Pablo
I haven’t seen him for over 10 years, but Pablo constantly reminds me that I need to do some checking before chartering someone to take me fishing. My brother met Pablo in a bar on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. He regaled my brother with stories of monster marlin and sailfish and convinced him that he could take him fishing for a good price. My brother didn’t want to go fishing, but he brought me over and I arranged for Pablo to take me out the next morning.
Pablo showed up bright an early the next morning just like he promised, which is always a good sign. However, when we got to his rather rickety-looking boat I found out that he had zero fishing tackle, which was not a good sign. I went back to my room and got a couple rods and a couple of lures and brought them back. Pablo had me set out Rapalas (mine since he didn’t have any) as soon as we left the beach. It quickly became clear that Pablo’s idea of fishing was just to troll around aimlessly and hope that something bit the trolled Rapala. We basically just headed straight out from the beach at a slow pace and kept going in a straight line until we were out of sight of land.
After being out of sight of land for a little while I began to wonder what would happen if the little motor pushing Pablo’s panga along were to conk out, as it seemed to be on the verge of doing. I asked him if he had a radio and he said no. I asked him what would happen if the motor conked out and he said we would just drift until some fishermen found us and towed us back to shore; no problem. Since there were no other fishermen in sight that seemed like a bad plan, so I told him to turn around. We turned around and started trolling back in the same line we came out on. I did manage to hook a couple of small skipjacks in the 4lb range on the way back in. Pablo got pretty excited about the skipjacks, which seemed to indicate that he wasn’t used to catching much on his boat rides/fishing trips.
My brother had arranged for Pablo to take us snorkeling at a small island later that afternoon. The island was pretty close to the beach and there were other boats around so I was less concerned about the lack of safety equipment. I got my wife, brother, and several friends and we all loaded into Pablo’s little panga to go snorkeling at the little island.
The snorkeling was pretty disappointing and the island itself was very rocky with very little sand. Also, Pablo was making a lot of advances on the females in our group and it was getting old. We told him we wanted to head back. However, right about then a storm front started pushing through and the waves got kind of rough. Pablo was bringing the boat to the beach and committed one of the cardinal sins of boat handling; bringing the boat in parallel to the beach and increasing swell. As we all watched in horror from the beach a wave picked up the panga with Pablo in it and smashed it upside down on the rocks. I will never forget the sound it made as it hit the rocks; it sounded exactly like what I imagine a skull getting crushed would sound like. We all ran over; I was pretty sure that Pablo’s broken corpse would be floating around near the boat. However, we didn’t see anything besides the dead skipjacks I had caught that morning and some pieces of the motor.
After what seemed like an eternity (but was probably really only 30 seconds or so) Pablo popped up with an excited cry. He was smiling and seemed very upbeat considering that he had a gash on his forehead that was bleeding into his eyes and his boat was smashed. He immediately yelled for us to flip the boat over. We were able to do this safely, although in hindsight we all would have been toast if a wave had picked up the boat again and smashed it on us while we were trying to flip it over. Pablo pulled the boat a little distance from shore and then asked us to swim to it. Luckily everyone was able to swim with their stuff over to the boat and could climb in. At that point we all remembered that the motor was smashed and we couldn’t go anywhere. One of my friends got pretty seasick and started puking over the side almost immediately.
Pablo proclaimed that he would tow us all to shore. He tied a rope to his waist, told me to warn him if I saw any sharks which would presumably be attracted to the blood gushing from his head, and jumped in and started swimming. Amazingly the boat with 7 people in it started to move forward at a good clip. He might not have known much about boat handling but the guy sure could swim. A couple of my friends tried to jump out and help but he was pulling the boat so quickly that they just ended up getting towed in the water so they hopped back in. I could see blood streaming out of Pablo’s head the whole trip but luckily no sharks showed up to eat him. He was pretty lean and leathery looking and probably not that appetizing for sharks.
After about an hour or so we reached land and hopped out and kissed the sand. The last I saw of Pablo, he was pulling his boat along the beach by hand, blood still coming out of his head.
