It was Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009, 6 AM and I had just walked out of the Palometa Club with coffee cup in hand. At first glance down the beach a distant light reflecting off the white sand gave the startling impression that snow had fallen during the night. No noise emanated from Punta Allen, the small Mexican village of about 500 people where the Club is located. Punta Allen, is at the far end of a long peninsula projecting into Bahia de la Ascension on the Yucatan coast, its existence grandfathered in place when the Sian Kaán Biosphere Preserve was established. This week of the festive season, Semana Santa, the village, had swelled to at least 2000 and the beach was dotted for miles with the boats, tents, hammocks, cooking gear and other paraphernalia of the campers come for the holidays.

As a young child I revered Easter as a day for egg hunts, baby chicks, colorful baskets and chocolate candy rabbits. Later, after eight years of parochial school, words were drummed into my head that related the story of Easter and they emerged every year, this day being no exception. “He is not here, He has risen,” announcing that day, some 2000 plus years ago when Jesus Christ, biblically God, historically man, is believed to have come back to life after being crucified and buried three days earlier. If that God-man had had a choice of where to rise from the dead, it struck me that, if the new world had been discovered, he could not have selected a more perfect place to return to life than this white sand beach on Ascension Bay where the glory of the day was already being promised.

At this early hour I was still the only ambulatory human, but gradually some of the tents opened and hammocks emptied their drowsy occupants to make their stumbling way to morning relief. The sky was brightening clear above, cloudy around the perimeter, and a prominent breeze made the palm trees dance.

In contrast to all the pinnate-leaved coconut palms that dominated the beach before me, there was one prominent Ube tree between me and the sunrise I had come out to enjoy. Ubes have big, flat leaves that make the tree look out of place in this setting. I had been told that this one was close to 100 years old, one-half of it having been broken away two years earlier when hurricane Dean hit through the Caribbean.

As I sat watching and waiting for the light show to begin, a pair of boat-tailed grackles flew from tree to tree and started strutting around on the sand while showing off their unique rudders and announcing, in their raucous way, that the performance was about to start. And just before the drifting clouds opened the curtain, one squadron of pelicans flew past barely two feet above the waves and then another of frigate birds followed much higher.

Rather suddenly, it seemed to me, the cloak of darkness disappeared and the thermal source of life made its entrance. The clouds reddened, then yellowed then back to their original gray as that glowing red sphere ascended to the stage. I was so absorbed with that demanding orb that I almost hated to hear the call to breakfast. That frame of mind evaporated quickly when I heard that today would feature crépes with mixed fruit filler. Our cooks, Leydi and Fina made every meal a gustatory experience and their food was enjoyed with the company of seven other anglers, two from Spain, two from Belgium, two from Cleveland and my son Joe from Colorado.

I am not an addicted fly fisherman, but I love the environments in which fly-fishing takes place. Wild rivers, ocean flats, hidden bays, forest lakes all conjure a deep feeling of peace and contentment. This was the case at the Palometa Club where Joe had invited me along as he has done now and then when opportunity arose on certain of his trips. Joe owns and operates Wild On The Fly, a fly fishing travel company which accommodates anglers traveling to exotic fisheries around the world (and which owns this web site).

In the interest of full-disclosure, the Palometa Club is one of his exclusive destinations and in the present situation he was there to fill in for the managers, Dick and Kaye Cameron, who needed to be away for most of the week. Their absence had opened up two spaces and he had invited me to join him. Delighted, to say the least, I flew from Norfolk, Virginia and he from Denver to meet at the airport in Cancun. There we found Dick’s Ford pickup truck and drove the 100 miles, more or less, to Punta Allen, the last 30 on a jungle road, and the fun began.

The Palometa Club was built late in 2005 and opened for its first season before the end of January 2006. It can accommodate 12 guests in a well-appointed building with kitchen, dining area, lounge and three bedrooms with baths on the first floor and three more bedrooms, all with separate bathrooms, on the second floor. It opens out to a covered porch on the beach side where an outdoor bar and patio welcome guests. It is one of the newest of a dozen or more lodges devoted primarily to saltwater fly-fishing along what is popularly called the Permit Coast that extends along the eastern edge of Yucatan, Mexico through Belize.

