The Travels of 4 Couch Potatoes: I Should Have Never Got On A God Damn Boat

There would be no white Christmas for us in Costa Rica. Although we were up in the clouds, the temperature still hovered around 70-plus degrees Fahrenheit. I took a 6 AM stroll along some of the Monteverde Lodge's trails. The only thing to see were a couple of birds, but it was a peaceful walk.

A blue-crowned motmot sits on a bridge at the Monteverde Lodge.

We said our goodbyes to the Montaverde area and took a bumpy road down towards Guanacaste. Once we were at sea level, the heat was a quick reminder that we were close to the equator. At least the roads were back to normal. The entire drive took us less than four hours.

By the time we had made the decision to come to Costa Rica, many of the hotels were already completely booked. We eschewed the all-inclusive resorts because they wouldn't be worth it for us on this trip. We had many activities planned and would be away from our hotel most of the day. After much debate over the remaining options, we decided on Hotel Sugar Beach on Playa Portrero, just north of the Playa Flamingo area.

None of the hotels in Costa Rica have private beaches. It’s a law that beach-side properties have to allow public access to everybody. While this is a great policy that allows everybody to have access to the best beaches, it could also make them very crowded, especially during the holiday season. We decided on Hotel Sugar Beach because it is far enough away from the major towns and tourist areas. While it doesn't have the prettiest of beaches (black volcanic sand), it is sparsely occupied. Pretty much everybody there is a guest of the hotel. In fact, Hotel Sugar Beach does a good business with destination weddings. Random beach-goers won't crash the ceremony, and those great wedding photographs won't be ruined by fat men in tiny Speedos in the background.

We would be staying in one of the master suites for the next few days.The Kids liked the room because one of the three English speaking television channels continuously reran old "Simpsons" cartoons.

This half of the suite was air-conditioned.

This half was useless as it remained too hot during the day.

The bathroom facilities were fine.

But the shower pressure was a bit
too much on the weak side.

We would have had an incredible view of the beachfront...

...from our balcony, but too many large trees blocked our vision.

The view of the hotel's infinity pool from our balcony.

We had a late lunch at the hotel’s al fresco restaurant. The food was okay but the service was very slow. I suspect the waiters all moved at a snail's pace so that they wouldn't break a sweat in the heat and humidity.

Chicken tenders from the kids menu

Grilled chicken from the kid's menu

Ceviche

Guacamole with chips

Fish tacos

We spent the afternoon at the beach. The hotel has snorkeling equipment and boogie boards that guests can borrow for free. We tried boogie boarding. It was a disaster. The beach has several large rocks just at the edge of the water. The Wife wiped out on one on her first attempt, getting some serious road rash on her leg in the process. The Boy got his pinkie finger tangled in the board’s wrist strap, leading to a pretty deep gash. The Girl didn't make it but just a few feet into the ocean because the rocks were hurting her feet too much. I didn't get hurt, but I didn't have much success going fast on the boogie boards. I guess the waves were too weak to push fat guys.

The beach in front of the hotel has very little crowds...or shade.

Under a copse of trees, amenities such as lounge chairs and massages are offered.

We also ate dinner later that night at the hotel’s restaurant.

Pita pizza

Seafood rice

Garlic shrimp

Chicken breast with passion fruit sauce

*****

Friday, December 26

I was awakened early the next morning by large waves crashing on the beach. It was pretty windy outside making the ocean pretty choppy. The hotel's restaurant doesn't open until 7 AM for breakfast. We made do with cheese sandwiches and bananas.

Several white-throated magpie-jays flocked to our balcony hoping to get a nibble of our sandwiches.

We were picked up at 6:45 AM by Vicky, the owner of a sports fishing boat called the Wet Ass II. She was an ex-pat who had moved down to Costa Rica six years ago. She bought the boat from a long time sports fisherman and hired a crew of some Ticos—Glenn, the captain, and Manuel, the first mate.

