Channeling My Inner Hemingway

I was up bright and early this morning and decided to take a nice long walk along the beach. Jaco, pronounced Ha-co, is in a bay that I am guessing point to point is about 3 miles as the crow flies. There are about six streams That run down to the ocean from the rainforest above town. Because it has been raining so much this past week, the streams were rather full.  I know this, as I was wearing my running shoes, and my attempt to cross one of the streams was far from successful. 

Whenever I travel, I always like to do a long walk first thing in order to get my bearings.  Oftentimes it’s to find coffee, but there’s usually a lot to see on a mission to find the good stuff, so it’s not uncommon for

me to become a tour guide for those who aren’t quite as ambitious in the morning!  Where’s the bank?  Where’s the pharmacy?  Did you see a supermarket?  

I walked through the main part of town on my way back to the condo in my soaked, squishy running shoes. And of course, in my attempt to pay respect to the cowboys in Baton Rouge, I did leave my running shoes outside the door of the condo. Well, the back door that is.

I find the town of Jaco reminiscent of Rosarito beach in Baja California. It’s not unlike many other Latin American countries I have been to, such as Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, where the sidewalks are of varying heights, with cement ramps and an occasional pot hole.  My buddy Phill can tell you all about what can happen when not looking down while navigating a sidewalk in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. In short, he got the cast off his foot just before he left for this trip…  

We spent much of the day exploring Jaco.  Mike was not feeling well, so my internal Thomas Guide came in handy when we needed to find the pharmacia!  Sidenote:  If you don’t know what a Thomas Guide is, I’m guessing you have also never driven a stick shift!  Surprisingly, many vehicles in Costa Rica are stick shifts.  Even the new cars.  It’s no longer common in the U.S., unless like me, you have a classic car.  I am the proud owner of a 1968 VW Bug convertible that runs most of the time…

We had a deep-sea fishing charter lined up for the next day, and with a departure time at the crack of dawn, it would be an early night for us. We enjoyed our meal so much the night before, we decided to keep it simple, and ate at Cantina La Alegría again tonight!  

We were out the door and into our Uber by 6:30 AM. By the way, the minimum fare on an Uber in Costa Rica is significantly less than in the United States. The minimum fare is about ¢1,280 Costa Rican Colón, which is about $1.92 US. The equivalent fare in the United States is about $6.92.  And to put this in perspective, gas prices in Costa Rica, at least here in Jaco, are the same as they currently are in Los

Angeles.  Right around $5.65 per gallon.  OUCH!  I’m not sure how the Uber drivers can pull this off.  Needless to say, I made sure to tip each of our drivers well.

It was a short drive to the next bay to the north of us, Herradura Bay.  All of the small fishing boats are moored just off of the beach.  Since there is no dock, we needed to take a water taxi to get to our boat. Which of course meant that we were going to get soaked getting in the water taxi as it pulled up onto the beach. Even though I took my shoes off before getting into the small taxi boat, something told me that I would have two pairs of wet shoes sitting outside our condo door by day’s end…

Mike’s phone service, T-Mobile, does not have international service in Costa Rica, so he was not able to access the email with info about our boat until he used my AT&T hotspot...  The taxi boat captain cruised around to a few different boats until we found one that was ours, right around the same time Mike was able to find the name of our boat.

Now on our chartered fishing boat, the Barracuda IV, we were set to head to open waters around 7:30 am.  It was calm as we pulled out of the bay, but once we hit real stuff, the swells were huge, rolling masses

of mother nature!  And then it started raining. Really raining! As I mentioned earlier, Mike had not been feeling well since midday yesterday, so this did not help his already compromised condition. Our captain, Christian, had the chunky Honda outboard motor running full throttle, in what seemed like a race to get to the best fishing spot. I say race, because another fishing charter that had been running with us, aggressively changed course, crossing our clear path quite aggressively.  El Capitan Christian, didn’t even flinch.

The first mate, Fabian, who looks more like a surfer than he does a fisherman, set up the rigging on the boat as our captain piloted onward.  Of the four of us, Martin is the only one who has ever gone deep-sea fishing before, so he filled us in on what to expect during our all day fishing trip. 

As we continued our forward bearing, the heavy rain began to fall again, while the swells got bigger and bigger.  I gazed out into the gray sea ahead, and little by little my cold discomfort began to turn.  At that moment I realized my journey was beginning to feel a lot like the pages of an Ernest Hemingway novel.  My novice fear of not knowing what to expect

when a big fish bites, now turned to, albeit slight, an escalating excitement where man battles the unknown sea beast that lies below the surface.  And then in a flash, I snapped out of my fantasy, as Fabian asked me in Spanish if I wanted pineapple or watermelon.  Sidenote:  Ernest Hemingway is my favorite author, and “The Sun Also Rises,” is my favorite book.

While the boat motored at an even pace, climbing over each big swell and dropping down the back side, Fabian cast out the first fishing lines that would troll behind us. There were two big outriggers on each side of the boat that I believe only had lures. And then there were three fishing poles set in mounting holes at the back of the boat that had hooks and live bait.

