One of my best friends was onboard.  Lauren was hanging and tolerating us and cooking and stuff.  We were exploring San Bernardos, which we were enjoying thoroughly.  And we were working hard to find fish here.  The good news is that this morning, we had a local guide.  Local knowledge is key in this kind of thing – the ability to leverage 30-40 years of local fishing experience is important.  Very important.  Which is why I prefer the old fishermen. 

Out There In San Bernardos

Our guide – Payllo (Pay-yo) was in his late 40’s (maybe 50’s?).  Not ancient, but old enough to know where we can produce fish.  We had a quick talk about where we wanted to go, what we wanted to hunt, and how deep we could dive.  Then we jumped in his buddy’s launcha (panga) and headed out. 

I think he was a little skeptical about what we were about to do, how deep we could dive, etc. 

The islands began fading in the distance and the water got that deep-blue that I really love. Deep, blue water has come to mean big fish to me.  Some people get a little nervous in that kind of open water but I absolutely love it. Payllo told us it was over 100M underneath us, as the islands faded into the horizon. 

As miles of water passed beneath our little boat, I actually started getting excited.  Suddenly the deep blue turned to turquoise.  We were on a bank, part of a reef system that extended from the San Bernardos all the way up to the Rosarios.  Payllo dropped his anchor (a big rock, at the end of several pieces of ragged line) and I flipped over the side.  Dan and Lauren got geared up as I surveyed the underwater landscape.  This was good country.

Good Country 

There are things that I’ve learned to recognize as good signs when I jump into a new spearfishing spot in a new country in some remote part of the world.  The presence of some fish species (specifically the ones that blur the line between reef and pelagic), the amount of life, and the amount of structure (hiding spots for large fish).  In my initial scan I saw several Ocean Triggerfish (and their holes on the bottom), some holes in the reef, and plenty of life.  That’s enough to take a spot seriously.

We were in about 50 foot of water, with parts of the reef coming up within 35 feet of the surface.  The Ocean Triggerfish were everywhere, so I knew I was going home with plenty of fish.  I made a few dives to check out depth and warm up.  On my third dive a prehistoric-sized Ocean Trigger got overly curious and wound up in the bottom of our boat, after a stone-shot. Then another one.  Then I started ignoring all of the Ocean Triggerfish and switched to hole-hunting and scanning for the familiar outlines of snapper and grouper. 

We dove this spot for a couple of hours.  I found a school of Yellow Jacks, one of which I was able to put in the boat.  Then I called the dive, we moved to a different spot. We already had a ton of fish, so I was becoming much more selective.  Dan was struggling with loading his speargun, and I’d decided that he was just being a sissy – so I largely left him to his own devices.  The truth, I found out later – was that his speargun had shipped with bands that were WAY too short.  That’s a good way to screw up any spearfishing expedition.  Back to the story…

At the second spot there was less life. I’d largely decided that this wasn’t going to be a productive spot and started diving for lobster and crab, which is entirely different than spearfishing for larger fish.   When lobster and crab become the primary targets – you quit scanning for the outlines of larger fish.  You begin scanning for holes that may be productive, diving to the bottom and poking your head as far in the hole as possible, letting your eyes adjust, and hoping to see a crab or the telltale antenna of the lobster…

But as I was ascending from one of these dives, I saw something I would have never expected.  At first it was just an outline, then two.  I saw the telltale pelagic body shape, then as everything became clearer – I saw the pectoral fins of a species that I could identify in my sleep.  It was a pair of Wahoo cruising the bank – in 45 feet of water. 

They weren’t small wahoo either.  They were the kind that can take your gear if you’re not operating with a reel or a floatline.  Naturally, my reel had broken and I didn’t expect to get into pelagics – so I was running with my spear connected directly to my gun.  Not equipped for this kind of fish. 

But nothing risked, nothing gained. 

I kicked slowly behind them, hoping to gain a bit of distance on them.  I had no flashers to throw to attract their attention, I had no flashers hanging below me to bring them in – so I was playing a losing game as I tried to gain ground on the fastest fish in the ocean.

After a few minutes of kicking after them I’d managed to get above them, of course they were almost on the bottom, so they were still 45 feet below me and moving quickly.  I tried again to close the distance, but they were onto me.  A quick flip of their tail and my dreams of landing a big wahoo in the Caribe without reel or floatline faded into the distance. A bit of a bummer, but a massive boost to my determination and faith in this particular spot. 

As if we needed any more good news – Dan took a shot a big Amberjack (but missed).  All signs pointed to a fishy spot – especially for this part of the world.  Then we went back to the mothership, where Dan swam around a bit and found another amberjack but didn’t get steel into fish.  It began to occur to me that this could be the spot, at least in this area.

Dan cleans fish

We gave our guide some fish.  Then I took some fish over to our friends at the hostel.  They were happy to trade the fish for beer.  I was happy to trade the fish for beer.  Win-win, I reckon.  With this trade, I’d finally accomplished a pretty massive achievement onboard – trading fish (which I usually have plenty of) for beer (which I’m usually out of).  

Ceviche and Puffer Dan’s battle wounds

Back onboard I whipped up some ceviche, which Puffer Dan quickly began shoveling into his mouth.  Lauren made an angelfood cake, with whipped cream frosting, topped with fresh strawberries.  I could lie to you and tell you we weren’t eating like Kings and a Queen – but that would be a lie.   The above pic shows how bad loading Dan’s speargun was wrecking his stomach…  

Ceviche, con mango

That night we went back to the hostel and had a couple of drinks, then came back to NOMAD – where Lauren crashed and Dan and I sat up talking and solving the world’s problems, while we attempted to find the bottom of a bottle of Colombian rum. 

Puffer Dan and the Rum

But we didn’t get too crazy. 

Tomorrow we had another spearfishing date with our guy Payllo, but this time an hour earlier.  And it was open season on any edible fish – the hostel wanted as much fish as we could give them.  And I was bringing my flashers and Dan was bringing his floatline.

We would be ready in case some of the larger underwater species made an appearance.

Out There In San Bernardos