Sailing lore has always said to never leave port with bananas on board or on a Friday. Leaving on a Friday the 13th is a double whammy of bad Ju Ju so what did we do last week? Right we left on Friday the 13th along with our good friends Eric and Marilyn on Full Shell. We escaped unscathed unlike our buddies on Full Shell who developed engine problems after just eight hours of sailing. They headed back to Mazatlan under full sail knowing that is would be slow going. What had taken eight hours under engine power ended up taking 23 hours to drift slowly back to port.
Once Friday slipped into Saturday and the seas calmed I awoke to find Rog with his fishing poles in the water. His watch had been from 4am to 7am and I was a little slow getting going with the morning coffee and light breakfast. By 8:30 he was VERY ready to head down for a morning nap when we heard that unmistakable sound of FISH ON! We always look around to see if we can see the fish as it begins his fight and this one was up and out of the water immediately so we knew we had something large on the line. Luckily the wind was light so when we turned on the engine we could control the speed and direction in order to keep the fish directly behind us. After an hour for fight we finally got him close enough to see what we had caught.
The swim ladder is 30 inches wide so you are looking at a wahoo that is at least 60 inches long and as time to release was of the essence to get him back in the water we will never know his exact measurement. There is a tape measure in the fishing bag now.
I was forced into service when two of our three lines started singing at the exact same moment, two fish on! I was very surprised to find out how hard it was to reel in my fish when we were still underway at 5 knots. I now understand why Rog is always asking for the boat to be slowed down, that and to try and not lose the fish because of a broken line. I pulled in the first yellow fin tuna of this season, bigger than our one from last season. Again it was a quick release so he could swim off.
I tried to take the hook out of his mouth but wisely decided to leave that job to Rog. In calm seas the swim step has been a great spot for landing our fish.
Roger landed his yellow fin without much trouble. The fish was worn out after being drug behind the boat while I took took the better part of 30 minutes to land mine. He was quickly returned to the water.
This is the one that got away! Our last catch of the day was a dorado that put up the biggest fight of the day. He jumped and danced on the water when first caught and then dove to try and escape. Close to an hour later we finally saw him again along with another fish that followed close behind. Rog got him right to the stern of the boat and was about to use the gaff when the line broke. With that our fantastic fishing day came to an end. We were too tired to go for sail fish which was all we were missing from perfect day of fishing.
Our day came to an end with a beautiful sunset that we thought would bring down the sea state. We were wrong, the wind and seas picked back up to give us winds over 18 knots on the nose and seas around 4 to 6 feet. By morning it was finally better and we had a delightful motor into La Paz
By Sunday 9am our trip that began on Friday the 13th had been completed with no major catastrophe. We were very fortunate and will try not to temp fate anytime in the near future
No comments:
Post a Comment