Your summer photos

We just came back from a great weekend at Clear Lake here in Oregon. We posted a video of our beloved grandbaby on our facebook. My login is jim@stuller.org. Our trip to chickahominy resivoir earlier this year was awesome. My brother, 2 nephews wife and inlaws caught some great fish. My wife and I love to camp and kayak. We have 6 grandkids here in Salem and get to take them with us on our outings. At http://www.pbase.com/llmjls You will find a bunch of our pictures. The folder july 2009 is from our 5 day trip around Oregon. We stayed at Wildspring in Port Orford. The folder Trips has pictures from our trips to Costa Rica, Porto Jeminez, Cabo Matopolo, Casa Bambo a awesome home made out of bambo. Sorry for all the fishing stuff: my passion is all about getting outdoors. Some writings about Costa Rica and a little other fishing: These 2 trips have been the greatest trips of my life. Casa Bambu has to be one of the best places to relax. My beautiful, brilliant wife found this place by Googling secluded, peaceful, quiet and vacation. I will always look for a secluded house to rent when on vacation. I laugh ever time I think of the owners story of the person who came to Casa Bambu and then asked where the action is. Me I know when I have had a good time if I am sore and sun-burned. Here I am able to get sore from kayaking, fishing and hiking. This is not to say I did not get enough time bobbing in the 85 degree water, monkey watching or reading.
Costa Rica doesn’t seem like strictly a third world country. Costa Rica is not called the Switzerland of Central America for nothing. San Jose is very much a modern city. In Costa Rica, one does not get sick like I have (intestinal trouble) in Mexico and Belize. You can drink the water or eat the vegetables anywhere. There is excellent medical care here. A person can take a trip to Costa Rica, get their dental work taken care of, by a doctor trained in the US, and pay for the vacation for what you can get the work in the states done for.
Getting to La Pina house, Casa Bambu, Cabo Matapolo, Costa Rica took about 15 hours. This is on Gulfo Dulce and the Osa Peninsula. National Geographic has said this peninsula is the world’s most biologically diverse areas in the world. There were a couple of scary confusions on the part of the Airlines. Then there was the 45 minute airplane ride from San Jose to Puerto Jeminez. It was beautiful: flying over all this jungle, hills, mountains, then ocean, all the while: through and near all kinds of fluffy white clouds. I’m the kind of guy who liked the exciting drops and turbulence. Our 12 passenger plane made a landing at Drake bay. The strip was gravel. From the air you could see there was not much there or around there. The family on the plane with us had to be told that this was where they were getting off. It is easy to imagine that they had seen the great website of the hotel they were staying at and had no idea it would be a fairly primitive area. The 45 minute taxi ride from Puerto Jiminez to Cabo Matapolo down the awful washed out road seemed grueling probably because we were tired. But when we got to our new temporary home (http://www.casabambu-beach-house-rentals.com/) we relaxed to see how beautiful the bamboo house was. The house is beautiful green bamboo and lacquered wood every where, with wonderfully tall ceilings. Being surrounded by soft, graceful trees must do wonders for the soul. We then went down to the beach to take a swim and watch the pelicans and terns dive-bombing for fish.

My first day of fishing was great. We raised a sailfish that came crashing and slashing at our baits, but didn’t hook up. Another Dorado or two crashed our feathers but missed getting on. Finally I again got to see the fish crash our gear, but this time we hooked a 20# Mahi-Mahi. Fish On! Shortly we saw the light blue flash of his mate below him. My skipper slid a whole ballyhoo back to him, which he took immediately. After letting him run a bit he took it all the way and we set the hook. The hook is 2/3s the way up the 10” long bait fish. We then proceeded to land both fish. On our 17’ boat we made sure they were not moving before we brought them in the boat. Their colors were amazing light blue and bright gold. They each took 3 or 4 crazy jumps on their way to the gaff. All day we saw fish jumping in the distance. Once it was the triangular wings of a big ray doing a big flip. This day we were following trash lines all over the place. Underneath the larger logs were the most amazing flashing rainbows of giant schools of many kinds of fish. In all of this there was a 2’ Sea Snake. It was beautiful bright yellow and gold. They are the most poisonous snakes on the planet but to hurt you they would have to chew on you for a while and find some place like the web between your fingers their mouths are so small.