I haven’t seen him for over 10 years, but Pablo constantly reminds me that I need to do some checking before chartering someone to take me fishing. My brother met Pablo in a bar on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. He regaled my brother with stories of monster marlin and sailfish and convinced him that he could take him fishing for a good price. My brother didn’t want to go fishing, but he brought me over and I arranged for Pablo to take me out the next morning.
Pablo showed up bright an early the next morning just like he promised, which is always a good sign. However, when we got to his rather rickety-looking boat I found out that he had zero fishing tackle, which was not a good sign. I went back to my room and got a couple rods and a couple of lures and brought them back. Pablo had me set out Rapalas (mine since he didn’t have any) as soon as we left the beach. It quickly became clear that Pablo’s idea of fishing was just to troll around aimlessly and hope that something bit the trolled Rapala. We basically just headed straight out from the beach at a slow pace and kept going in a straight line until we were out of sight of land.
After being out of sight of land for a little while I began to wonder what would happen if the little motor pushing Pablo’s panga along were to conk out, as it seemed to be on the verge of doing. I asked him if he had a radio and he said no. I asked him what would happen if the motor conked out and he said we would just drift until some fishermen found us and towed us back to shore; no problem. Since there were no other fishermen in sight that seemed like a bad plan, so I told him to turn around. We turned around and started trolling back in the same line we came out on. I did manage to hook a couple of small skipjacks in the 4lb range on the way back in. Pablo got pretty excited about the skipjacks, which seemed to indicate that he wasn’t used to catching much on his boat rides/fishing trips.
My brother had arranged for Pablo to take us snorkeling at a small island later that afternoon. The island was pretty close to the beach and there were other boats around so I was less concerned about the lack of safety equipment. I got my wife, brother, and several friends and we all loaded into Pablo’s little panga to go snorkeling at the little island.
The snorkeling was pretty disappointing and the island itself was very rocky with very little sand. Also, Pablo was making a lot of advances on the females in our group and it was getting old. We told him we wanted to head back. However, right about then a storm front started pushing through and the waves got kind of rough. Pablo was bringing the boat to the beach and committed one of the cardinal sins of boat handling; bringing the boat in parallel to the beach and increasing swell. As we all watched in horror from the beach a wave picked up the panga with Pablo in it and smashed it upside down on the rocks. I will never forget the sound it made as it hit the rocks; it sounded exactly like what I imagine a skull getting crushed would sound like. We all ran over; I was pretty sure that Pablo’s broken corpse would be floating around near the boat. However, we didn’t see anything besides the dead skipjacks I had caught that morning and some pieces of the motor.
After what seemed like an eternity (but was probably really only 30 seconds or so) Pablo popped up with an excited cry. He was smiling and seemed very upbeat considering that he had a gash on his forehead that was bleeding into his eyes and his boat was smashed. He immediately yelled for us to flip the boat over. We were able to do this safely, although in hindsight we all would have been toast if a wave had picked up the boat again and smashed it on us while we were trying to flip it over. Pablo pulled the boat a little distance from shore and then asked us to swim to it. Luckily everyone was able to swim with their stuff over to the boat and could climb in. At that point we all remembered that the motor was smashed and we couldn’t go anywhere. One of my friends got pretty seasick and started puking over the side almost immediately.
Pablo proclaimed that he would tow us all to shore. He tied a rope to his waist, told me to warn him if I saw any sharks which would presumably be attracted to the blood gushing from his head, and jumped in and started swimming. Amazingly the boat with 7 people in it started to move forward at a good clip. He might not have known much about boat handling but the guy sure could swim. A couple of my friends tried to jump out and help but he was pulling the boat so quickly that they just ended up getting towed in the water so they hopped back in. I could see blood streaming out of Pablo’s head the whole trip but luckily no sharks showed up to eat him. He was pretty lean and leathery looking and probably not that appetizing for sharks.
After about an hour or so we reached land and hopped out and kissed the sand. The last I saw of Pablo, he was pulling his boat along the beach by hand, blood still coming out of his head.
