Day 3 – This is not Disneyland. – We leave our hotel at 5:30 AM for the four hour drive to Puerto Mutis, where we would meet one of the mothership’s twin 24’ Kofflers for another hour-long ride across rough waters to the big vessel. The Panamanian countryside unfolds………………..signs are all over the place advertising my favorite Panamanian nutritional supplement.



The best little combo Rodeo / Disco in all of Santiago, with the notorious “3-for-1 Lunch Special”:



At Puerto Mutis, we load up our gear and wonder why everything is being locked in giant plastic bags. We find out soon enough. Imagine a giant picking you up five feet in the air, slamming you down hard on a bucking boat seat and every five seconds dumping a 5 gallon bucket of seawater in your face. We were a pack of drowned rats. After the long bumpy wet ride we arrive at the Lost Coast Explorer, our home for the next week……



After we dump our gear in our cabins, within 45 minutes we are off fishing!

Robbo started us off with inshore action. Blake, Robbo my wife and I were in one boat, Joe and Stam in the other. Vanessa was still not sure about this whole “fishing thing”. She stayed on board to chill and check out the ship……but good lord, would that change the following day!

We hit some inshore popping action to start things off. Boiler rocks are where they live so that is where we aimed our casts…..





Robbo immediately had a huge cubera snapper explode under his Sabile popper but it missed. I had a nice mullet snapper swirl on mine. Midday doldrums. Robbo had a wahoo track and attack his popper. Another near miss. I hooked and lost a needlefish. Not much going on…..so we headed out to see if we could find some hungry fish….….







My wife did not know it, but she was about to go on her first bluewater thrill ride……………… J