I took the Casa Bambu kayak out fishing. I didn’t catch anything. A little wind came up and the 2 person boat with one person in it wanted to go where the wind took it. I did have a little excitement; however, on the way in I happened to hit a big wave just right for surfing. Linda thought I looked great, I was concerned for all the loose gear I had out all over the deck. The next year there were 2 new one man kayaks that are great to roam around in or surf.

Sitting at our house was the most fulfilling activity of our trip. Every morning the howler monkeys start their vocalizing an hour before dawn. It’s not over loud unless they are real close, but can be heard for miles. Sitting in our outdoor living room we got to watch many troops of monkeys travel by swinging and jumping, eating the tree leaves and what ever else they can find as they go. One bit of warning: you may not want to look straight up when they are straight over your head as they like to drop lots of stuff mostly half eaten. Witness the picture of Linda’s forehead with the bull’s eye shot. A large prehistoric iguana came traipsing through our yard eating his fill of the lawn, actually some low small leafed plant. Later a large black coatimundi sauntered through looking here and there seemingly quite friendly until I got too close. He didn’t realize I was so close because he had just found the compost pile. They can move really fast. We saw macaws, toucans, hawks and numerous other birds from our porch-living room. What the locals called a turkey was black, short legged, with an ugly yellow waddle on its yellow beak. This turkey is an example of one of the many battles the conservation movement in Costa Rica has won. This bird was brought back from the verge of extinction by the government telling people that the bird is good for tourism. Costa Rica has a program to save the jaguar. When a farmer loses some stock the farmer receives the equivalent amount of money. They are also trained on how to prevent their farm from being a target of the jaguar. One quarter of Costa Rica is set aside for wild preserve.

The second afternoon we took a hike to one of the local waterfalls. Our first stop was right by the caretaker’s house to see the sloth in his trees. We saw Howler and Spider monkeys all over. The toucans were plentiful up in the canyons. We saw a pack of 10 or so coatimundi. The creek and waterfall were beautiful and quite refreshing. So here we go on this long hike and when we get back to our house we finally see the smaller White-faced capuchin monkey for the first time.

