| Isla Malpelo Offshore Report
Tropic Star Lodge,
Panama
October 6th-15th, 2006
Report by Moose |
Rocktober was getting into full swing, and we were getting
ready to head south to the
Tropic
Star Lodge in Pinas Bay, Panama. The trip came together as an attempt
to explore the unknown waters of the Malpelo islands, some 300 miles southwest
of the lodge. We were going on a mission to check off all the species that
could be possibly caught, but mainly with the hopes of getting into a brawl
with some big Black Marlin. A group of local Texas anglers were assembled
to crew two different 31’ Bertrams that we would tow out behind our
mothership, the Ventura.
The crews consisted of Scott Andrews, Billy, Gary, Cody, and
Howard (Team Old Farts) and YT, Scott Nelson, Cole, and myself (Team Young
Punks) rounded out by Mike Andrews, Capt Rusty, and Richard to man the Ventura,
and the two toughest mates in Pinas Bay - Junior and Gilbert. Along for the
adventure, the Heldter Skeldter, a 60’ Garlington brought up the rear
of the fleet.
We flew into Panama City.
Panama Canal
We caught a plane to Pinas Bay
Had to hop a ride to the lodge in a panga
Bienvenidos
During our stay at the lodge, we encountered some Jurassic Park sized creatures.
Just before it stuck a dart in his neck
Mothra
This beast was about 10 inches long
We started to get ready to load the mothership up, and they invited
us into the tackle depot to pick our weaponry out. This collection of artillery
would make anyone drop their jaw
The Armory!
Some of the local kayuga fleet, hand carved out of the local trees.
The mothership VENTURA
Getting ready to tie the 31’s on.
Leaving land for awhile…
And just like that, the adventure began. We were loaded down
with snacks and supplies, plenty of water and PANAMA Beer, enough tackle
in any shape or size to catch all the fish in the sea, and a salty crew that
was willing to risk it all to the mercy of the seas and pirates. We set a
course due SW, and trudged onward through 10’ seas and rain squalls,
at a steadily slow pace of 7 knots for a little more than 2 days. The seas
were relentless and would put us to the test while having to recover the
31’s three different times as a rogue wave would bash the little boats
around and break the rigging. There was never a dull moment, but the anticipation
of fishing was quite agonizing and we were wondering if we were even going
to make it in one piece.
By the second morning, we are some 30 miles away from this rock,
a 22 million year old extinct volcano, rising from depths of 14,000 feet.
It’s still too dark to see, but the radar is lighting something up that
is huge, 30 miles ahead. As the sun starts to break an ominous silhouette
in the distance begins to appear on the horizon. Haze and clouds shrouded
it’s outline, resembling a modern day Skull Island.
I had stepped out on the deck to get the photos of first sighting
of Isla Malpelo. A few others were on the deck, when a cry went out below
that everyone knew immediately what it meant.
“THRESHER”
30 yards off the port side, a large thresher shark free jumped
twice and came crashing down with thunderous commotion, as if to welcome
us to the forbidden islands. We were in some of the most heavily shark populated
waters in the world. Legends of Hammerheads in schools that can’t be
counted echoed just below us. A trio of Frigate birds came out to us and
escorted us further into area.
During the night we had broke off one of the 31’s
and had to abandon a rescue attempt due to the darkness and rough seas. Junior,
the mate onboard mad been up for 40 hrs and had to drive the 31 after we
broke off around 1am. Around 5:30, Junior radioed us for assistance, but
still being dark we had to tell him to push on until light to minimize the
risk of trying to catch and tie off the 31 without light.
At first light we started to come up with a plan to secure the boat for the
remaining 25 miles.
YT looked at us and said “Lets swim to the 31 and take over for Junior
the rest of the way in, and we can fish the 25 miles in.”
“Swim???”
“In these waters???”
“Are you Kidding?!”
A few minutes of hesitation to think about it… “Screw it!
Let’s Go.”
The 4 Young Punks jumped into the sea and boarded the 31 Bertram,
SCANDIA. All we had were life jackets shorts and two cameras. Shirts, sunscreen,
sunglasses, hats, and lures would have to stay behind on the mothership.
The Ventura left us to catch the fish and let God sort ‘em out.
We got the lines out and made trolling speed for the island
that loomed in the distance with the mothership dwarfed in the foreground.
We were in evil waters.
The first 30 minutes was uneventful, just sitting watching the
spread and going through the mental checklists of setting the drags and clickers
and riggers, while performing a couple of diagnostic engine checks to make
sure there was no damage from the previous hours of pounding. The engines
droned on and we trudged over the 10’ waves with a spread of Moldcraft
lures popping. The sounder started to climb as we approached the ledge of
the seamount. Frigate birds patiently soared above, marking the targets beneath
them.