The western coastline of Costa Rica has some great offshore sports fishing. People can catch large sailfish, yellowfin tunas, mahi mahi, rooster fish, wahoo’s, etc. Inshore there are smaller, easier fish like bonita, jacks, mackarels, etc. We had the option of ½ day (4hrs inshore only), ¾ day (6 hrs offshore and inshore), and full day (8 hrs offshore and inshore). We went with the ¾ charter hoping to mainly be offshore fishing for the larger sports fish.

There is no dock at Playa Flamingo. Boats are accessed via water taxi.

Our ride for the next six hours

The Wetass II has all the amenities including a fighting chair, a powerful motor, and plenty of shade in the cabin.

Our view of the captain for pretty much the whole trip

There was plenty of space to deploy four
reels with some backups just in case.

During the trip, we used exclusively
artificial lures to attract the fish.

The inside cabin provides plenty of shade. The only problem is that it gets really hot.

Sadly, we would have no use for this large hook.

What the boat didn't have was shock absorbers. We weren't aware that the waves tend to get pretty rough during the end of the year. The boat headed out to Catalina Island just west of Playa Flamingo. Outside the protection of the Cove, the winds caused the boat to heave up and down on the larger waves. In less than an hour on the boat, The Boy was leaning over the side vomiting. Children’s dramamine is crap.

The Boy gets busy fertilizing the water.

The crew trolled the waters around Catalina Island for an hour using artificial lures but didn’t get a single bite. Then they turned the ship around and headed back into shore. For the next 4-5 hours, the captain made loops back and forth as we caught about a dozen bonita. There’s absolutely no challenge in catching these fish. Plus, nobody (except the Japanese) eat these fish so we threw them all back. It was nice that The Kids were able to catch some fish for the first time. But after landing 2-3 of them with minimal effort, they were quickly bored. It’s sad when a fish poses little sport for a 7 year old.

The Boy took time off from his vomiting
to try his hand at landing some fish.

Our first catch was a bonita.

The Girl found the strength to reel in the fish by herself.

Yay! Another fish...another bonita.

Sigh...yet another bonita.

We kept some small fish to use as bait for some bigger sports fish.

I asked our deck hand if we could sail out any farther to try for some bigger fish. The captain went out a little farther but not that much more where bigger sports fish would be. They never did switch over and use the small fish that we caught as bait.

I did land two slightly larger Pacific crevalle Jacks, but they weren't much of a consolation prize.

It was a hard pill paying $1,000 for six hours of boredom. To say that I was very disappointed is an understatement. While I know that nobody can control the weather, there were many things that the crew could have done better. For one thing, there was zero communication between us and the captain. In fact, we really only saw him when we boarded the boat and when we left. All communication was through the first mate who either had limited English or was pretty much not interested in speaking with us. He set the lines, unhooked the fish, and made us a couple of sandwiches. Otherwise from that, we had no significant interaction with the crew. They barely communicated to us where we were going or what we were trying to catch. It was an extremely frustrating experience. I gave the crew a 18% tip just out of generosity. However, I regretted it almost immediately.

The Kids were so bored on the boat that they spent most of the time napping.

Vicky, who truly seemed like she wanted us to have a good time, said that she radioed the captain to see if we wanted to switch the tour to just half a day. She suggested that he sail to a nice spot and let the kids jump in the water to change things up. However, none of these options were ever relayed to us. She was even shocked that we were never offered her signature deviled eggs during the 6 hours we were aboard. Apparently, the recipe was handed down from the previous owners and are supposed to be for good luck. She said that she spends a long time making them for each charter. Maybe skipping this tradition cursed us with bad fishing luck. Whatever the cause, the fishing excursion was the low point of our Costa Rica vacation.

After recovering back at our hotel for awhile, we went to the Beach House restaurant for dinner. They have a deal where they cook up your freshly caught fish for about 3,000 colones/person. Usually people bring in tasty fish such as mahi mahi, snappers, grouper, etc. I was a bit worried that our Pacific crevalle jacks would taste awful since they do have a reputation for being marginal table fare. We shared the four fillets and they grilled half and deep fried the other half. Their deep fried batter was really good, making it the better of the two options.