Introduction

I’m Captain Tom of Isla Coiba fishing renown, originally from Missouri. My folks encouraged me to make a living doing what I enjoy best, and fortunately, I found that through fishing. I worked on yachts and lodges, earning money while doing what I love. Fishing takes me to places I want to go, like Coiba.

A Fortunate Encounter

Traveling through Central America with a backpack brought me to southern Costa Rica in 1991. In Golfito, walking in the morning with a friend, the wrong way to the Zona Libre we came across a freshly built little marina behind a chainlink fence. Large gravel yard, heavy equipment,  steel building, dock, big white barge and a 65 foot motor yacht. My friend said, let’s walk in there and  meet these people.

Paul and Judy Sanderson built their own private marina as a home for their yacht and took me in as right hand man. I admired Paul and Judy and their work in Golfito. My responsibilities were my pleasure.  Paul had fished in Panama with Club Pacifico on Coiba Island years before it closed in 1987 and looked forward to doing it again with his own boat.  I became the captain of their yacht, “Phoenix.”

A Life’s Mission

The first morning I woke up in Panama, anchored at Isla Rancharia and surrounded by smaller islands in front of Isla Coiba, I told myself somehow I’ll establish myself here and make this remote paradise  my life’s mission. Nowhere could compare. It’s a continuous challenge, yet I’ve earned a living guiding fishermen here ever since.

Guiding in Alaska

Kodiak Island was my departure in route to Guatemala where I began my Central American backpack journey. I continued guiding at Alaskan lodges in the summers, fly fish guiding for salmon and steelhead on the Kodiak Karluk River and targeted trophy rainbows near Lake Iliamna with jet boats and float planes. I also fished for king salmon and halibut in the ocean aboard lodge boats in southeast Alaska. Each fall, I returned to fish Costa Rica and Panama in the winters. The yacht Phoenix soon became the mothership to a 30’ Ryborunner and a 22’ Aquasport, offering seven-day charters from Golfito to Hannibal Bank and into the Coiba Islands. And I became a year-round Costa Rica resident. 

A Setback

In 1994, the mothership “Phoenix” caught fire at the dock in Golfito and burned down. The owners had a 70’ steel construction barge that Paul had built to construct his marina. I rebuilt the “Sanbar” into a houseboat, calling it “Coiba Explorer.” After receiving permission from the police and prison, I kept the Coiba Explorer and two sport boats in Panama at Coiba for months on end.  My guests arrived to me by charter plane, just like Club Pacifico had done years before, landing in the then-active prison colony.

Captain Tom’s Original Coiba Explorer Floating Lodge at Coiba Island Panama

New Opportunities

After a couple of years, Marlin Magazine featured us in an article, putting Coiba back on the map since Club Pacifico Fishing Lodge had shut down years before. I had partners in the Coiba Explorer business, but after gaining fame in the sportfishing world, we disagreed on how to run the operation. They wanted to expand, while I insisted on keeping it small. I chose to leave my dreamboat, taking my cook Tyra with me to start anew. My partners went ahead without me, purchasing a 120’ dive boat I disagreed with. They named it “Coiba Explorer II” and added a fleet of new pursuits before going out of business after three years of logistical failures.

A New Chapter

During that time, Tyra and I returned to my favorite southeast Alaskan lodge for the summer to fish. In the fall, we drove a ’73 Land Cruiser to Panama to work as a captain with Tropic Star Lodge in the Darien. I ran the supply boat, delivering fuel to Tropic Star Lodge weekly from Panama City. The lodge owners, Mike and Terry, introduced us to the owners of the JOKER, a diesel-powered ’31 Bertram with a tower in Colon on the Atlantic side of the canal. The owners of the JOKER made it possible for us to purchase it. Now, we just needed a place to keep it and get back to fishing Coiba exclusively. One beautiful thing about Coiba is that there was nowhere to stay without a mothership.

Finding a New Home

While in Panama City, we walked the docks looking for a large motor yacht with an owner agreeable to chartering with me. We came across an old friend named Oris, who introduced me to Lorenzo, the new caretaker of Isla Rancheria. This was the only island in Coiba National Park not government-owned. The owner, Manny, had recently passed away, leaving a house, airstrip, and hangar on Isla Rancheria. Manny’s sisters in California hired a friend in Panama to care for the island, and Lorenzo rented it to Tyra and me. I was back in business on my own, calling it Coiba Adventure.

A New Era

After a year of chartering from Isla Rancharia and flying our guests into the nearby prison camp on Coiba, the government opened the newly refurbished Club Pacifico cabins to visitors. We moved our operation across the water to become the first visitors to continually rent cabins there. Few visitors, besides my fishing guests, came to Coiba in those days. The logistics of safely getting there and back, along with the several active prison camps on the island, kept others away.

View from from Club Pacifico a famous panama fishing lodge during late seventies early eighties. Was years later, reopened as park headquarters. 20 years the club cabins were available to rent. But no longer

For twenty years, my guests stayed here at former Club Pacifico on Isla Coiba.