Our first bite happened almost within five minutes! Because Martin had the most experience, he would take on the first fish. He did it with great ease, and pulled in a Dorado, which is mahi-mahi, in about two minutes. Because the first bite happened so quickly, one might think that it was going to be like that all day.  But that would not be the case.  Martin’s Dorado would be our last bite for what felt like about two hours.

Because we had been waiting so long, and because it had been raining and was cold, all of us were a little bit sluggish. But when the first mate called out “fish, fish,” we all jumped up and moved to the back of the boat. This time Phill was up and he began working the pole, in an attempt to reel in our next catch of the day. Phill was really struggling, so it was obvious that this was going to be a really big fish. He continued to reel and pull, but was getting increasingly exhausted with each tug. Finally Phill had to

tap out and Mike grabbed the pole.  We are brothers in life, and now we are brothers at sea. Mike picked up where Phill left off, and continued to work the fish for about another five minutes.  And then
finally this massive Sailfish flew high out of the water, glistening and twisting as it dove back in, trying to pull harder and get away. But Mike held his ground and with every ounce of strength he had left, finally pulled this great fish to the edge of the boat, where Christian was waiting with a gaffer pole and hook.

With gloves on, Christian then grabbed the long spiked sword of this gorgeous fish and held it up for us all to see. You cannot keep a Sailfish, so after taking a couple of pictures, he pulled the hook out and let this beautiful creature of the sea go.  Both Phill and Mike were exhausted. And after seeing this massife fish up close, it’s easy to understand why.

With all the commotion, we didn’t even realize that the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. Things were looking bright, and I mean really bright. The water went from gray to a gorgeous blue, and almost looked more like metallic blue Jello than it did water. We continued to troll

around this area for another 40 minutes, but nothing was biting. Then Capitan Christian got a radio call from another boat saying that there was a lot of action in an area that was about 20 minutes from where we were. The captain motioned for the first mate to pull in the lines and we headed due north.

Off in the distance we could see that there were about five or six other boats all trolling in one small
area. As we pulled closer, a massive pod of dolphins swam up on us, some jumping out of the water, twisting and turning. It was absolutely incredible! The last time I saw this many dolphins was when I was on an expedition off the coast of the big Island of Hawaii for an ocean conservation documentary I was shooting with the incredibly talented underwater

model, Hannah Fraser, and cinematographer, Shawn Heinrichs. On that occasion, we all dove in and swam with the dolphins.  It was transformational.  Few words can describe the feeling of so closely connecting with such beautiful creatures.  But today we were on a different mission, so no one jumped in.  In fact, as all the fishing charters jockeyed for position, it could have been deadly.

And then, our trusty first mate called out, “fish, fish!”  It was now my turn, so I assumed my position in the port side stern of the boat. I tucked the end of the pole in my waist area, and began working the fish as my brothers had done earlier. Both the captain and first mate coached me along, as it took all of my strength to keep reeling this fish in. It was obvious that this was a big fish, as it worked me hard.

It was now about 10 minutes into this fight, and there was no way I was going to give up. I continued to work the pole up, and as I let it back down, I would crank the reel a couple turns.  Sometimes only one turn. And then finally, I heard someone shout, “I see colors!”  I assume that meant that they could see the fish, so I pulled even harder!

12 minutes had now passed, and as I struggled, I hopped this battle was come to en end. As I pulled this magnificent Yellowfin Tuna up out of the water, Fabian was there with the gaffer pole to pull it in. Exhausted, I had to sit down and admire this amazing fish. Our captain shouted in Spanish that the fish was at least 45 pounds!

After catching my breath, I actually began to feel sad for my fish.  I told Mike my thoughts, and he was supportive and understanding.  After some self-reflection, I decided that this bounty was a gift from God and the universe, and that this fish was intended to be shared. From that moment, I would make it my mission to get this bounty all the way back home to Los Angeles. My God Daughter, Kaiya, is a pescatarian, and more than anyone, I wanted to share this with her.  Fabian filled my fish on the boat, and prepared it for travel in six large ziplock bags.  This said, I would later discover that getting this fish back home would be no easy task.

My fish would be the last bite of the day, so we began to make the long journey back to Herradura Bay.

It was just before sunset when we gathered our things on the beach where we were dropped by the water taxi. There’s a small beachside restaurant near where we landed.  I tried to get an Uber, but there were none to be found.  We asked at the restaurant if there were any taxis around.  There were not.  But then the host at the restaurant said, un momento, as he motioned across the street.  A young man then pulled his car over to where we were standing and said, I’m not an official taxi, but I can give you a ride.  Because there was no other transportation available, we obliged.

Our driver said that his friend had mentioned that there was a police car up ahead, and that if he got pulled over, that we had to tell the police that we were related!  We all had a good laugh, each elaborating on the story that we would tell, should we get pulled over.

Luckily we never got pulled over, and arrived safely at our condo in about 20 minutes.  We paid our new friend, who then gave us his card and said to call him if we needed anything.  He then repeated, “Anything.”  We all took that with a grain of salt, paid him $20 US, and made our way back to our casa de Jaco.