The next day we caught an early taxi with our neighbors and Gato (our taxi driver, which means cat) in to Puerto Jimenez to catch our tour boat. We started by looking at the map of Golfo Dulce which we were about to explore. Golfo Dulce (sweet gulf) got its name because it is in almost a caldron. Actually a tropical fjord it is very deep and all the rivers running into it make the water sweet especially in the rainy season. We started the tour snorkeling. There were many brightly colored fish. The fish were widely varied: Angel fish, surgeon fish, tiny fish and ones that would have been good quarry for the fishermen. There were coral, clams and oysters. Our next stop was the wild life rehabilitation reserve. On the beach we were greeted by the owner with a baby howler monkey in a diaper on his shoulder and a Colorado or spider monkey named devil. The full grown spider monkey was into people, but more for entertainment than affection. She did let you groom her, then climb all over you looking for something to grab. If she got something you couldn’t let her know you wanted to take it away from her, you had to wait till she got bored with it dropped it to then retrieve it. Next she climbed her rope and we had to be warned about her swing range, she especially liked to grab glasses. As we moved up the hill our next orphaned friend was a howler monkey. Sweetie was about half grown; she had been grabbed by a hawk when very young and was missing a kneecap. This teenager wanted to bite ankles, hug and play. She would climb in your arms and let you stand up with her, where she was then able to tromp across many people grabbing many heads and noses. She finally settled on her love of the moment and proceeded to grab her head, then nibble and press her lips to this barely willing woman’s lips. The howler monkey is the only monkey that is not endangered. All the others are suffering from habitat loss. The howler is almost strictly a vegetarian. The squirrel monkeys are most brilliantly colored, and quite active. Of the 4 capuchin monkeys one was an escape artist. She is very creative at getting out and you cannot use the same ploy to catch her twice. She had gotten out once and was found a couple of beaches down, face down in the sand. She had been severely beaten up by the local and territorial troop. It was touch and go for the first 48 hours whether she would live or not. It is interesting that monkeys don’t have pests, when they are grooming they are looking for salt crystals which are hard to find in the jungle. One of the capuchin monkeys rocked and swayed. He had been checked out by medical experts and the diagnosis was mental illness. Someone had kept him in a box growing up. Another spider monkey had to be kept on a cable-leash. This monkey had been abused, if it saw a broom he would go into a fit of rage. She would fly off the handle every time the curly-haired Hispanic staff would come near, leaving them to believe this was the type of person who abused her. This monkey and all the animals had to be caged at night because of the jaguar that comes to call; looking for easy prey.
When our guide first came to volunteer here she was the bottom of the monkey troop. Being out ranked meant she was the object of lots of abuse even in her own quarters, this could pose quite a challenge seeing how the monkey is 10 times stronger per pound than we our. Our guide had purchased purple crocs because purple carries weight and throwing your shoe down carries extra weight. She was glad when a new staff came on and she was less of the target of abuse, the lowest rank in the troop. How prevalent rank is in the troop is witnessed by the 2 month old howler monkeys behavior. When they would try to get the new staff to care for her, the baby would raise holy heck: screaming and carrying on. All the birds were beautiful up close. The endangered scarlet macaws had taken over the caretaker’s home opening up 1 foot holes in the wooden walls of the bathroom to get the access they wanted. Because the caretakers used to live in their home the macaws figure they might want it back and would attack when ever they could, especially when the caretakers arms were full. It was sad to hear about the uses of the beak of the beautiful toucan. One might romanticize the animals in the beautiful jungle, thinking how life might be idyllic, but that is rarely the case. The length and the serrated edges of the Toucans beak are for sticking into another birds nest and first eating the mother and then the chicks. As with most of the monkeys the toucan needs a lot of protein in its diet. When a new dominate monkey male takes over the troop he will kill all the babies less than 6 months. A male is usually only dominate for 6 months, after he has sired some babies he gives up being the Alfa. After the reserve we had we had a choice of heading up the river or going to see the wild dolphins. We chose seeing the dolphins. The pod or gaggle was very large over 100 strong. Our guide put out 2 plainer boards; we donned masks and jumped in. As we putted along, trying to get in front of the dolphins, we did it: a few dolphins went right underneath us. We could hear their clicks and squeals. Especially the younger ones turned on their sides to look at us, as we grabbed and twisted the planner board so we could dive under the water. This experience was most beautiful and other worldly. It is mostly the younger dolphins that jump and flip out of the water.
Our final destination was the river estuary. We putted around some of the islands learning about the mangroves. 75% of all ocean fish have a connection to the mangrove swamps as a nursery. The mangrove tree propagates by live birth, just like us, the 12” start is released by the mother tree and goes and finds some muddy spot to start growing in. We observed Pelicans (whose beak can hold more than its belly can), terns of a few kinds, pipers, plovers, gulls, herons, ibis, kingfishers, swallow-tailed kites, buzzards, egrets and others I can’t remember. After a while we heard the noise a boat-billed heron makes in the dense mangrove forest. It sounded like someone had cracked a bad joke. These night feeders were perched in the mangroves having a snooze together. There were 8-10 of them. It was the most elegant, ugly bird I have ever seen. As we proceeded up the river we found orchids in bloom hanging near the water. Further up we found Star lilies in bloom, open vistas to look at and clear, cool water to swim in.

My second day of fishing my wife graced the boat with her presence. She only got a few nasty bumps jumping off the rocks into the boat. We first went to the rock off Matapoto Point. Dragging some rapalas we failed to get any Wahoo, but saw a 100 plus school of barracuda. The next miracle was huge numbers of large and small whales. We got to see their flukes clear the surface of the water. We had a sailfish crash our gear and then a Dorado, which both missed. After looking for the trash lines for a while, which weren’t around that day, we came back inside to where we had the other strikes. Again I got to see the huge mahi-mahi crash the gear and the fight was on. This 40 pound’er jumped 8-9 feet in the air a number of times. As we got it close he broke free. The turtle we saw near our boat was 5’ long, dwarfing any turtle we saw in the surf. Our skipper Jim Hennessy(of Tres Peses Fishing circletherock@yahoo.com & cognac@hotmail.com ) was great company. After his granddaughter turned 4 years old he decided it was time to move here. I will always carry images in my mind of the deep blue ocean, jumping sailfish, Dorado, and the millions of diamonds of the sun reflecting on the surface of the water.

