February 18, 2011

I was out cruising the web and stumbled upon a review written of a trip to Nosara by an SEO professional. He makes some pretty amazing observations about the web-savvy Nosara community…especially insightful for 2005.

Here is the blog post in its entirety: Thanks Costa Rica for the Wonderful Experience

The Nearby Ledge Makes The Difference

Why is the Fishing in Nosara so good? While the remote location and absence of giant marinas means less pressure on the fishery, the most important factor is clearly visible on the map above.

The Nosara Coast is so good for fishing because of the 100 fathom ledge bending in towards the beach. This underwater alley brings the blue water and its species of fish very close to the beach. Also, tends to hold the blue water species of fish in the Nosara area for the greater part of the year.

This close proximity to the blue water shortens your travel time and therefore costs you less; virtually none of your fishing time is wasted in transit…you can fish all day! Also, the prevailing ocean currents brings lots of bait fish to the area.

While most of the other sport fishing boats out are making the 50 mile run from Los Suenos to the South or 40 miles out of Flamingo and Tamarindo to get to the deep water, we are about 3.5 miles from the best fishing in the Nosara area.

Compared that to my hometown of Jacksonville, FL where we routinely make a three-hour, 70 mile run out to our 200 foot ledge.

Or howabout the Northeast where offshore fishing pretty much requires a 100+ foot boat to make the 20-hour roundtrip to deep water.

Not only does Nosara have some of the most fertile fishing in the world but it is offers some of the best bang-for-your-buck fishing around.

(Images from Google Maps which utilizes USGS depth readings)

Easy Teaser Construction

At FishingNosara we have a wide variety of top-notch tackle and lures, but on this day we had to improvise. What started as a simple test-drive of our newest boat (Explorer) turned into a full day of fishing. What to do when you leave your teasers at home? Watch this video and find out!

The Explorer Story

The Explorer represents a new concept in Costa Rica Sportfishing by combining the swift maneuverability of a Panga boat with the fishing tools of a boat twice her size. The result? A smooth-riding craft that is capable of offshore trolling and inshore reef casting with all the right tackle to bring home the big boys.

Captain David Barrantes has been with FishingNosara for several years now; his most recent post was as Spotter Mate on the Wanderer. You may recognize him as the guy holding the billfish on many of the Wanderer’s great catches.

Regular readers of the report have watched this boat take shape, but here is a quick retrospective in pictures:

The Panga Boat hull is the trusted workhorse in bays, harbors, and marinas throughout Costa Rica. Many have been rigged for sportfishing before, however the Explorer is a new take on the concept of panga fishing.

Adding the ‘Client Console’ in addition to the ‘Captain’s Console’ allows our guest to get neck deep in the fishing action.

These are the original sketches that would become the Explorer. Made by Craig Sutton in May 2010, the final product bears a very strong resemblance to the these sketches

July 2010 – Hull Fabrication nearly complete at Nicaraguan Boat Works

August 2010 – Hull complete, awaiting delivery to Nosara for Rigging

October 2010 – Delivered successfully to Nosara Paradise Rentals.

November 2010 – First Water Test. Motor and Steering install complete.

Radio Arch built by Blue Water Towers and delivered to Nosara. Installed by Matty, Craig Jr., Grevin, and Comi during late-November 2010.

December 19, 2010 – Launch Day

Comi watches the tide and waits for the proper moment to launch.

Captain David finalizes the last details.

Captain Jack observes the Explorer from Playa Garza.

Captain David, Captain Jack, and Captain Craig on the Maiden Voyage.

‘Client Console’ has it’s own bottom machine and a great view of the action. The Explorer was booked for the first five days she was in the water, and her schedule is filling up fast. Look at all these clients getting their first taste of ‘Extreme Panga Fishing’…Do you have what it takes?

Maria Eulogia and Me: Part 1 – First Contact

Article by Matthew Jorn

In mid-November 2010 I was in the Orlando International Airport waiting for my flight to Costa Rica. Just before boarding I bid farewell to my iPhone’s trusty 3G connection with a final swoop through my RSS reader so that my flight time might be passed reading the news. The top story on every news service: Nicaragua Invades Costa Rica!

