Out islands
Yesterday started out great. We departed
Highbourn cay at 7:30am. The forecast for the day was 25 kt winds from the east
north east. When we cleared the reef it was only 2 foot seas and light winds. I
had planned to go to Eluthera 40 miles
to the east to avoid getting beat up to bad. With calmer seas than forecast, I
decided to troll lures 78 miles to the south east. We deployed the lure spread behind
the boat and started working our way south.
Under normal circumstances we would have an
angler to fight the fish, a deck hand to clear the extra lines and wire the
fish and the captain would maneuver the boat to keep the fish behind the boat
and clear the teasers. With just Kyle and I we had a pretty good system when we
hook one fish. He would fight the fish, I would run down and clear the lines
and then run back up stairs and maneuver the boat. …………. Well that works great.
But about 14 miles out of highbourn we got two bites at once. Two blue marlin
came up dancing and tailwalking across the surface. I cleared the bridge
teasers as kyle fought the first fish. I then ran down and grabbed the second
rod that was still in the rod holder with the fish jumping and going ballistic.
It was chaos as kyle and I worked to keep our lines from tangleing. At the same
time we were hooting and hollering and high fiving each other as we fought our
fishes and tried to clear the extra lines still in the water. Wow was it
exciting. I have caught plenty of marlin and even had doubles hooked. But to
catch two at once with just myself and a deckhand was very exciting. My fish
came to the boat first. I stuck the rod in the holder and ran back to the
bridge to maneuver the boat so we did not drift over the fish. Kyle put his rod
in the holder and wired my fish to the boat. Fortunatley kyles fish ran back
and away from the boat while he released my fish. Twenty minutes later we
released Kyles fish as well. What a way to start the day. As the day wore on,
we caught some dorado as the winds slowly increased. Around noon we were in the
middle of the Exuma sound. Kyle and I both happened to be looking back at the
spread as a white marlin piled onto the left long bait. We had it hooked and peeling
line for a few minutes as we cleared the other lines. Then the fish jumped and
shook the hooks lose. There was still one line in the water. Another smaller
white piled onto it. This white was fought all the way to the boat and released
as well. We caught a few more dorado as the seas built till about 3 pm. It got
very windy and the seas became tall and steep quickly. We cleared all the lines
out of the water with 38 miles left to go to get to Hawks Nest marina at the
southern tip of Cat Island. We were only able to make 9 knots. About every 5
minutes a really big set of waves would approach and I would have to take the
engines out of gear to avoid stuffing the bow through the waves. Four and a
half hours later we idled into Hawks nest marina. What an ass whipping we took.
Upon arriving we flew our release flags for
the day. All the crews from the other boats came by to ask us the normal
questions…. Where did you get them? How big? What were you dragging? And a few “
Are you pulling our leg? Fishing here has been slow for marlin the last week.
There have been some Tuna Wahoo and a bunch of dorado but not much for marlin.
As it turns out I know half the crews on
boats that are here. It was a pleasure to
see them. Especially when after getting our asses beat for 5 hours, The
crew on the boat next door invited Kyle and I for a great dinner of Dorado. Afterwards
it seems that all the crews ended up on the back deck of that boat as we all
swapped fishing and travel stories.
The southern Bahamas islands like the one
we are on, are very rustic and the amenities are not the best. These islands
are refered to the out islands of being down island. The satellite TV reception
begins to fade at this Latitude. We have lost about 80 % of the channels. There
is not much to do here on Cat. This is one of
“those Rocks” that we come to where the fishing is
good but man is it desolate. With no TV and no real place to hang out, each
night the crews will all eat together, then retire to our computers in hopes of
emails from friends.
At
this point in the blog I would like to bring it to EVERYONES attention, that my
two kids have not written me one time since we left a few weeks ago. Shame on
you Patrick and Lauren.
With
the winds blowing again today, One of the crew volunteered last night to rent a
van and do a road trip around the 60 mile long island. If we get our chores and
a few things fixed, we may tag along. I would rather be fishing or diving.
The marina here is a lime stone quarry cut
out of the land. It is not the nicest of marinas but it is calm and secure. There
is just not much to do at all here. One interesting thing here is, If you want
to go for a bike ride……. just grab a bike. There are bikes lying around every
dock. They are all just bikes that are left here. After I finish this blog, I
think I am going to grab one and get some exercise.
As the
sun is rising here, there are small showers rolling by. The temps are balmy but
the winds are howling. Looks like the wind is going to blow till Thursday. We
will probably sit here till Friday morning. At that point, we are going to fish
our way over to San Salvador.
Sorry no pics internet is real slow here.
No comments:
Post a Comment