beverages and sushi.
Mia was still fighting her bug on Wednesday morning so we had a pretty quiet day just lounging by the pool and picking up pizzas for lunch.
We had one last delicious breakfast this morning from Yendry and Geovana and then commenced packing up for the return to Atenas.
Diego, who picked us up at the Tambor airstrip last Thursday, ferried us back today.
Our flight back to San Jose was a little bumpy, but Meg came through like a champ. Our driver, Javier, was ready with the van when we exited the domestic terminal and we were back at headquarters by about 2:15 today.
We are meeting a friend of Mia and Rich’s for dinner at Pizzeria La Finca tonight. He’s driving over from San Jose.
Javier will come pick up the Moshers and take them to the airport tomorrow at 2:30PM. Jill and I will head out in our trusty Honda CR-V for our very last field trip in Costa Rica before we head home for good on May 1. We are headed to Playa Potrero with is in the northern Pacific zone and we will be back on Sunday evening.
It’s hard to believe we have less than a week left in Costa Rica, but we are planning to make the most of it 🙂
Adventure is out there!
Jill and Todd in Costa Rica 