The second trips fishing days were out standing. On Monday we caught a few bait for the live well and ran east to an pinnacle off the far coast of Golfo Dulce. On the way there we caught 2 turtles in the act of mating. There were some local commercial boys on the pinnacle, so we trolled around some rapalas hoping for a Wahoo. In Hawaii Wahoo are called Ono. Wahoo is such good eating that is what you call a meal that is excellent: Ono. After we started seeing signs of dorado- surface action we switched to feathers and notched up the trolling speed. There was bait being chased to the surface and flashes of bigger fish left and right. Once there was a boil at the surface that could only have been a large fish. We were trolling the line to the blue water side of where the green water of the gulf meets the blue water. All of a sudden there was what skipper Jim calls a National Geographic moment. This Dorado came flying out of the water 3 times covering 15’ with each jump hot on the tail of a needle fish also flying out of the water. She was the most dazzling shade of bright blue. She missed the needle fish and moments after the clicker on one of our reels starts screaming. After a fairly short battle she was brought to the gaff. Being early to the gaff she was hard to subdue. I had plenty of fresh meat for the week and to share with neighbors and caretakers. On the way back in we stopped at the rock to drop our live baits down to see if we could bring up something fun, colorful, weird and good to eat. Although we could see lots of fish on the sounder none were willing to bite.
On Thursday we had heard about action, including marlin, close to shore west of the rock, off we ran. Halfway to where we were headed a giant sailfish came straight up out of the water. We slowed down, dropped the feathers and proceeded to troll. Shortly we picked up the gear and ran to the pinnacle near there. Nothing happening there so we trolled on out. I got extremely excited when a billfish slashed at our gear, but alas he did not bite. We saw porpoise flying under the boat, birds working here and there but no bites, so after a while we picked up and ran back east. We did not get too far and came up on a huge pod of dolphin. We dropped gear again. These warm blooded creatures were not feeding however, just having fun. They surfaced all around us having a good time. 2 to 4 of them would play right in front of the boat. I got on the very nose and reached down as far as I could. I believe they wanted me to touch them; they would maneuver within 1’ of my hand, turning on their side so they could make close eye contact. This year we were on 23’ boat, on the 17’ Boston Whaler they had last year one could reach out and touch dolphins. We picked up and ran again. This time we came upon some small skip-jack tuna popping out of the water, so we slowed and dropped the gear, changing some to target the little guys. All of a sudden: WHAM!! The line starts screaming out. He had taken the bait, the pig. I jump and grab the pole, and then the giant dorado jumps and it is large: 30 to 40 pounds. Jim clears all the other poles and the fight is on. And what a fight! He kept taking line. After a while I would get some back then he would go again. He would put his broad side against me and pull. At one point Jim put more drag on the reel. I would get him near the boat and he would not like that and take off. There were a couple of beautiful jumps when he was near the boat, what a beautiful fish, pictures do not catch half the color of these fish: brilliant gold and blues. We finally got him close to the boat, Jim grabs the leader. According to the International Game fishing rules when you touch the leader it is a caught fish. The monster swerves as Jim takes a strike with the gaff. I see the incredible tale trashing water and the fish breaks free again. The battle rages of another 10 to 15 minutes when we get him near the boat. As Jim grabs the leader, the fish surges and wins his freedom, breaking the leader. My last view of him was priceless, a straight on side view in beautiful blues and gold what a trophy in my memory.
On out second trip we made it to the eco-lodge Lap Rios. The uphill climb is well worth it. The dinning room and views are beautiful. The food was wonderful. As well as commanding views of the gulf and the pacific, the views of the jungle were outstanding. I got to see a pair of Macaws at their own tree with the nesting cavity.
The beautiful beaches were the best. All the overhanging trees were beautiful. The large and productive coconut trees were picture-card perfect. Every evening the locals would come down to catch their supper off the beach with simple hand lines.

