Crocodile Bay Awarded Sporting Classics Award of Excellence

For Immediate Release

Contact: Matt Coffey
matt@sportingclassics.net
(800) 849-1004 ext. 219

Crocodile Bay Resort has been named

Sporting Classics’ Fishing Lodge of the Year

as part of their ninth annual Awards of Excellence.

With the largest private fleet of inshore and offshore fishing boats in Central America, an 800-foot pier, top-notch accommodations, and a 5,000-square-foot luxury spa, it’s easy to see why Crocodile Bay Resort is the recipient of this year’s fishing lodge award.

The resort is situated on 44 acres of lush tropical gardens in Puerto Jimenez on Costa Rica’s South Pacific Coast. The exquisite resort has 40 air-conditioned rooms, and offers a top-of-the-line gourmet menu, swimming pool, hot tub and a conference center for its all-inclusive packages. Offshore fishing starts only 30 minutes from the dock for deep-water access. The rooms feature hand-carved furniture and some have private Jacuzzi baths.

The resort also offers 29 ecotours including rainforest canopy tours, visits to animal sanctuaries, orchid gardens, surfing lessons, kayaking, bird-watching, dolphin and whale-watching and visits to some of Costa Rica’s most beautiful secluded beaches.

For those desiring relaxation and rejuvenation can find it in the

over 30 special spa treatments in the Crocodile Bay Spa.

For more information about the resort or to book your fishing vacation, visit www.crocodilebay.com

For more information about Sporting Classics,

visit http://www.sportingclassics.net/ or call (800) 849-1004.

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.

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

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.

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