In the shallow flat embayments off of the Gulf of Honduras resides one of the most sought-after quarries of fishermen the world over, the “permit” or in Spanish, the “palometa.” Permit range in shallow saltwater flats over much of the world’s tropical and subtropical waters. They are strikingly beautiful, gray to white-silver fish with yellow tinged underbellies, black fins and forked tail. Their bodies are flattened laterally, typically weighing between 5 and 25 pounds when caught and the really big ones approaching 40 pounds. They tend to travel in schools sometimes numbering over 50 while feeding on the bottom, but single fish are not rare. Joining them, as dominate in the same ecosystem are bonefish, tarpon, snook and barracuda.

After breakfast the guides appeared hinting that it was time to go fishing. I hurried to get ready so when I came out of the lodge 15 minutes later gear in hand and adorned in long pants, wading shoes, billed hat, a Buff covering everything but my face, polarizing sunglasses and a yellow raincoat overall, I looked like a Bedouin nomad ready to mount my camel. That day my camel was a boat.

I hurried down to that boat to which I had been assigned, met the guides and promptly fell into the water when my wading boot caught on the gunwale as I tried to step over it. I do not know where they came from, but instantaneously dozens of hands reached out to rescue me. They knew about klutzes and expected to get one every now and then. Embarrassed and now seated in the boat I flashed a winning smile to all assembled as indication that I was now ready to go. Not many smiled back anticipating what kind of a day it was going to be with me in tow.

Lunch and drinks were stowed in insulated chests and fishing gear under the seats. Our equipment consisted of 8- to 10-weight fly rods, reels filled with floating saltwater lines, and plenty of backing, wire tippets, diverse leaders and an assembly of standard flats flies. For permit these were Merkins, Velco-Crabs, Rag Heads, McCrabs and Clousers in various colors and sizes. As an aside, but influencing facto, was a deep-seated void in Joe’s mind and an unfilled tally on his record card. He had caught dozens of species of fish on fly rod tackle, but although he had hooked several (including two he claimed were of trophy size) he had never actually landed a permit. I could tell it gnawed at him, and in that unfailing fashion where hope springs eternal in the heart of every passionate angler, he fully intended that the achievement of this day would erase that deficiency.

The guides for the Palometa Club are exceptional. Young men, at least partially of Mayan ancestry, they all speak English in varying degrees of fluency and are self-confident with pleasant personalities and possessed of good humor. They are extremely knowledgeable about the geography of the area, about their cultural backgrounds, about the wildlife, about the fish and how to catch them, and about their boats—how to maintain them and how to run them.

The boats used and individually owned by Palometa Club guides are called pangas. They are 18 feet long, fiberglass, Immesa 23Ws retrofitted to serve as flats skiffs and driven by 50 horsepower four-stroke Yamaha motors. When I say “driven” I don’t use the word loosely. As soon as possible after leaving the beach the guides open it up to full throttle, a speed that seems inevitable to invite disaster. The intent, of course, is to get past the land projections and heavy swells of the Gulf waters quickly and back into the flats. Riding at this speed is rough on one’s posterior and one is certain the boat will be side-washed and overturned and, even if it were not a religious day, one is prompted to alert the Almighty with promises of behavioral improvement if allowed to survive this punishment.

Upon safe arrival at the calm shallow waters of the open flats, both pain and promises are forgotten, gear is prepared and the guides begin to search for our prey. One guide stands in the bow of the boat and the other climbs upon a four-foot high poling platform built onto the stern of the boat. Through polarizing sunglasses they are able to see the fish we are after, or water fluctuations that give evidence of their presence.

On the way out to the flats the Caribbean waters reflected the blue of the sky tumbled to gray with each wave and reefs topped with whitecaps. Upon our arrival, less angry, the waters of the flats took on the appearance of a camouflage sheet with random mixing of light green over the shallows, dark green over areas of turtle grass, creamy white where the bare sandy bottom shows through and chlorophyll green where patches of algae predominated. The horizon all around blended cotton puff clouds in the sky into a brilliant green ribbon of water. Way off to the south, a small, almost black, thunder cloud warned that we better enjoy this panorama and our fishing intentions while we could because rough weather might be on the way.