Just then a rubberband snapped and the clicker began to sound the alarm –
FISH ON.
This was the beginning of greatest display of fish I’ve
ever seen. Dorado were everywhere! 10 dorado at a time were lined up behind
each teaser and lure, taking turns slashing at the plastic squid. After the
first 5 dorado, we couldn’t get the entire spread out due the fish hitting
the lures and baits as soon as you’d throw them out the back.
After 10 dorado, we started to release them since we didn’t
have anymore room in the killbox. They were all around 15-20 pounds and we
were starting to get bored with catching them.
Just as we said, “where is that 60# big bull dorado?”
The starboard rigger lure disappears with a lot more weight on it. Cole grabbed
the rod and set the hook. The adrenaline in his speech gave away the size
of the fish, “I’ve got something heavy here!”
And then it exploded out of the water.
Huge.
Powerful.
Massive.
But most of all…Strong!
Everybody on board locked up out of fear and amazement. And
in unison, we all screamed it at once – “MARLIN!” The beast
hit on a Tiagra 50 and never even gave us a chance to capture it. It just
roared through the ocean, crashing out of the waves, and never stopped
accelerating. Luckily I snapped a photo off at the right time as it jumped
behind us, laughing at our light tackle. We just looked at each other and
said “we’re gonna need the big guns here.” Later the fish
was Identified as a Black Marlin from the photo.
We called into the Ventura and told them of the marlin. The
Heldter Skeldter got the message and came out to us quickly, not wanting
to miss out on the phenomenal game fishing. They immediately got hooked up
to Blue Marlin and fought it while we watched as waves crashed over their
transom as the captain backed down hard on the fish.
This was greatest hunting ground I’ve ever seen or witnessed.
But that was soon to be the kiss of death. We had come to the Garden of Eden,
and eaten the forbidden fruit. We were cursed. The call came soon after the
Heldter Skeldter hooked up…
-“Scandia, Scandia, Ventura over.”
-“This is the Scandia”
-“Hey guys quit fishing. The Columbian Military has just boarded the
Ventura, and they are not asking us to leave, They are forcing us to leave.
We are not welcome here. You guys stay out there until we give you the
word.”
-“WTF?”
So we quit fishing for a moment. By this time we’ve been
fishing for almost 2 hrs and are sunburned bad. To make things worse, we
ran out of water and drinks on the boat. We are wanting to get back to get
our gear but now we have no idea what is happening on the Ventura. The guys
on the Ventura snapped a photo of the Columbians as they were approaching
the vessel.
Meanwhile we get tired of drifting and decide to get some lines
back in the water where they couldn’t see us. We continued to tear them
up with the lures and belly baits. We nailed a small silky shark, a couple
of the biggest rainbow runners I’ve ever seen, and a Yellowfin Tuna.
The Ventura finally called back after about 30 minutes and said
that they had negotiated 5 hours out the Columbians to make necessary repairs
to the 31’s. During the time they could call the Panamanian and Columbian
Consolates to figure out why we were getting resistance.
They told us to hide all of the fish incase they came to board
us. We all looked at each other and thought that Columbian prison wasn’t
worth all the fillets we had just caught, skinned, and cleaned. So we decide
we better dump them to avoid any wars. And like that, we threw over the greatest
chum slick in history, about 100 pounds of fresh Mahi and Tuna fillets. The
sharks were laughing.
We crept towards the mothership, like a teenager sneaking back
in the house. The island was huge and covered with life. Sea Birds of all
shapes and sizes made their nests high ontop the pinnacle that stands 800’
above the water. It was truly majestic, but mysterious.
A couple of Malpelo photos…note the mothership for scale.
During the 5 hours, we made a few calls and found out on the
4th hour that we had been granted permission to stay moored at the island.
Apparently the paper work from Columbia had somehow got stuck on the mainland
in Buenaventura, Columbia, where they had failed in getting the papers to
the island. We could stay but they also said that they had just changed the
laws about fishing 4 days ago. Apparently the laws changed from NO Fishing
within 5 miles to No Fishing within 28 miles. Greater than 28 miles meant
no structure, which meant no fish. So we decided to fix everything and get
underway back to the lodge. No more Malpelo.
Before we left we made sure the Columbians weren’t watching
and dropped a couple of jigs down off the side of the Ventura.
Fueled up the Heldter Skeldter
It sucked bad. Everywhere you could see, there were huge tuna crashing
the surface and birds circling overhead. Look at all the birds in the background.
We left just before sunset, and got underway with the two 31’s
in tow and the Heldter Skeldter behind. The sun made an erie glow over the
waters as we left the forbidden fishing grounds. As soon as we got away from
the rock, we picked up a large ship on the radar that was bearing down on
us 8 miles behind. The Heldter Skeldter was in the rear and visually confirmed
the vessel to be a Columbian war ship that was so kind to “escort”
us out of their waters.
