I have had many, many great fishing trips over the years, but a few of them did not go as planned. I would like to share a time that things didn’t go well due to a lack of research and planning.
Many years back, I was in Costa Rica on vacation with my wife and some friends and I decided to try to do some fishing. I met a guy at a bar who enthusiastically told me he would take me out fishing for an extremely cheap price. I’ll call him Pablo (because his name was actually Pablo). Pablo’s age was hard to determine due to his prematurely sun-aged, leathery skin. I was a bit skeptical because he was so much cheaper than the other quotes I had gotten, and also because he was wearing just a Speedo in the bar, but he assured me that he was an expert and that we would fish for Marlin and Sailfish just like the other boats. I agreed to go out with him solely based on his word and because I wanted to save money and didn’t know better back then.
The next morning I met Pablo and his Speedo at the dock. He did indeed have a boat – a small bare-bones panga with a single weathered outboard motor and no safety equipment of any kind; not even life jacket. He also did not have any fishing equipment other than a handline. I enjoyed reading Old Man and the Sea, but I did not want to tackle big offshore fish with a handline. Fortunately, I had brought a rod and some lures. We headed out and he told me I should troll with one of the lures I brought. His boat had no electronics of any kind and as far as I could tell he did not have a particular destination in mind; he just headed in a straight line out to sea. After a half hour or so, I did manage to hook a small Bonita. Pablo was elated, and I could tell he was a bit surprised that we caught something which did not improve my confidence in him. I did not have much experience with chartering fishing boats at this point in my life, but I knew that was sketchy. We kept heading out and I hooked a couple more small Bonita, to Pablo’s delight and my disappointment. Clearly, I was not going to be hooking any Marlin that day. After a while, we were out of sight of land and it dawned on me to ask if he had a radio to call for help in case our single old outboard motor conked out. “No señor”, he replied “But don’t worry – if the engine dies we drift for a while and some other fisherman will eventually find us and tow us in.” He said this with the confidence of someone who had experienced this many times. That was enough for me. I was inexperienced, but I wasn’t dumb. I told him I wanted to turn around and head back immediately. Since I had already paid, Pablo was happy to oblige and we thankfully made it back to shore.
I wish I could say that was the end of my experience with Pablo, but the previous night we had also booked him to take my wife and I and some friends snorkeling at a nearby island later that afternoon. Again, we were lured in by his enthusiastic salesmanship and cheap price. Things started ok; we got to the island and started snorkeling. Pablo and his Speedo offered to take just the women in the group to another secluded area to snorkel, which my wife emphatically objected to. We decided to have Pablo drop us off at the island, which he did. However, after a little while a storm started to approach and the wind and waves picked up. We asked Pablo to take us back to the mainland. He had anchored the boat a little ways from shore, so he swam out, climbed in, and headed towards the shore to pick us up.
By that time the waves had gotten pretty big, but it still looked doable to pick us up. However, when Pablo got near shore, he committed a cardinal sin of boat handling and turned the boat parallel to the shore rather than heading in bow first. A wave picked the boat up, and for a moment it seemed like time froze. I can still picture the little boat at the top of that wave, with Pablo hanging on for dear life to avoid falling out. The wave flipped the boat over and dashed it against the rocky shoreline with a sickening crunch that sounded to me exactly like what a bunch of bones shattering would sound like. For what felt like an eternity (but was probably just a few seconds), all we could see was the overturned boat bobbing in the surf with the little Bonitas I had caught earlier floating surreally next to it. In that moment I was sure Pablo was dead, but he suddenly burst from the water shouting “I’m ok!”. He was clearly not completely ok, because he had blood streaming from a gash in the center of his forehead, but he hurried to shore and urged us to help him flip the boat back over before it got destroyed against the rocks. In hindsight that was an extremely dangerous thing to do, because a wave could have come, picked the boat up, and smashed it against us, but we didn’t think about it and were able to quickly flip the boat back over. Pablo swam it away from shore past the surf zone, and then came back and swam all our stuff out to the boat. Incredibly, he somehow swam back and forth using just his legs, with his arms full of all our stuff held well above his head to keep it dry. When we swam out to the boat, he grabbed each of us by the butt and launched us in with one hand. The man was strong.
When we got back in the boat, we could see the motor was crushed to bits. Pablo got the bow rope, tied it around his waist, and started towing the boat himself to shore. He told me to stay up at the bow and keep an eye out for sharks, since blood was still exiting his head wound in a steady stream. Pablo was a much better swimmer than boatman, because he easily towed the boat with seven of us in it. My brother and one of my friends, both strong swimmers, tried to hop out and help him, but he was towing the boat so quickly on his own that they couldn’t keep up and just ended up climbing back in. We got back to shore and parted ways; the last image I have of Pablo was him walking off into the sunset towing his boat through the shallow water. He seemed to be in surprisingly good spirits given his head wound and smashed boat; I think that sort of thing probably happened to him with some regularity. Come to think of it, that may not have even been his boat, which might explain his lack of concern.