We passed numerous small islands with sandy beaches and impenetrable jungle starting just beyond the tidal surf line, and other pseudo islands of thick mangroves. The beauty of these places was subdued by all the human flotsam that had deposited there. Some of it originated locally, but the greater proportion was the floatable trash that cruise ships dumped out at sea. It stirred up my anger as I pondered how those ships had the temerity, the gall, the assumed right to throw all their offal into our collective oceans? Out of sight they let it go out of mind, out of their conscience, that’s how!

As noted earlier, I am not, and quick to admit it, not a fisherman of high repute. I had done a bit of freshwater fly-fishing where one casts to pools, ripples or the edge of vegetation that could, hopefully, harbor unseen fish. I know all the “do’s” and “don’ts,” but conforming to my rebellious nature I didn’t always do the do’s or didn’t do the don’ts. In spite of this I sometimes caught the occasional trout, even bass two times and a northern pike once. Never, however, had I ever fished saltwater. Joe described it as a hunt where you do not indiscriminately cast to where you hope the fish are (a process likely to land you a catch once a decade), but rather you must first find your quarry, see it, cast to it and employ appropriate technique to attract it to your offer.

In the flats the guides turn off the motors and control the boat with the use of long graphite poles called “stiffers.” Generally they try to keep lateral to the wind both to facilitate gradual coasting down the length of the flat and to accommodate the fisherman’s cast of his line down-wind. Today was different; the wind was too strong and it was difficult to keep the boat under control with only a pole. The churning waters also impeded the guides’ polarized view of the surface, which made seeing the fish impossible and frustrating for both guides and fishermen. Driven by the cardinal virtues of both faith and hope we tried at least four large flats, but never escaped that blowing force. So with no fish to pursue I simply enjoyed the day and the chance to be in such a beautiful place and to be spending quality time with my son, who saw it as lost opportunity. Being a biologist I was enthralled with the diversity of life that inhabited this place. Although bonefish and permit evaded us we saw snappers, box fish, barracuda, tarpon, rays, sea turtles, saltwater crocodiles, herons, egrets, roseate spoonbills, ibis, many kinds of ducks, one rookery of wood storks, another of frigate birds and, on one peninsula, a white-tailed deer taking his siesta. Others of our party, in other boats, also saw porpoises and a manatee.

This day, and repeated another day later in the week, we stopped for lunch on a small island that was said to be over-run with iguanas. I counted seven of them that were waiting on the beach when we arrived obviously conditioned to humans and expectant of being fed potato chips, fruit and scraps from sandwiches. They would take morsels directly from our hand if other movement was subdued. Iguana Island was also a convenient spot for bladder control and when walking back into the dense vegetation to take advantage of this opportunity, I never saw another lizard. I came away convinced that there were only the seven that were always in the welcoming party and that vivid imaginations expanded the number infinitely to appease angler delight.

Later in the afternoon we tried one more flat, but the choppy water negated all our efforts. It just wasn’t working. Maybe the Almighty simply did not want us to catch His finny creatures on His holy day. Twice during this prolonged period of wind domination our guide saw “tailing” and the riffle pattern caused by a school of permit. To prevent line tangling and evade hooks going into human flesh, only one person fishes at a time so Joe, hopeful of breaking his permit-less status, got up to try his luck. Cast after cast exactly where that fly needed to be failed to land a fish. The second time a permit was suspected was my turn. Already frustrated by the aggravation of the wind, our guides were brought to the edge of despair by my failure to place my faux-crab where they had indicated. Many casts toward the spot, but never quite to it. If permit were ever there my bashing the water around them was reason enough for them to migrate.

Then rather suddenly as if it had read the top of my wish list the wind died down and immediately Raphael spotted fish. He turned to me and spoke like a father to an errant child saying this might be my only chance so I better get it right. “Cast just to the left of that dark green spot,” he said in slightly broken English while pointing to reinforce his meaning. He hadn’t been happy with how the weather had disrupted his plans; he did not want the day to be a bust, it insulted his talent and his capabilities and left him unsettled; he depended on me to save the day. And save it I did! My first cast went awry as usual, but the second cast hit the mark and as soon as I started to strip my line the fish hit. When he pulled I pulled back, gently as Charlie had instructed me earlier and away went my line—I had a fish on! “God Almighty” escaped my lips, appropriate, I thought, for the sanctity of the day.