Of course the headlines were a bit overblown; in fact Nicaragua had made a move a few kilometers across the northeastern border in an apparent water rights feud for a muddy little creek. The story seemed distant and small at the time; within seven days I would be neck deep in it.

Some context: For three years I have been closely involved with FishingNosara, a charter fishing organization near Nosara, Costa Rica. The quality of fishing in this area is truly amazing due to the closeness of the underwater ledge and the light human impact on the fishery. While the rest of the world struggles with overfishing, pollution and other 21st century problems, the Playa Garza-based Captains are still catching great fish less than ten miles from shore.

November 22 was another day in paradise for me. I woke up early, had a hot breakfast for like a dollar, and headed down to Playa Garza for a day of fishing on my boat, the Wanderer. On board were myself, four clients from Florida, the captain and the two mates.

We trolled around early in the day and didn’t have much luck, so Captain William pointed the Wanderer offshore about 30 miles. I was in the cabin preparing some lures when I heard a shout from the deck.

“Matty!” It was Alex the First Mate. “Get up here…and get your camera!”

It looked like a frigate at first (being from Jacksonville, FL I see my fair share of naval vessels) but then I noticed two important details: 1.) It had what appeared to be the nets they use to catch field goal attempts at football games, and 2.) It was not alone.

Trailing from the rear of the 189 foot trawler were six smaller boats strung out on a cable like ants on a log. One by one they detached and made large ellipses around the central vessel. On the deck of the large craft was a bright yellow helicopter.

This is a purse seine, also called a circle net boat. You know that small green screen-basket that comes with aquariums so you can grab your goldfish? Imagine that but a few miles wide and 100 feet deep.

This commercial fishing is the equivalent of strip mining; in addition to catching their main target (Yellowfin Tuna) they also strip that whole expanse of ocean of everything bigger than plankton.

The effect on the ecosystem is disastrous from this kind of fishing because it completely circumvents evolution by not allowing any quarter for the smartest/strongest/fastest of the population to survive and reproduce. Because of this, international law restricts these fishing vessels to waters 100 miles off shore to limit their impact on the territorial fisheries of places like Costa Rica.

Their one weakness? Dolphins getting caught up in the nets. They tear up the equipment, endanger lives of the crew, have no meat value, and create a PR nightmare for the tuna industry; remember how the public demands “Dolphin-Safe Tuna”. The purse seine captains need a way to skim a school of tuna out of the ocean without pesky dolphins getting in the way, and here is the novel approach they’ve come up with:

Drop Bombs on the Dolphins from the Helicopter.

I don’t care who you are, that is just plain messed up. It does work though, because as I pulled back the zoom on my camera from the purse seine I noticed that a stampede of dolphins were evading that boat with all possible haste.

“I betcha that’s the same boat that attacked that charter boat back in August,” offered one of the clients.

We’d read an article where another sport-fishing vessel from Garza had run across an operation like this and was subsequently bombed, rammed, nearly scuttled, and whilst limping back to port was subjected to taunting and jeers from the purse seine crew about their “victory” over the sport-fishing boat.

Apparently the captain had also heard that story because he decided to join the dolphins; that it say, run like hell from that vessel. I did get a close enough shot to read the name off the prow with my camera: “Maria Eulogia”

Funny thing with helicopters is that you can feel them take off before you hear them, and this holds true even over the loud noise of the sea. The yellow chopper lifted off quickly and was over us in a flash.

It made several long, low sweeps of the area…I pointed my camera up the whole time even if I couldn’t keep the bumblebee in frame. If he wanted to sink us I at least wanted to have it on record. By the way, SD memory cards are waterproof.

For whatever reason the helicopter left us alone and returned to the Maria Eulogia. In less than a half hour the fast-moving net boats were also stowed and the vessel was out like a thief in the night with it’s illegal haul.

Back on shore the town was buzzing over the news of the Maria Eulogia. A news crew came all the way from San Jose and interviewed me for an exclusive story that night. It was beamed across the SKY Network to most of Central America and throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

I felt a naive sense of accomplishment in the knowledge that people in Costa Rica really care about their environment and are passionate about the fishery. Turns out the interest was more nationalistic than I first realized.

