Playa Blanca - Tarpon, a Turtle, and a Tropical Storm
May 2008
Sian Ka'an - Birthplace of the Sky
After our great trips to Playa Blanca 2004, 2005, and 2007 we just had to go back for our fourth visit. This trip was originally scheduled for earlier in the year but due to family circumstances we decided to hit the last week of the season this year and ended up having a fantastic time even with a bit of funky weather.
Travel to Playa Blanca
We arrived in Cancun on May 23rd and again stayed at Villas Manglar, a small bed & breakfast type lodge at the south end of the Zona Hotel in Cancun. We had nearly perfect weather when we arrived and enjoyed an evening at Manglar. Catherine did some post-flight yoga while I swam before we went to dinner and then got a good night's sleep before our flight out the next day. We met the other guests at the FBO terminal and found that for once we didn't have to fly a Cesna 206 down to the island but instead we got to ride in a Caravan this time and had a very smooth flight down. This trip we were joined by 3 other couples - Martin & Hillary from London, John & Katie from California, and Bob & Betsy formerly from Seattle but now in California also.
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| After-flight yoga at Manglar | "there is one emergency exit to the rear of the aircraft .." |
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| Coming in for a landing on the island | Our caravan |
Playa Blanca/Casa Redonda
This year we decided to stay again at Casa Redonda Suite for the privacy and to have a nice beach walk for sunrise each day and a walk home in the evening from the lodge. Casa Redonda is hard to beat, the view is spectacular, the beach is just a short walk over the dunes and the swimming is great right out in front (of course the swimming is great everywhere). On our first walk to the lodge Catherine was very excited to see a new super-sized palapa had been built after Hurricane Wilma took out the old one a few years back. There was also a funky "Palapa-Palooza" palapa close by for hanging out in.
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| View out the front door | New Palapas |
Days of beach walks, fishing, and relaxing
As usual, our days were split between mornings apart and afternoons together. I fished each morning with Renee mostly in Laguna Santa Rosa but also in the Tarpon Lagoons south of Sacrificio, the lagoons in back of Santa Rosa, and in Bahia Espritu Santo. Catherine spent mornings in the palapa doing a solo yoga retreat and some reading. In the afternoons we snorkeled or swam pretty much every day and got to re-visit Punta Estrella one day for great snorkeling and relaxation.
Fishing
The waters around Playa Blanca are my favorite in the world to fish and I've always had good success there. The weather was a bit funky this year, especially for late in the season we had a lot of wind still and got some rain pretty much every day. I spent 2 mornings fishing for bones in Santa Rosa and landed 20-25 fish, on a pink legged Peterson's Spawning Shrimp and Jay Paulson's Bunky Shrimp. I spent one day fishing nothing but my 6-weight even in the wind just to have a bit more fun with the bones. Two fish were very memorable. The one below, though the smallest I came around the small mangrove islands just as we were coming through a small channel. I cast, hooked up and the fish ran to the right instead of to open water to the left. He ran around all the small mangrove islands, turned and ran past the boat in the channel. I jumped in to undo the line only to sink up to my waist in marl. Amazingly I cleared the line and landed the fish but we were both laughing pretty hard. Where I'm standing looked like about 10" of water, obviously the marl is deep.
Another great bone took just as a squall hit and I spent the hardest part of the rain trying to land the fish while Renee was hunkered down under the poling platform trying to not get 100% soaked like I was.
I spent two mornings in the tarpon lagoons and managed to land 8 and jump 2 more fish, I finally know how to "SET THEE HOOOOK!" now after 3 tarpon trips to Florida in the past year. Most fish came on a #1 Purple/Black Puglesi baby tarpon fly though I got one on a #1 Prince of Tides. A few very memorable tarpon jumps that I wish I could have caught on film (or memory stick). For some strange reason the fish wouldn't hit or even show if I had my 10-weight in hand so all were landed on my 9-weight with a 40 lbs flouro shock tippet and 16 lbs class tippet. I also hit the nearby lagoons for a few hours on Friday with Martin before we had to start heading out due to weather (more on that later...)
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Just a few of the tarpon |
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| Renee watching for tarpon | Martin trying to get tarpon #1 |
I spent one full day at Espritu Santo, with the intention of fishing for permit but we saw no permit all day long. I obviously picked the wrong day for the permit hunt as fish were spotted every other day and 4 permit were landed during the rest of the week. In fact, John got his first permit in Espiritu Santo one day before I went out and got a Super Slam the day after I went out. Martin also got 2 permit the day after my day, his first permit.
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| Launch at Espiritu Santo | Being passed by Carlos |
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| Mayan fishing village on the island | Launch at Santa Rosa |
On Wednesday afternoon I also decided to take the kayak out into the surf and check out the barracuda situation so I rigged up a Tyger wire leader, my favorite Needlefish Sea Candy fly and launched. Within about 15 minutes I spotted a cuda and pretty quickly was hooked up and in real trouble. Trying to play a big cuda and control a kayak in the wind is hard and as I was running out of backing AND getting pulled out towards the reef I realized I had to get back to shore to land the fish. I tightened the drag, turned the boat, and got to where waves started carrying me back to shore. I managed to beach the boat and not lose the paddle and continued the fight from shore where soon I had the cuda on the beach. Luckily Catherine was close by with the camera and to help pull the kayak up on shore.