Many years back, I was in Costa Rica on vacation with my wife and some friends and I decided to try to do some fishing. I met a guy at a bar who enthusiastically told me he would take me out fishing for an extremely cheap price. I’ll call him Pablo (because his name was actually Pablo). Pablo’s age was hard to determine due to his prematurely sun-aged, leathery skin. I was a bit skeptical because he was so much cheaper than the other quotes I had gotten, and also because he was wearing just a Speedo in the bar, but he assured me that he was an expert and that we would fish for Marlin and Sailfish just like the other boats. I agreed to go out with him solely based on his word and because I wanted to save money and didn’t know better back then.
The next morning I met Pablo and his Speedo at the dock. He did indeed have a boat – a small bare-bones panga with a single weathered outboard motor and no safety equipment of any kind; not even life jacket. He also did not have any fishing equipment other than a handline. I enjoyed reading Old Man and the Sea, but I did not want to tackle big offshore fish with a handline. Fortunately, I had brought a rod and some lures. We headed out and he told me I should troll with one of the lures I brought. His boat had no electronics of any kind and as far as I could tell he did not have a particular destination in mind; he just headed in a straight line out to sea. After a half hour or so, I did manage to hook a small Bonita. Pablo was elated, and I could tell he was a bit surprised that we caught something which did not improve my confidence in him. I did not have much experience with chartering fishing boats at this point in my life, but I knew that was sketchy. We kept heading out and I hooked a couple more small Bonita, to Pablo’s delight and my disappointment. Clearly, I was not going to be hooking any Marlin that day. After a while, we were out of sight of land and it dawned on me to ask if he had a radio to call for help in case our single old outboard motor conked out. “No señor”, he replied “But don’t worry – if the engine dies we drift for a while and some other fisherman will eventually find us and tow us in.” He said this with the confidence of someone who had experienced this many times. That was enough for me. I was inexperienced, but I wasn’t dumb. I told him I wanted to turn around and head back immediately. Since I had already paid, Pablo was happy to oblige and we thankfully made it back to shore.
I wish I could say that was the end of my experience with Pablo, but the previous night we had also booked him to take my wife and I and some friends snorkeling at a nearby island later that afternoon. Again, we were lured in by his enthusiastic salesmanship and cheap price. Things started ok; we got to the island and started snorkeling. Pablo and his Speedo offered to take just the women in the group to another secluded area to snorkel, which my wife emphatically objected to. We decided to have Pablo drop us off at the island, which he did. However, after a little while a storm started to approach and the wind and waves picked up. We asked Pablo to take us back to the mainland. He had anchored the boat a little ways from shore, so he swam out, climbed in, and headed towards the shore to pick us up.
By that time the waves had gotten pretty big, but it still looked doable to pick us up. However, when Pablo got near shore, he committed a cardinal sin of boat handling and turned the boat parallel to the shore rather than heading in bow first. A wave picked the boat up, and for a moment it seemed like time froze. I can still picture the little boat at the top of that wave, with Pablo hanging on for dear life to avoid falling out. The wave flipped the boat over and dashed it against the rocky shoreline with a sickening crunch that sounded to me exactly like what a bunch of bones shattering would sound like. For what felt like an eternity (but was probably just a few seconds), all we could see was the overturned boat bobbing in the surf with the little Bonitas I had caught earlier floating surreally next to it. In that moment I was sure Pablo was dead, but he suddenly burst from the water shouting “I’m ok!”. He was clearly not completely ok, because he had blood streaming from a gash in the center of his forehead, but he hurried to shore and urged us to help him flip the boat back over before it got destroyed against the rocks. In hindsight that was an extremely dangerous thing to do, because a wave could have come, picked the boat up, and smashed it against us, but we didn’t think about it and were able to quickly flip the boat back over. Pablo swam it away from shore past the surf zone, and then came back and swam all our stuff out to the boat. Incredibly, he somehow swam back and forth using just his legs, with his arms full of all our stuff held well above his head to keep it dry. When we swam out to the boat, he grabbed each of us by the butt and launched us in with one hand. The man was strong.
When we got back in the boat, we could see the motor was crushed to bits. Pablo got the bow rope, tied it around his waist, and started towing the boat himself to shore. He told me to stay up at the bow and keep an eye out for sharks, since blood was still exiting his head wound in a steady stream. Pablo was a much better swimmer than boatman, because he easily towed the boat with seven of us in it. My brother and one of my friends, both strong swimmers, tried to hop out and help him, but he was towing the boat so quickly on his own that they couldn’t keep up and just ended up climbing back in. We got back to shore and parted ways; the last image I have of Pablo was him walking off into the sunset towing his boat through the shallow water. He seemed to be in surprisingly good spirits given his head wound and smashed boat; I think that sort of thing probably happened to him with some regularity. Come to think of it, that may not have even been his boat, which might explain his lack of concern.
A young and very skinny me with Pablo