After a shower and a drink I was just about to nod off to sleep when a pounding came to my front door. Daniel, who had helped me upload the video to Youtube and contact the wire services, was visibly excited with news. He bounded into the foyer of Casa Capitan.

“You’re not gonna believe it! I just saw your footage on Repretel (a major Costa Rican news agency). The boat was Nicaraguan…this is all related to the border dispute.”

I didn’t know what to say but fortunately Daniel had already made a plan.

“I just got off the phone with Repretel. They want to send a camera crew on a little tuna boat hunt. We’re going out to find that boat again tomorrow!”

I slept well that night, knowing that tomorrow I was about to royaly piss-off:

a.) the Nicaraguan Government

b.) the Nicaraguan Fishing Corporation

c.) the Nicaraguan crew of a boat armed with bomb-dropping helicopters

d.) all of the above

and that good night’s sleeps might be very scarce in my future.

Coming Soon – Part II: A Reunion with Maria, Tuna Bloodbath, and The State of Costa Rican Journalism

The Wanderer Story

The Wanderer Story

or, How a couple of car guys took this:

and turned it into this:

It started as a very simple dream: find a old sturdy boat, clean ‘er up, bolt some nice motors on it, take it down to Costa Rica and go fishing.

I bought the Wanderer March of 2009, figuring I had what I needed in the form of my auto shops in Jacksonville and my good friend Captain Jack Weinnman (an experienced angler in his own right and an ASE Master Mechanic).

We also enlisted Matty from the car lot, who despite knowing absolutely nothing about boats seemed willing to perform the manual labor, keep the shop clean, and run out for parts/food.

The Wanderer herself was for sale in nearby Mayport, FL by the widow of the late Captain Jack Woodruff, a local legend in the Northeast Florida fishing community.

The Wanderer was a 1983 T-Craft Cabin Model with inboard diesel power and had been rigged for light fishing and heavy relaxation: Full interior lighting, shower, heating, air conditioning, five-speaker surround sound…you get the idea.

With the team assembled and the boat at our shops in Florida, we began the first task of stripping the Wanderer of all major systems and components…basically all the way down to the stringers and the hull.

It was during this process that our respect for Captain Woodruff and his boat began to take shape. EVERY bolt, nut, washer, and screw was tight and properly serviced. He had poured so much time and energy into the Wanderer that I knew we were going revive this boat to perfection.

We quickly learned that things don’t come out of boats quite as easily as they look…if you don’t believe me try to pull a 300lbs. Markon AC Generator through an opening the size of a doggie door.

Calling on Captian Chris Savitz and his father for an assist, Jack and Matty gutted the boat over a three week period. The finished the teardown bypulling the diesel inboard at the end of May.

At this point, the guys in the shop got back to cars and I took the Wanderer to South Florida. At Whitewater Boat Corp. in Miami, FL she received a fresh coat of blue bottom paint, new deck panels, and a sturdy transom for the forthcoming Yamahas. Then it was over to Blue Water Towers in Boyton Beach, FL for the canopy tower.

Around this time in the project it became apparent that we must think ahead to the kinds of problems boats have years after their built. The Wanderer is bound to live out her years in Costa Rica roughly 1200 miles from a decent boat shop. This was very apparent when we saw the condition of the fuel tanks.

Clearly this tank was not ready for Costa Rica. Jack and Matty got the unenviable task of pulling both 200 gallon tanks and draining them of old diesel. Then using this measured graphic and some incredible phone skills Jack had a welder fabricate two perfect replacements. This is a small example of the attention to detail that is necessary throughout a project like this.

The Wanderer returned to home base in July, when we enlisted yet another car guy to make this boat happen. Martin Rodriguez is a freelance paint and body specialist who does a lot of car work for me.  He is a Tico (by way of New York City) and he does really nice work. He’d never done a boat this size, but figured it was worth a shot.

Along with his assistant Dave, Martin did a fantastic job with this boat. The blue puts even the Costa Rican waters to shame.

We devised a slick way to install the live well using existing structures in the hull, and turned to Oasis Boatyards in St. Augustine, FL to do the fiberglass fabrication.

