At the Tuesday meeting in Boquete, a woman was selling tickets to a local theatre production. As we talked to her, we found out that she was going to Boca Chica that weekend, and was looking for another couple to share the costs of going out on a boat … so we jumped in! Back down the mountain to the Panamerican Highway and an hour south is a peninsula that juts out into the bay. Off of this peninsula is an archipelago of islands known as Boca Chica. We drove down on Friday and had lunch on the cliffs overlooking the islands. Afterwards, we took a water taxi to one of the islands nearby to look around. We spent the night at our boat captain's little Panamanian house he was renovating, and cooked steaks on a barbeque. The next morning we walked down to the dock to embark on our seafaring adventure.
We decided to do some fishing, but needed some bait, so our first stop was to fish using what Murrell called Cuban yoyo's … fishing lines on a hand-held wheel that we dropped in the water and slowly pulled up. We also used some casting rods. I was the first to catch a fish! We caught two small fish and a couple of Bonitas … larger fish, but not good for eating. Then we went out around the Secas, some islands of the archipelago, and trolled around for a while to catch some lunch. We caught a good sized Skip-Jack, a type of Tuna, and and some type of smaller moon fish. We used the two live fish and cut up parts of the Bonitas to bottom fish, but didn't catch anything. At one point, I thought I had caught a shark. It really pulled hard … and we took turns trying to reel him in … only to find out that we had hooked a crevice on the bottom of the ocean!
It was a great day to be out on the ocean. The water was calm, the sun was shining, and we had a pleasant ocean breeze to cool us. The many islands were diverse and beautiful, as were the birds we saw.
After fishing, we went to a small beach area with a coral reef and did some snorkeling. The water was amazing clear and there was a large variety of fish to see. When we got back to the boat from snorkeling, our captain, Murrell, had cooked our fish on the grill for us. It was fabulous!
We came back to dock late in the afternoon, and arrived back in Caldera in time for the superbowl. An awesome weekend with our new friends.
I remember one time when I was down in Mexico on vacation, we went fishing and also caught quite a few bonitas. We also got pretty lucky and caught 3 sailfin fish - about 6 feet long. Also caught some fish called dolphin fish. Boy are they delicious!! Maybe you can find them in a restaurant.
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