Wednesday, December 31, 2008

"Awesome Trip" writes A. Simmons

Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 5:59 AM
Subject: Awesome Trip

Hey Art,

We had such an amazing time! Everyone was exceptionally nice and the surprise birthday cake was great. We made great friends and of course caught some amazing fish.
We will certainly be back! I’ve attached some of our pictures for you.

Thanks again!!!
Merry Christmas!

A. Simmons

DOUBLE KAYAK ON THE GOLFO DULCE
FIRST SAILFISH
ROOSTERFISH - PEZ GALLO!

OSA RAINFOREST CANOPY ZIPLINE 135 FEET UP!

Friday, December 12, 2008

Culinary Choices at Crocodile Bay Resort


Chef Minor will be serving the Fish Filet of the Day perfectly grilled with your choice of his own sauces. The Teriyaki sauce or the Butter and Garlic may be better suited to the denser Mahi-Mahi (Dorado), or try my favorite, the spicy Mango Hot Sauce, a perfect counterpoint to the light, delicate African Pompano filet.

Crocodile Bay typically offers two or three choices in fresh caught fish and the dinner entrée list includes eleven menu choices in chicken, beef, pork and vegetarian areas. There are four salad choices, three soup choices and two appetizers before you get to the entrée. We maintain such a large menu to offer our guests variety and quality.

When we have a large number of guests we will serve buffet style which lends itself to the informal dining atmosphere where guests mingle and converse about the day from table to table and sometimes make plans for the next. Quite often, families will decide to do a next-day Ecotour together, for example, or ladies may share their experience about a Spa treatment they enjoyed that day. Tables are easily conjoined when parties find the conversation continuing. After dinner, drinks in the Lounge, or Game Room or Mini-Casino give an opportunity to chat with others while playing a game of pool or foosball, or relaxing on comfortable sofas.

They say Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and ours offers so many choices you could be at Crocodile Bay for two weeks and not try everything. You will find a variety of egg omelets, pancakes, oatmeal and much more, all with a Costa Rican accent. For example, I like a bowl of oatmeal that I can stand my spoon up in, and in Costa Rica, custom is to serve it with milk. It is excellent, but not the way I want it, and the wait staff was quite willing to ask the chef to learn to do it my way. You will find in many cases the waitresses and chefs will be gracefully accommodating of your preference, if it is at all possible. We can accomodate special menus for vegetarians and others with advance notice.

Lunch may make you ask, where is everybody? Most guests are out fishing or on a full-day ecotour, but those taking it easy, with scheduled Spa Packages or only a half-day ecotour will find a completely different menu for lunch, in a casual, relaxed atmosphere. There is no less choice, as salads, soups, appetizers, sandwiches and entrees are available.

The fresh fish on the menu is always excellent, but for those wanting something different, there is no lack of choice. There are so many choices, you may decide to extend your stay to try them all!

Email blog@crocodilebay.com if you would like a .pdf of our complete menu.

First Fishing Report of the Season - December 12

I spoke with Todd Staley yesterday and got the season’s first mini-fishing report. We’re raising 4-5 Sails per boat and top boat raised 10. Marlin have been sighted but have proved elusive so far. Inshore, Roosters, Dorado, and African Pompano are the top fish challenging our anglers.

We're expecting a full house this week so we'll have a better idea of the fishing next week.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Crocodile Bay Resort Spa is Relaxing & Rejuvenating!

When my family visits Crocodile Bay, we all enjoy the Spa. My wife and daughter enjoy the Spa Packages, which are longer combinations of treatments, but I really look forward to a great massage. I have tried nearly all we offer during my yearly visits. I have had the Swedish Massage, which is a thorough working over if you haven’t had a massage in a long time, and the Bamboo Massage, with different thicknesses of bamboo applied which feels somewhat like a baking roller on a pie dough, with somewhat of the same goal, to flatten you out! I have had the Sports Massage which pays special attention to those muscles you’ve just used most in your most recent athletic endeavor and the Therapeutic Massage, a gentle, relaxing massage paying equal attention to nourishing and hydrating your skin.

