I booked this somewhat last minute and off-season. Had the itch. I was floored by how much fun I had. I have way more money in gear/bigger boat at home to do the same thing, and just had the Costa Rica itch. I might sell my stuff and keep coming back for this trip. Andres speaks great English if you need that. He listened to the radio the entire time. Andres was attentive and paid attention to what I wanted to do. I asked him who the boat belonged to. He quickly answered, “Sir, today this is YOUR boat.” Then be made good on that. Andres was an absolute delight, kind of a really tan, bi-lingual Santa Claus delivering big fish to all the good boys and girls. I want to invite him to come fish with me at home!

Mad Marlin is a little 23 foot walk around, but she is actually much larger than she is. She rode well in 2 to 3’s. She had 2 Yamaha 115’s for redundant reliability. My years of wrench turning and checking out the boat’s condition say it is well maintained.  The radio, raw/fresh washdowns, outriggers all worked. The gear provided was middle weight Shimanos mostly, capable of most anything they would run across here. It wasn’t ready for a grander marlin, but neither is my overweight self.

Alexa was a great deckhand. I saw a 110 pound 20 year old girl when I boarded and did not expect her to work like a pair of caffeinated gorillas. She ran up to a 6 line spread no problem and cleaned fish in the dead time. The boat stayed clean no matter how much fish I piled on.

All in all, I was really impressed. The boat was a bit small, the gear was a tad light, but the damn crew pulled it all together so well that I had an amazing time and piled on all the fish I cared to catch.

Thank you Andrea and Alexa. Puro vida!