Trip Report - Nicaragua - Big Fish : Good Food : Even Better People

Nicaragua for the 4th of July weekend. To start off with this trip was almost canceled....twice. The first f**k up was by Taca Airlines when they canceled the flight from Miami to Managua on July 1st. They made up by giving us a voucher for a free trip and a flight with Continental Airlines from Miami through Houston to Managua. The flight to Houston went fine but on the connection to Managua we were deplaned and set back by over 3 hours..probably more like 4.

Waiting at Houston International.

Finally on the plane.

Lady feel asleep next to me and I had to take a crap FML

Finally we arrived and grabbed our stuff to head to the town where we were staying for the duration of the trip. We got there at 4:30 in the morning and were out the house by 7 to the beach to get on the boat. This really made diving difficult, we both were on fumes for most of the day.

I think Jenyie was falling asleep on himself at this point heading out to the first spot.

Panga ride
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5jfAe85GS0&feature=player_profilepage

The water was murky and dark so we dismissed the idea of taking any underwater video with the Gopro. I mean it was dark if you can dive in this viz you can dive anywhere, on more than one occasion I almost hit my head on the bottom.....would not have been worth the effort to record a dive.

One word that would aptly describe the water on the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua is "Jurassic". Fish came at you from everywhere, schools of Cero Mackerels as big as king fish, swirling schools of Snappers on the bottom....really a plethora of fish. The two divers we went out with have some extremely technical spearfishing methods. Stuff that you and I would never have thought of....these guys have perfected. Their methods produce big fish and they are excellent hunters themselves. They are humble guys that dive with gear most people (including myself until I saw it) would deem "unsuitable" for free-diving spearfishing.

Average size snapper

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXbSbN8RGBs

The Guys

The Gear

These guys have caught bigger fish and in more quantities than 75% of us will ever see. They can catch these fish not just because the fish are plentiful but because these guys are intelligent and have skill. They can dive past 100 feet and do so on a regular basis, I really began to admire them during my time there. And if you could see where they come from you would too.

Back at the village on the coast the fish were given to those in Jenyie's family that needed it. People in Nicaragua have it difficult...they don't panhandle for money they do it for food.

This was one of the coolest kids in the village he knew right away the best position to hold the fish, cool little kid.

Cero Mackerals as big as Kings

Cero

Big A** Trigger Fish

Look at the teeth on this mofo

There was good surf on this beach during the daytime....I should try to take a board next time

Ride to the beach

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNhedk1VmAg

Bomb Diggidy Soup

Down for chow on the final day

FIN! Home Time

Quote from Dan

What's bomb diggidy soup?

I should of just said the soup was the bomb diggidy

Quote from LunkerBuster

Great write-up. Thanks for sharing. Looks like a great time. How cold was the water?

Water was really warm I dove bare back on the second day which was a mistake cause I got a massive sunburn

Quote from seaweed

You have anymore info on their hunting techniques?

Next trip is to Panama hopefully. We are gonna try out those techniques this weekend hopefully.... will report back on them after some experimenting.

Quote from black1

Nice report and photo's Kyle, it seems like you were there during the rainy season and that is why the water was so murky, in the dry season Nica is very nice for diving, starts around December to clean up since the rain has stopped and rivers dry up.

Yeah we were advised that the next time we should plan to come during January for the best viz.