These guys did an outstanding job and even drove the 90 mile roundtrip to come help us with the final details. They could’ve made us bring the boat to them, but I feel showed a lot of class by going out of their way for us.

By the end of July we saw the Wanderer in her new colors, and we got our first glimpse of how awesome this thing could be. Jack and I built a black Lexan Console while Matty got deep into polishing and buffing the bow rails, anchor box and every nut, bolt, and washer we pulled off the boat.

It was also around this time that pictures of this boat were first included in the monthly Fishing Nosara Fishing Report, which in turn led to a flurry of calls, emails, and visits to the shop to see exactly what we were up to and exactly how crazy we were.

With tons of “advice” from these spectators we got down to installing the instruments, steering, fighting chair, tower, new rub rails and live tuna tunas, plus outfitting the interior to comfortably support twelve anglers. Jack busied himself with all the wiring while Matty and I prepped the bow rails, anchor assemblies, and teak trim.

We brought in Carl Schmidt (first mate on my boat Fishtastic and a master carpenter) to assist our refit of the cabin. Where once was a refrigerator, AC generator, and freshwater recycler is now a rack of custom tackle boxes.

September was a month of furious activity as the deadline for shipping loomed at the end of the month. We finished rigging the bottom machine, bilge pumps, tuna tubes, and a half-dozen or so other systems with about a week to spare.

The last hurtle was getting a custom piece of 1.25 inch thick steel to anchor the fighting chair directly to the stringers. My son Craig Jr. is a master fabricator and he came through with an extremely strong anchor plate that will keep that chair in the fight for decades.

The motors were waiting in Costa Rica, but everything else was ready to fish when we sent her off on September 22.

After eight months of sweat, stress, deliberation, frustration, aggravation, sleepless nights, seven-day work weeks, dozens of trips to boat/metal/woodworking/tool and die/machine shops, twelve tubes of 5200, six ruined drill bits, a few hundred pages of Customs paperwork, and a 1,500 mile boat ride…the Wanderer arrived safe and sound in Nosara in early October.

I arrived in November to oversee the installation of the motors and the final rigging of all the tackle. You can see that Alex (the Wanderer‘s First Mate, second picture down) was ready to man his station even before we had the motors on!

Using seven strong men and a stronger tree branch, we got the motors in place as our Yamaha representatives oversaw the final installation, priming and inital firing of the twin 125 motors.

For those who have never witnessed a boat launch on the beach with a backhoe, it’s certainly a thrill…especially when that’s your boat our there! These Ticos are pros, and they know what they are doing.

Eight month since purchasing the Wanderer she was back in the water on November 13, 2009.

We wanted to christen the Wanderer with some lady luck (or karmic Zen blessings, depending on whose side you believe) so we invited some of the local Yoga students to come along for the test drive.

Something worked right because the next day Mike Young, Larry Mayo, and Clyde Gardner caught this gorgeous Black Marlin…the first on the Wanderer and a Hall of Fame catch.

Then the Wanderer got into some serious fishing. On the 15th I pulled up a 45lbs. Dorado and a nice sailfish. Also our first client Jimmy Dougherty caught his first ever Yellowfin tuna.

November 16th I brought in five 40lbs. Dorado and a 200lbs. Black Marlin along with my good buddy Chris Savitz (who remember helped get the inboard motor out of the Wanderer back in the Spring).

On November 17th we lost a HUGE 700lbs. Marlin right at the boat, but we cheered up by boating ten 30lbs.- 40lbs. dorado and ten 30lbs. Yellowfin tuna. We nailed ‘em again on the 18th; along with Javier Hernandez we caught a 300lbs. Black Marlin, six 20lbs. yellowfin and a pair of 30lbs. dorado.

Finally on the 21st Matty was aboard the boat he poured so much sweat, blood, and energy into. I am happy to report that his first catch on the Wanderer was this beautiful 30lbs. dorado.

I’m loving life right now. You’re welcome to come on down and join us. Trips on the Wanderer are being booked left and right, so hurry up and reserve your dates today. Thanks again to everyone who was part of this project. It’s been a heckofa trip.

Craig Sutton

November 27, 2009

Epilogue: The Wanderer, One Year Later

Coming Soon