Loath to surrender that silver streak was going to test me true. When he headed out or across I let him run and when he slowed I reeled him in. Out and in, out and in, and then gradually more in than out. Finally he came alongside of the boat and Raphael expertly tailed him. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t a permit, but it was the one and only fish that day. Both the fish and I were gasping as I held it up while Joe took the picture of me and my gorgeous bonefish. Both guides were relieved, Joe was delighted and I was overwhelmed at this first saltwater fish I had ever caught. After a short bask in the limelight I was reluctant to have to release it. Hard to get a trophy then have to give it back.

No sooner had I let “Bones” go than, as if on cue after the interlude Mother Nature had given us, the black cloud moved closer and the wind came up again.

So, deciding that further piscine quest was pointless we left the flats and headed back to the lodge. The ride back was far less urgent than our trip out, so we went slower: I noticed things along the shore I had not seen earlier; an osprey nest with hungry fledgling, a coconut palm farm, an army encampment with patrol boats at the ready and a pair of Grant egrets fishing in the shallows. And as we approached the Club’s beach, dozens of swimmers and sunbathers greeted us warmly. Then, almost unbelievable, with the same clumsiness that caused me to fall getting into the boat that morning, I fell into the water again while getting out of the boat. All those people on the beach tried to hide their laughter until I stood up, soaking wet, and laughed with them. A change into dry clothes, a margarita at the bar, a delicious dinner of Mayan tamales and a chocolate desert counteracted any embarrassment of my two tumbles and only heighted the euphoria of being welcomed into cadre of successful saltwater anglers.

Several of us walked into Punta Allen that evening to enjoy each other’s company over a cerveza at one of the little open-air bars. A small carnival had come to town for the weekend and the air was filled with children’s shouts of delight on the rides and adults’ shouts of disappointment when they failed to hit a target at the shooting booth. The streets were filled with merriment, noise and inebriation; a celebration at its best and a perfect way to call an end to a perfect day!

Thinking that the fishing might improve if we let the wind die down a bit we decided to take a recess and go next day on an expedition to Patrimonio Mundial at the top of the bay to see the Mayan ruins at Muyil. After our guide, Heraldo, beached the boat he took us on a path through the jungle and explained the ways the Mayas used the different trees we encountered. His renditions made the Mayan culture come alive. These ruins were smaller versions of Chichen Itza and Tulum and less well known, but equally extraordinary in their own way all making for another delightful day. On our return trip the sky darkened early, but a full moon was visible when the clouds parted and lit our way home. When we arrived back at the Club the beach was empty: No cars, no tents, no people. All the celebrants had gone—the holiday was over.

On each of the next two days we went back to fishing and the general procedure described for day one was repeated, but without the disruption of heavy wind. On each of these I managed to catch a respectable bonefish while Joe caught four or five, but neither of us caught the elusive permit. We saw a few but couldn’t tempt them to our flies. In partial retaliation, three of the other people in our group did catch permit during this time. Although he showed nothing but professional enthusiasm, I knew for Joe this had the bittersweet effect of genuine excitement for his clients and further ache that, again, it wasn’t him on the business end of that fly rod.

The day before we left, Joe and I drove further down the coast almost to Belize for him to evaluate another fishery at Paradise Lodge. It was still being rebuilt from the destruction caused by Hurricane Dean that hit the area two years before on August 21, same day as my 80th birthday. Much of the palm forest of the area was destroyed at the same time and trees in the area were piled up like matchsticks.

Then, regrettably, it was time to go. Goodbyes to everyone, thanks and tips to the staff that had served us so well and Joe and I drove back to Cancun. We left the truck in the parking lot at the airport where Dick and Kaye would find it upon their return and went to our respective airline gates. Flying back to Virginia I reflected on the fact that I almost hadn’t gone on this trip. A number of minor health and family problems almost caused me to cancel. Fortunately they were not that persuasive. The trip proved to be reinvigorating, revitalizing, reenergizing, and in a sense, a different kind of resurrecting. I could not resist a smile of contentment with my excellent sojourn at the Palometa Club in Mexico that began on, and was a day of resurrection.