Your Captain & Guide

Captain Tom Yust first came to Isla Coiba ten years ago as skipper of the “Phoenix”. This was the original mothership operation, which reopened Coiba and the Hannibal Bank to the angling world since Club Pacifico closed in 1988.

Back then in 1991 the Phoenix was intended to fish all of Pacific Costa Rica and Western Panama. By the end of the first season I had seen enough of Costa Rica and sailfish to know the Hannibal Bank & surrounding islands in Panama would be the destination I would steer all of our future guests to.

Why I love Panama? Black Marlin.. There is simply nothing to compare with the site of a heavy bodied Black Marlin erupting at the transom. Yet what makes this area so unique is after you’ve fought a Black, exotic inshore fish like Cubera Snapper, Roosterfish and Bluefin Trevally are waiting just a short distance away. I love the variety; I enjoy switching techniques to suite different species. Nowhere I’ve heard of, hosts as many different fishing holes where you may genuinely expect to hook up what you’re fishing for. I hate to be bored and in ten years I’ve never ever felt bored fishing here.

I fished with Phoenix for four years, running weeklong expeditions out to Coiba from Golfito, Costa Rica. We only fished four or five guests per week. Small group fishing is the only way to go. The freedom to do what ever you want, with out concern for a bunch of other people, it’s the only way to fish the Coiba realm right. We fished and roamed anywhere, anchored anywhere.

Then the Phoenix went up in flames one night. While tied to the dock in Golfito.

To make a long story shorter; soon after the fire, I converted an idle restaurant barge into a mobile fishing lodge. While watching National Geographic Explorer on TV one night in Panama City, I came up with the name “Coiba Explorer”. My plan was to accommodate only small groups of four or five guests per week. I arranged to keep the barge anchored within the Coiba National Park waters with out having to return to Costa Rica. We moved around, anchored up off different islands weekly.

The beauty of the Explorer was, your group had the floating lodge and crew to yourselves, anchored up in remote seclusion. There was nearly no one sport fishing here in those days. You could fly in from the states to Coiba the same day. Once here, you could do as you wished. The barge once had a duck camp atmosphere, a setting where you & your friends could really relax.

After two years of growth in the wrong direction, I gave up the Explorer to a couple of pirates, my partners. The big tourist operation which replaced the barge still bears the name, but it’s hardly what I intended for this once unknown fisherman’s paradise.

Lucky thing for us individuals is… The Coiba region is vast and the fishing grounds numerous. The ten little identical boats zooming out at 8:00 each morning usually all crowd the center of the Hannibal Bank every day. Leaving the rest of this awesome expanse like it has always been, unoccupied and virgin. We will always cater only to small groups. It’s what I love to do; it’s why I’m here. You can still experience this fabulous fishery, as it was when I first arrived here. The spirit of the “Original Explorer” lives on with “Coiba Adventure”