This report comes from subscriber and acquaintance Jay Majhanovich. I met him when visiting the Turks & Caicos where Jay was vacationing with his family. He caught a magnificent bonefish on his own while there, which ultimately made it into my book. We have stayed in touch since then as his cold winters tend to drive him for a week or two south where the sun shines and the bones swim. When looking at their cruise itinerary Jay saw the ship landed at the small Mexican port of Costa Maya. So with five hours to kill he could either go to the beach with his family and buy a “bucket a beer” for ten bucks or go fishing. Why don’t we let Jay tell you what his decision was. “My family and I recently went on a Caribbean Cruise for Spring Break. I took this opportunity, as I do anytime we venture out, to look around for various fly fishing opportunities. I know well enough that any fishing excursion offered by or associated with a cruise ship is actually going to be merely a boating trip at best. So I took it upon myself to search for a possible options. I discovered that not many fly fishing guides are interested in dealing with cruise ship clients due to the logistics of the timing of the arrival and departure of the ships. This was the case in all of our ports that I was familiar with. As luck would have it, there was one port that I was unfamiliar with. By another twist of luck, there was only one fly fishing guide that I had heard of in that region of Mexico. I had heard of Nick Denbow (Western Caribbean Fly Fishing School) both from a mutual fishing acquaintance and from Rod Hamilton’s DIY Bonefishing book. I had actually been attempting to get down and fish with Nick for several years, but it just hadn’t worked out. I knew that Nick lived and worked out of the town of Majahual. The name of our mystery port of call was Costa Maya. I decided to check the proximity of this port to Mahahual. I was pleased to find that they were basically one in the same. A series of emails to Nick, a very reasonable PayPal deposit, and a 7 minute taxi ride form the cruise ship dock, and my daughter and I were meeting Nick Denbow at a great little restaurant directly on the beach of Mahahaul. Thirty minutes later, we were launching our boat in one of Nick’s many Tarpon/snook haunts along the coast. The preceding several days had been quite rainy and had noticeably discolored the water. Due to this fact, Nick was highly disappointed in the action that day, but I did manage to land my first Tarpon (3 in fact) and had multiple shots at snook along the mangroves. We fished this location for several hours and had a great time. We then decided to head back to the beach and do a little wade fishing in an attempt to land my first Permit. I did not get the job done! However, my 12 year old daughter did manage to land one, along with a small bonefish and serveral other fish. I caught a very nice bonefish and decided to end my day on that note. I had a couple of beers and chatted with Nick (planning when I would get back to join him on a longer fishing trip) while my daughter played along the beautiful beach in Mahahaual. All in all, due to the arrival and departure time of the ship, our fishing excursion lasted only about 5 hours. Nick, however, managed to use that short amount of time to provide us with an excellent fishing adventure. I can’t say enough about Nick and his personality and professionalism. Aside from showing me some very good fishing, I was also very impressed by how conscientious he was about making sure my young daughter enjoyed herself and that we made our cruise ship with time to spare. If you happen to be on a cruise ship and Costa Maya is one of your ports, booking a fishing trip with Nick is a no-brainer. Heck if you are just looking for a beautiful, laid back, relaxing out of the way vacation spot to spend a week, you can’t beat heading down to Majahual and hooking up with Nick. “ Could you have a better shore excursion than that? Thanks Jay
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