Text and photo by Mary L. Peachin  
December, January, 2025 Vol. 39, 2/3

(Editor note: There is no slide show this month as the jungle and tarpon photos went down with the panga.)

I didn’t inherit this nickname intentionally. Tarpon fishing, I nearly lost my life in shark-infested waters of Costa Rica’s silty Barro Colorado River. 

Let’s start from the beginning, how did I become a regular solo angler in the rainforest of Costa Rica alone? A group of my male Tucson “fishing buddies” (in name only) had an annual fishing to Barro Colorado. When I asked if I could go with them, I was told, “Mary, we’ll put you on our waitlist.” After several years I came to the conclusion that there really was no waitlist, they just were putting me off. After thinking about it, I told myself, what the hell? I can make this trip by myself. I never expected that it would lead to one of my closer calls with death. 

I arrived in San Jose late in the evening. I would spend the night then  

taking a small single engine aircraft into a jungle grass strip in Barro Colorado. Soon after I checked into my airport hotel in San Jose, there was a knock on my door. Assuming that it was the bellboy, I opened the door. It was a man who followed me down the hall to invite me to the bar for a drink. Slam! One of my 

 “traveling alone” lessons learned. Don’t open the door. 

I began making an annual trip to fish for tarpon, and I was quite impressed with my guide, Juan. One year he gave me a carved tarpon to take home. We would leave at sunrise hoping the seas were calm enough to motor from the river into the Ocean. It was much easier to catch and release tarpon when I could follow them in the boat. In the mouth of the river, they had a better opportunity to break the line on rocks or sunken tree trunks. Most times, the smart, prehistoric fish headed for the ocean especially when rough water conditions didn’t permit us to follow them. 

On one trip, the weather was somewhat unstable, and feeling frustrated after a day of river fishing, the second day, I asked Juan if we could try to get outside into the ocean. I think Juan enjoyed fishing with me,  plus he might have been a bit macho. 

He timed the incoming waves with his engine speed until a rogue wave crashed into the panga. The engine stalled. Trying as hard as he could he couldn’t get the motor started. 

Where tarpon are  fished, sharks feast, and it’s a feeding frenzy with the angler pulling in only the head of a shark-devoured tarpon. Bill, the lodge owner, cautioned us time and again, do not get in the water for any reason. That included if a tarpon jumped in your boat from a nearby angler’s rod. It actually happened to me. With lightning speed, I jumped on the seat to prevent being injured by the thrashing tarpon. 

As we sat disabled in the incoming waves, the boat began to fill with water. We were at the mercy of the sea. I remember the old saying “always stay with the boat.”  

Each wave caused more gear to fly out of the boat. We sank deeper and deeper. I had a firm grasp on each gunwhale watching my gear being swept away. Swamped almost to my neck, I saw a beach maybe less than a mile away. I could make that effort before the boat flipped and I would be swimming with the sharks anyway. 

Out of nowhere, a boat appeared with two guides to rescue us. They had witnessed our predicament, dropped their anglers at the beach, and hurried to rescue us. I lost everything, although Juan still held my rod. 

The two anglers on the beach had no idea what had happened. I apologized to them. Then I asked the guides to get another boat so we could return to our fishing. 

As the hours passed, many fisherman in pangas came close to take a photograph of me. Having lost all my gear, I was sorely missing my sunglasses in the brightness of the equatorial sun, and I had lost my friend Mark’s camera.  

The following days, we combed the beach, for unwrapped lures and fishing gear that washed ashore. Not only had I experienced a great fishing trip, but one close call to always remember. 

Returning to Tucson, I made a call to Mark’ insurance company about the lost camera. They told me that pangas weren’t  covered. I said, “What’s the difference between a cruise ship and and a panga?” The answer was size. They covered the cost of a new camera. 

Perhaps a decade later, when Mark renewed his policy, he was told that a camera lost in a small boat would not be covered. Mark replied, are you talking about my camera swamped in a panga?”