Our front yard had to be the crown of our vacation. Besides all the monkeys and other wildlife, there were lots of colorful and useful plants, leaf cutter ants, and various butterflies. Our welcome basket was full of wonderful things from the yard: delicious bananas, star fruit, coconuts and beautiful items. The tree the leaf cutter ants had a trail across our yard and were so industriously harvesting a tree that also had a bloom that didn’t quite look like a bloom but had the most exquisite wafting perfume. The ants trail when for hundreds of yards back to the hive in the ground with 2 other such trails coming to it. Each ant right behind the next with a piece of leaf straight over his head headed straight ahead. One should never leave the house without a camera and shoes to chase whatever: ‘ya never know when one of the so many blue morpho butterflies will land near you. The care taker family here was so wonderful: they heard we didn’t have any lemons so they brought us 2 gallons worth as well as coconuts and plantain. My wife likes to say the extras we got were because we gave them 25#s of fish. I am sure they would do near anything for you you might want. The local organic farm set up a stand close by and we bought bananas, brownies, salsa and new and exciting legumbres(vegetables). On our second trip some locals stopped by with a pickup loaded with produce. I filled up for the rest of the week with wonderful fresh salad, vegetables and fruit to $4. Costa Rica has wonderful cheese, meat and other groceries even in a backwater place like Puerto Jimenez. We ate so wonderfully: beautiful ripe fruit for luscious fruit salads, salads, and hand made salsas. When you cook ripe plantain it is as sweet as candy.

In the summer of 1970 I went salmon fishing with Val Mueller out of Depoe Bay. Val was farmer near Dallas Oregon whom I had helped bring in his prune crop. These summers were the last of the great salmon harvests. Some of the days so many fish were caught that the small boats had to come in in the afternoon to empty the boat to not be over loaded. One day we were fishing in fog. This is not a bad experience; you can stay off the beach with your depth sounder and run the fathom line till you find the whistle buoy. Being in fog is like being surrounded by cotton candy, you may be able to see along way, say 50 yards. This was the case that day. A friend from the valley had come over for some fun and was driving the boat. When he saw a large fin sticking out of the water he turned away from it. The 20’ basking shark came right for us anyway. He came right between the 3300# six strand stainless steel hanging off the outriggers and the boat. His head was 2’ across. My great gung-ho idea was: grab the gun! If he had gotten tangled in our gear he for sure would have broken something if not swamped the boat.
Wandering around in the ocean one sees amazing things every day, such as whales, dolphins and sharks. You would come upon huge tides of jellyfish. With warmer water I saw to 2½’ sunfish lazing around. One day, salmon fishing was slow. We had caught 2 all morning. We had seen a blue shark following us all day. Finally we snagged it. We cut it open and it had every single piece of gut from the 2 salmon we had caught were in it’s belly. Shark eyes are cold and other world looking, they are ancient: from another time. When you rub a shark nose to tail they seem smooth, vice versa and they are like sandpaper. They are incredibly limber and can almost bite their own tail when they thrash. When they thrash they twist and it is easy to see why their teeth cut moving both ways. They are wonderful efficient eating machines. In those days salmon fisherman when out of their way to kill sharks. Today most fishermen would go out of their way to protect them.
In 1979 I got a one of the most remarkable jobs of my life: on a long-line boat out of Newport. It took 6 weeks to get the new fangled gear installed. In the three days of fishing my crew share was $1,000 This was a automatic baiting system. We had racks of hooks that would fly through cut squid and go out the back ready to catch fish. We could put out 10,000 hooks in about an hour. We would run out 35 miles to a place with valleys and ridges that the drag boats stayed away from. The first day we nearly plugged the boat. The deck was covered with 30+# black cod before we could get them in the hold. I was up until 2:30 am icing the fish in the hold. We were up at 4am to set lines again. We pulled up dragger gear and Korean long line gear from the 50’s. One time a huge shape came up at the boat. It was a drowned 8’ sea lion. Besides black cod we would get 6’ long cream colored eels, that were beautiful. One time we brought an octopus up. [This comment has been truncated as it exceeded the character-limit]