Leaving Malpelo
So we basically took a boat ride to see an old volcano, get
run off by the Columbians, and experience the greatest 3 hrs of fishing ever.
We licked our wounds and held our heads up as we steamed back towards the
lodge in Panamanian waters. At least we still had 3 days to fish the
Tropic
Star Lodge.
We made it back safe and in one whole piece, an accomplishment
for 600 miles round trip on the Pacific. But we were greeted with the ever
present rainy season when back in Panama. It rained 2 out the 3 days we fished
there. But we pressed on through the storms.
The first day at TSL, we fished the famous Zane Grey reef. We
live trolled bonita for marlin for a while but after hrs with no sign we
resigned to bottom fishing the reef. We would drift the reef and drop down
jigs and cut bait. The curse of Malpelo would soon show it’s ugly face
as we managed to hook up some really good fish, but could never land any
of them. I had one that broke my will and sent down to my knees just trying
to hold on as the mystery fish just powered towards it’s hole in the
rocks. I’d like to think it was a huge grouper, but it was probably
the
Kraken
down there just teasing us and taking the $15 jigs one at time like lap
dances in a strip bar.
The 2nd day was sunny and nice. We had decided to have a little wager
on the days fishing between the two teams. We started out catching baits
on the reef to take out and live bait further offshore. It was a slow fishing
wise. We covered lots of water following frigate birds and longliners. We
finally struck a oceanic bonita to break the monotony, and a good cow dorado
were all we would pick off that day.
The guys on the other boat, Austrailia, radioed us later in
the afternoon that they’d hooked up a nice marlin. 30 minutes later
they called back to rub in the successful release of a nice 350#+ Black Marlin.
Congrats to Cody on his first Black.
We headed in. On the way in we saw some mirages, and Howard picked
off a dorado under a log close to the house.
One of the mirages pointed us the direction to the honey hole in the 11th
hour.
We got there and threw out the live bonita. It didn’t take
long and soon we were back in the game. A bonita on the down rigger pulled
free and started to peel off line. Nelson jumped into the chair and reeled
tight to the fish. It had some weight to it and he struggled for minute to
stop the beast from running. The Australia was on the way home also, and
they were right there for the action. We thought for sure we had the fish
to set the score to even at the last minute.
The fish charged the surface and breached, but didn’t give
us a good tell as to what it was. It might have been a marlin, but something
wasn’t exactly right either to be sure, it was long and silvery blue.
The fish sounded again and would remain on the bottom. Nelson started to
gain line and soon the top shot came to surface. We were almost to the swivel
when the curse laughed in our faces again, the line went slack just like
that. The leader had been cut by something with teeth. The Guys on the other
boat say they got a good look at it and they thought it was a mako. Who knows,
except that fish with a new circle hook souvenir. We payed up our debts.
The third and last day of fishing was the worst for rain. We got skunked
on the Scandia, but the Australia had a good morning bite of Wahoo just off
the rocks. They nailed 4 nice wahoo, and Billy caught this Houndfish. Thanks
for bring home the groceries guys, the wahoo dinner was very good.
We ate like kings and shared stories of fish and adventures
on the seas. The hospitality of the Andrews Family and the staff of the
Tropic
Star lodge was second to none. It is a world class destination that has
some of the greatest fishing and scenery in the world.
On the last day we were there, while we were waiting to head
back to the landing strip, we felt the earth shudder and quake beneath us.
The first of 3 earth quakes surprised us while we were drinking on the porch.
The second would come about an hour later and was about the same magnitude
as the first – about a 2 on the richter scale. While at the airstrip,
the real quake shook us pretty good. The ground was heaving up and down like
a rollercoaster for about 4 seconds. The
kraken
was down in his hole, pounding on the earth warning us to leave the area
due to the curse we had awoken. When I got back to the States, I found out
the location of the epicenter of the quake. About 5 miles away and about
10 miles deep – a 4.8 magnitude quake.
It was an amazing trip that was full of surprises. When asked
if I’d do it again with the same results, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
How often do you get to go and explore equatorial waters full of fish, danger,
and modern day Columbian Pirates?
A huge thanks for Mike and Scott Andrews to host such an adventure,
and another thanks to all of the crew for looking after each others backs
in hostile waters where the US Coast Guard isn’t a close call away.
It was an adventure that will not be soon forgotten.
As for Malpelo, hopefully it will remain a special place in
the world that won’t be spoiled by the humans. It is a treasure that
needs to be guarded forever.
If you are interested in a trip to
The
Tropic Star Lodge, you can visit them on the web at www.tropicstar.com.
And yes, the curse of Malpelo is alive and well.
- Moose
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