This year, Justa Solano, Crocodile Bay Resort’s Spa Director has fine tuned our Spa Menu and added eight new Special Treatmens for 32 Spa Treatments total. I am just going to tell you the new ones and let you read about them in the online Spa Menu – http://www.crocodilebay.com/spa.htm#menu

Tired Legs Massage
Cleopatra’s Massage
Pearl – a Luxury Body and Facial Treatment
Gold – A Luxury Body Treatment
Special Facial for Men
Back & Shoulders Stones Massage
Reflexology with Stones Massage
Awaken your Senses – Head, Neck, Shoulders, and Face Massage

Ms. Solano tells me that each year she freshens the décor with new and different natural flowers, candles, rocks and linens for each massage room subtlely to create a natural and exotic environment, transporting you to tranquility. As you enter the Spa on the path from your room, past the beautiful flowering plants outside the spa, you will be greeted by one of our professional masseuses who will show you to your locker room for showering and will be given a robe to wear in the spa. I recommend you come early to shower and relax in the main room with your choice of a glass of red or white wine, or natural drinks like ice tea, fruit juice or other beverage. The spa is relaxing and it is quite nice to enjoy the quiet after a busy day of having fun.

The Crocodile Bay Spa uses organic and premium products native to Costa Rica.
You can see the Bio Bella brand here http://www.biobellaorganics.com/ . We sell what we use, so if you enjoy a treatment it is possible to take it home with you. Another major brand Ms. Solano uses and recommends is the world renown Germaine de Capuccini. It is available at the Resort, and you can avail yourself of a consultation with Ms. Solano to choose the best product for you before your treatment.

There are also a number of other original and different scrubs available –
The Sea Salt Polish, using not only mineral rich sea salt, but also essential oils, seaweed and green tea for an invigorating cleanse. The Coffee Polish, using fine coffee, oils and herbs to exfoliate and refesh you. The Chocolate Body Scrub, with honey, which while cocoa is also a bean like coffee, offers a finer exfoliation for those with more sensitive skin, the Coconut Body Exfoliation, somewhere in-between the Chocolate and Coffee experiences. Also in this category, we offer a Volcanic Clay Body Wrap with Banana Leaves. Costa Rica is renowned for its volcanoes, and the organic clay offers minerals from deep inside the earth. An Aloe Vera mini-facial is applied while you rest wrapped in a banana leaves cocoon.

Visit the Spa and have a tour, if you would like. We keep a guestbook at the entrance to the Spa, so if you have any doubts, you can look through it at any time during your stay at the resort. The most common comment is that our guests loved the Spa, and I am sure you will, too.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Todd Staley, Fishing Director

Pictured Above - Todd Staley with Colts Field Goal Kicker Adam Vinatieri

There is one person at Crocodile Bay Resort who is like no other. A legend in his own time, he has more people who call him friend than anyone I know. I have had anglers tell me that they want his job, until I tell them that he works 24/7 during the high season, from predawn until all boats in. Todd Staley is the Fishing Director at Crocodile Bay and on an average day in season, he manages a fleet of over 30 to 40 boats out, inshore and offshore. While those boats are out, he is tending to the preparations for the next day’s fishing. He is the type that does not say much but every word means something and you lean in to hear it. He can bark out an order to a Captain and in the next moment patiently explain something to a rookie angler. He has weathered tough times and persevered like a ship coming into port after riding out a storm. He has had full careers on many coasts, owned many a boat and his own fishing charter service. In the off-season, it is a full-time job servicing and maintaining the fleet to be in tiptop shape for the next opening, testing out new boats just bought re-hiring and selecting new hires and training the next year’s captains.

With all the work, there is still no one who wants Todd’s job more than Todd. If you know the man, you know he lives and breathes fishing and has more fishing lore stored in him than he could ever tell or teach anyone. His fishing reports and articles are always well written and damn interesting besides educational. He writes as he talks, when he has something to say. In everything he does, he lives his simple philosophy, “Underpromise and overdeliver”.

You can read Todd Staley’s articles under the “Fishing Info” tab on our website- http://www.crocodilebay.com/index.html

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Crocodile Bay Resort opens for the new season this Friday, December 5, 2008.


We closed at the end of August due to the Puerto Jimenez Airport undergoing modernization and resurfacing. That is the rainy season in the Osa Peninsula, anyway, so not too many visitors come at that time. Puerto Jimenez is a small town of under 2000 and the upgrade of the airport is both for safety and recognition that the Osa Peninsula is a increasingly popular place to visit. We are very excited about reopening Crocodile Bay Resort, and looking forward to greeting friends, old and new.

