Tuesday, November 25, 2008

ASK ART - For your Crocodile Bay Questions

I am trying to decide between the standard boat package and the tower boat package. What is the main difference between the standard boat and the tower boat package?

For the Standard Boat Package, our most common boat is the Boston Whaler Outrage, a twin outboard engine 24fter, capable of inshore or offshore fishing, having a very stable ride and it is a quick boat. They go offshore or inshore easily. Offshore, mate is available if you request one. We also have other smaller inshore standard boats, depending on what you want to fish for, and for getting closer to shore and fly-fishing. We recommend one, two or three anglers on these boats. Our larger inshore fish like deep water. Either class of boats can fish inshore deep water or offshore. The Standard boat is better for targeting smaller fish and close to shore fishing.
For the Tower Boat Package, we have both the 33 ft Strikes and the 32 ft Boston Whaler. Our fishing director in all cases chooses the boat depending on your fishing goals and availability. We have ten of these big boats and during our busier weeks, all will be in use. These bigger boats give a smoother ride and my clients tell me they catch more sailfish and marlin than on the standard boats. These boats will take any number from two to four anglers. The Strikes are workhorses, with plenty of room and two configurations: one with a hatch and forward cabin for a lie-down if needed and the other with a large awning covered seating area in the center of the boat. The newer Boston Whaler 32 has the smoothest ride for a boat that size due to an advanced hull design and custom designed topside comfort features, including padded seats and bolsters. All offshore boats have wide outriggers for setting 4 lines out most of the time, with both teasers and live bait as the captains see fit.

In the standard boat package, the brochure describes the fishing as offshore, inshore, and estuary fishing your choice. Does that mean each day you choose and do a different fishing each day? Can you if you choose do all one type say, all three days of offshore with the standard package?

You have your own boat and captain so you decide what you want to do. You determine what fish you want to target, and that determines where you fish. It's the same charge for the boat to go inshore or offshore, and you can fish each day in one place, or switch each day as you like. We will even let you fish offshore in the AM and fish inshore on your way back in. We ask you to determine what you want to do before you arrive, so our Fishing Director can reserve boats and their captains, and plan how to use his resources.

However, we realize that people can change their mind, as long as we have 24 hours notice so we can get the boat ready properly. That means giving notice the morning before the day you would be fishing. The more advance notice you give us the happier we all are and you will get our best.

If we select the tower boat package and weather becomes an issue and the boats cannot go out is there an alternative?

At Crocodile Bay, we are in a tropic climate with a temperature range between 70 and 90 degrees all the time. It is T-shirts, shorts or swim trunks and sandals all the time. The rain we get comes from tall tower clouds with rain that comes straight down and then ends in an hour or so. These clouds build up over the day and dump in the afternoon or evening, almost all the time. The temperature of the rain is warm and you never get a chill. You get wet, you get dry, and it does not stop you from doing anything. It is a rainforest, after all. You will find sunny skies every morning, and when you go fishing, your captain will most likely be able to circle around the rain in the wide ocean offshore or even inshore, on the 30 mile by 15 mile Golfo Dulce. You may have a better chance of getting rain on land than on the water. The fish don’t know it’s raining!

New Turtle Watching and Monkey Tours at Crocodile Bay, Costa Rica


Costa Rica Eco Report,November 2008
by Alberto Herrera, Eco Director

For more information on these tours or this post contact blog@crocodilebay.com

Every year at Crocodile Bay Resort, we insure that when our yearly clients return, that they will find many pleasant new surprises, that were not available on their past trips. The following are some of our new tours we have created specifically for this reason;


The New Monkey Tour
The New World Monkeys are split into three families. The largest and most diverse family, with more than 30 species, is the Cebidae, which includes the four monkeys found in Costa Rica. Crocodile Bay Resort is located on the Osa Peninsula, in the southern zone of Costa Rica. This is the only place in the country than you can find all the four Costa Ricans monkeys species together such as the Mantled Howler Monkey, White-Throated Capuchin Monkey, Spider Monkey and Central America Squirrel Monkey.

At present, more than a third of the world’s primate species are listed as threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and about one in seven are in imminent danger of disappearing. This tour was created specifically for those who want to focus on these amazing species of monkeys in their natural habitat, but perhaps choose not to take the entire Rainforest Hike due to physical restrictions or time restraints.

Tour Details: Leaves at 8:00 am and returns by 11:30 am

Osa Palmas Canopy Tour
Costa Rican law protects 25% of its territory through the different Categories of Conservation. But there are many Privates Reserves that use their lands in Eco Friendly Activities. One of our most popular tours in the past year was our first Canopy Tour, due to its high popularity, we started providing it at night, for a new twist... and oh is it ever twisted in the dark! But because some of our clients were becoming addicted to the adrenaline of the activity, but at the same time, wanted a change of scenery, we added a new one!
Osa Palmas Canopy tour is a good example of Conservation in a tour of adventure and adrenaline. Our clients get to experience more speed every time in each of their five zip-lines, at the same time we are passing through and in between renewable plantations of trees, primary forest, secondary forest and wide open areas. Besides that, we have a total of eight platforms with heights from ground level to 36 meters over the ground, at the height of the canopy of the forest. The great views, the speed and adrenaline, as well as the presence of the flora and fauna of the area make it a great combination of experiences.


Marine Turtles Tour
For the last 50 years, more and more herpetologist and scientists have been concerned with the conservation of land, freshwater, and sea turtles. Finally, centers of protection and study have been created throughout the world, and controlled breeding has made reintroduction possible. Working to “secure a future where humans and sea turtles can live together in balance,” the Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network (WIDECAST) is an innovative, proactive and inclusive mechanism for sustainable development on a regional scale. Since 1981, the WIDECAST network, with Country Coordinators in more than 40 nations and territories, has linked scientists, conservationists, resource managers, resource users, policy-makers, industry groups, educators and other stakeholders together in a collective effort to develop a unified management framework.

WIDECAST has one of the projects in southern Costa Rica, and we are proud to support them, as well as show you how we are doing it. The Osa Peninsula is one of the most important place for nesting of marine turtles in Costa Rica, specifically at Carate Beach. Crocodile Bay Resort is supporting WIDECAST selling their products in our gift shop and developing this tour where you can be a part of the baby marine turtles migration while running to the ocean after hatching.
In the hatchery the marine turtle eggs are safe because the wildlife enemies can’t attack them.
Every morning hundreds of turtles hatch at the beach and the people in charge of this project release the baby turtles at the top of the beach. It’s very important turtles run from the top of the beach to the water by themselves, because on this way they will collect the information about different parameters of the beach, because with this information they will return in fifty years for nesting. Want a hands on experience with mother nature, while at the same time getting to play mother to baby sea turtles? That option is now on the tour list if you do.

Leaves at 6pm and returns at 12 mn (available December to January)

For more information on on Ecotours, visit our in-depth ecotour site at http://www.costaricaecotour.com/

For Crocodile Bay Sport Fishing visit http://www.crocodilebay.com/

For Reservations and other inquiries email blog@crocodilebay.com