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| Geared up and ready to go | Launching |
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| Paddling out towards the reef | Fish on |
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| Cuda coming on the beach | The fight is over, I am soaked |
Beach Walking
Catherine and I did a few beach walks each day including one long walk the first day that was probably about 2 miles. There we found a very modernized Amazonian dugout washed ashore. The boat had mountain bike tire bumpers and rubber patches all over it but was obviously a real dugout canoe.
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| The dugout | |
Our most amazing walk was heading home after La Noche Mexicana on Wednesday. As we were walking by headlamp in the dark Catherine spotted something shiny on the beach and had my point the light over. There, to our surprise and hers, was a huge sea turtle that was none too happy with the light and heading back into the surf. To our added surprise the next morning we found a huge "tractor" track in the sand and found three huge turtle nests dug in.
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| La tortuga grande | |
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| The turtle nests the next morning | |
We never got to see El Tigre de Santa Rosa as the resident Jaguar has become known (photo here) though it was spotted by some of the staff the week we were there. We did get to see foxes, iguanas, and a racoon this visit.
Punta Estrella
On Thursday we headed up to Punta Estrella in the afternoon with Martin and Hillary and had a very relaxing time. Catherine and I snorkeled way out to some nice coral heads then did some walking, swimming, and finally sleeping.
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Beach walking at Punta Estrella |
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Reading by the beach |
Sleeping on the beach |
Even at the lodge at Playa Blanca itself we found time to lie around in a hammock or enjoy an afternoon pick-me-up under the veranda.
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| Lodge hammock | Our Coke Light toast (for you Annemarie) |
Sunrise
We got a great sunrise walk every morning up to the lodge for breakfast...
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| Palapa Sunrise | |
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Just another tequila sunrise |
Sunrise reflections |
La Noche Mexicana
On Wednesday night we had Mexican night and were joined by the group from Casa Blanca lodge. The night included drinks and dancing on the roof, a Mexican buffet dinner, and several rounds of scorpion for John and Martin.
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Talking fishing no doubt |
Guides and staff |
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| Dinner is ready... | ...with scorpion and tequila for desert |
We also enjoyed the company of our great hosts, Max and Claire, and the ever friendly staff at Playa Blanca, especially Nito the waiter/bartender.
Tropical Storm Arthur
Well the weather was tough most of the trip but finally got really tough on Thursday night. You know it is blowing hard when you get wet in bed and there is 15' of covered deck and 15' of room in front of the bed. On awakening Friday we found that a tropical storm had formed near Belize and the weather was expected to deteriorate quite a bit. So, we went fishing for a few hours while the lodge tried to make arrangements for an evacuation since we doubted we'd be able to fly out the next day. In hindsight this was a good choice. After a few hours of tarpon fishing (and a few good shots and follows), we hit the road at 11 a.m. towards Casa Blanca and a boat ride over Ascension Bay to Punta Allen followed by a van ride from Punta Allen to Cancun. Thank god Hurricanes Wilma and Dean wiped out the Punta Allen road because it had been totally re-built and was great! Even the Boca Paila bridge was now concrete instead of something out of an Indiana Jones film. Even the ride over the bay was not bad though Catherine and I picked the wet side of the boat and got a bit soaked in the main channel portion.
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| Boarding the panga to leave | Launching from the pier |
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| Hillary bracing for the ride over | Bob & Betsy on the boat |
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| Punta Allen at last | In the van |
Wasted Away Again in Margaritaville
Back in Cancun we all checked into Villas Manglar again, took a swim to literally cool off, then headed out on the bus for dinner and fun at Margaritaville, we needed it.
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| Margaritaville - the Cancun branch | We obviously survived the travel ordeal well |
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| "Fins to left, fins to the right..." | The jello shot girl |
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| "Wasted away again in Margaritaville..." | Katie having fun on stage |
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| Two happy sharks | |
Don't ask me how it happened but after a great dinner of Calypso Mahi and a few of the famous frozen concoctions I ended up on stage singing Jimmy's signature song to the crowd (well at least the chorus). Katie also got up on stage during a few of the big group dances. We also were visited by the shot girls and Martin got a visit from the Dos Equis girls. This was really one of the funnest evenings we've had in a long time and all with our nuevos amigos from Playa Blanca.
Paradise Lost (at least for this visit...)
Friday night the storm was wild and Saturday morning even worse. Since we had a late afternoon flight we had most of the day in Cancun. Catherine did yoga under the eves since it was raining and still got wet. We headed up to La Isla to grab my first latte in over a week at Starbucks and one of the outer bands of Arthur hit us while we were on the bus and getting to Starbucks. We were drenched in no time and had to sit it out with our coffee and tea for about 45 minutes before it let up. We wandered around La Isla a bit and had a big lunch at Jugo de Limon before heading back to Manglar to pack and head to the airport. Luckily a break in the storm came in the afternoon and we got out of Cancun pretty much on time and made it back home (after a brief security breach delay at LAX) around midnight.
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| Tropical Storm Yoga (hot and wet) | Ready to go |
For more information about Playa Blanca and Casa Blanca go to the Isla Yucatan web-site, you won't be sorry and you may see us there again next season.