We have retiled and painted the pool and made upgrades to the Swim-Up Bar. The water is always warm and relaxing, as you would expect in the tropics. Water temperature in the Golfo Dulce is in the low 80’s, too. If you listen you might hear birds, or frogs or crickets. The pool has steps across the shallow end for easy entry and slopes to over your head depth at the other end. On one side are stools in the water at the sunken bar, so you don’t have to stand with your drink. Around the pool are chairs, recliners and umbrellas for shade. Nearby are shaded hammocks if you just want to sink into a short nap.

Our pool has a quietly babbling waterfall and if you spend a little while there you might see a Basilisk Iguana run across the pool on his hind legs. Above the waterfall is our hottub, big enough for a small party, on the “second story” so you can enjoy the view of your garden surroundings while you soak. The best views are the parrots, parakeets, and macaws that flock and chatter above near sunset before they retire for the night.

We have three new exciting Ecotours to bring the total to 29 adventures! All of them start at our front door with our own personnel, in our own vehicles. Any outdoor activity you can do in Costa Rica you can do at Crocodile Bay. Well, the only thing we don’t have is a volcano and that’s ok with us.

The first new ecotour is The Monkey Tour. The Osa Peninsula is the only place in Costa Rica with all 4 native monkey species, the Howler, the Capuchin, the Spider and the Squirrel Monkeys. This tour is especially for those who are coming to see these and other magnificent mammals. We go to the areas of the edge of the rainforest where they go to find food.

For those coming to see The Corcovado Rainforest, that is now a separate tour from the Monkey Tour. Actually, we have a number of rainforest tours – because our Staff will customize a rainforest tour to your physical abilities and what you are most interested in seeing. There are dozens of breathtakingly unique areas of the rainforest that we can take you to, so why not take you to exactly what your vision is of the rainforest? If you want the most physically demanding tour, or if you want to see the rainforest but need help getting around, either way, we will make a tour for you. Our Guides are professionals who have lived in the rainforest a good part of their lives if not all, and worked for the best lodges in the area where they got their training before coming to Crocodile Bay. Our Ecotour Director, Alberto Herrera, has extensive training in conservation, agrology, forestry, environmentalism and sustainable development. You can read about our efforts in ecology at our new Eco-oriented website, http://www.costaricaecotour.com/

Alberto tells me that if guests want to see the real rainforest, they will go to the primary rainforest on real trails. The focus will be to learn about the ecosystem, not only monkeys. Yes, you will probably see animals, birds and insects, all sorts or plants and trees. There are so many different things to see; you never know what will appear, such as sloths, agoutis or coatis and other common mammals that might be in the area. The rainforest is dark and mysterious, quiet, regal and the cathedral of nature. There is no one else walking around, except for the insects, plants, birds, mammals, fungus all synergistically interacting with each other and there to be seen and enjoyed by humans.

The second new ecotour is the Osa Palmas Canopy Tour, which we now will use as an alternate to the Miramar Canopy Tour. I think it is great to have a second Canopy Tour because swinging through the rainforest on a cable is a rush of adrenaline and fun like Evel Knievel must have felt flying over those buses on his motorcycle. It is almost like flying but without having to risk a Darwin Award, if you know what I mean. We use one or the other depending on how the roads and weather are looking that day because while the Miramar has a few more stations, the road to the Osa Palmas is definitely an easier and more reliable one to travel. Nevertheless, the great thing is that there are two, because if you love Canopy rides, you will have a change of scenery and variety on the second tour.. Both can be enjoyed by all ages, are half-day ecotours and we’ll take you to them early in the a.m, in the afternoon, or at night - imagine flying from tree to tree at night like Batman going from building top to building top in the black of night!

The last new ecotour is the Marine Turtles Tour. We have been involved for years supporting turtle research and ecology efforts. There are three species in the Golfo Dulce and Pacific Ocean around us that have breeding grounds; the Hawkbill, the Olive Ridley and the Leatherback Ocean Turtles. It is a common sight when fishing inshore to see a sea turtle come up for air and go back down into the ocean. It takes a sea cruise to get to the breeding grounds and the boat leaves at 6pm from our dock and returns about midnight.
This tour is only offered in December and January, the breeding season.

That’s the new news, and we’ll have more when we have it. In the meantime, send me any questions you might have about Crocodile Bay and Costa Rica and I will be glad to answer them promptly.