Fish Tales and Sailing Stories

So I “Bob” am going to take a stab at this blog posting thing.   I am thinking of writing two sections but today I will combine them.  One will be on fishing because Kim can’t tell a lie or even enhance a story which makes me crazy and then one on sailing because poor Kim is prone to seasickness and is generally in a medically induced coma while at sea.

We will begin at Lee Stocking Island in the southern Exuma chain of the Bahamas Islands where the LaDue family finally stopped travelling to or away from something…we were there.  Kim can give you details about this grand spot and about the idealistic routine we found ourselves in starting the day with ssb weather reports and then breakfast and then work and school until noon then lunch and then exploration and fun yadda yadda.  Well finally one day, it doesn’t matter which one and I can’t remember anyway, I woke up at 6:30 and popped my head out of the companionway and almost fell off the ladder.  It was dead flat calm!!!  Anybody that has spent any time in the Bahamas knows the wind never stops…day and night and on and on.  Also anyone who knows me or has seen our boat knows that I have a problem with gear and toys.  Anyway we dragged Anna’s water skis all the way from Maine so that she would have a chance to keep up with her cousin Alice who skis every day in the summer (thought we could get the sneak on her over the winter down here).  So, a declaration was made…”no school and no work while there is flat water”.  Anna actually shot out of bed.  Finn, of-course, is always ready.  We have to break a few rules while pulling skiers with our dinghy and it’s 10 great horses.  A severe weight restriction means that Finn (the designated watcher) has been taught that he is actually 10 years old and not 3 if we happen to be stopped by the authorities.  So cautious but capable Anna proceeds to ski all through the anchorage (so mom could take pics) at 7 am.  They were mostly Canadians so we decided it didn’t matter if we woke them up and spilled their coffee with our wakes.  The skiing was grand but then all of a sudden the water all around us erupted in an epic feeding frenzy of foot long Jacks (fish).  It looked a bit like a bluefish blitz for those of you from the Northeast US.   Anna was yanked over the side of the inflatable…skis were stowed and off to Midwatch we screamed to switch out our gear for fishing rods.  Anyone who fishes the salt knows what “running and gunning” is and if you don’t then figure it out for yourself.  Anna was on point…arm up and coaching me to the head of the schools.  Finn was staring at the engine, hand on the throttle with mine…he loves when that Mercury screams.  As we approached…Anna launched the perfect cast into middle of the boils.  I worked Finn’s 3 foot ice fishing rod…his accuracy isn’t quite there yet.  Fish-on…fish-on…we had multiple doubles.  These are hard fighting fish again like Bluefish.  We lost some and caught some…in the end we had 4, two apiece.

 

I filleted those fish on the swim platform of Midwatch while sitting on the bow of the dingy with my feet on the swim ladder.  It was very efficient but again it was calm.  The carcasses were carefully slid into the water so the Canadians wouldn’t see why all the sharks and rays were hanging out under our boat.  Didn’t take very long!

That evening I realized that our lights in the boat were attracting baitfish and every once in a while a big fish would crash the party.  I still hadn’t unpacked any of my spinning rods yet so the closest thing I had with the heaviest line was actually Finn’s 3 foot ice rod.  The first hit was a clean bite off.  I tied on some big rubber thing and tossed it in and bang “fish-on!  Finn’s rod was on fire…my first goal was to try and keep him out of the other moorings and anchors of neighboring boats.  I tightened the drag down until the line felt and sounded like piano wire.  The fish was a bulldog.  I fought him for a good half hour and then he made a surge and snap.  The next morning I opened the reel and found a thimble full of salt in it.  That night I tried again and it was the same story.  I finally felt compelled to pull out the big gun and was rewarded with a dinky Jack and then a hundred casts with no bites.

So this is a ‘catch-up’ blog so the order of events may not always be correct…who cares.  Grandpa had left and with him so had our ability to catch fish.  We were out of fresh protein and have 25 pounds of rice on board…school and work were over for the day and Anna and I decided to break out the spears and try to shoot dinner.  We had a map that I stole out of one of the buildings of the abandoned research facility that Kim will tell you all about.  On this mapped was marked a dive spot by a couple of small islands/rocks called the Tug and Barge.
 

It is about a mile run from Midwatch.  Very cool spot with an occupied Osprey nest on the Tug rock.  We put on our gear and went over the side.  There was a lot of current and Anna stayed in the Lee of the Barge rock while I worked the perimeters.  I found a coral head with what looked like a pair of lobster whips moving back and forth in the current.  It was a tight spot and I wasn’t able to ever get a look at the lobster but while diving on it I was surrounded by a school of large Jacks.  One of them made a mistake and I let him have it.  Now these are Hawaiian Slings and when you shoot them at a fish you lose contact with the spear.  When hit this fish goes berserk and does spirals down current until the weight of the spear finally brings him to the sea floor.  I swam down and bring him towards the surface and then I made a mistake.  This spear only has one flapper type barb on it and I held it so that gravity allowed the barb to go flush with the spear and whoosh I lose my fish.  He was hurt and I chased him unsuccessfully.  I felt pretty bad and decided to go back to the coral head with the lobster.  He was still there but impossible to get at and just as I was about to give up I spied my fish.  He was hurt pretty bad and was trying to hide near some coral heads.  He made his second mistake and swam into a hole that only protected his head.  This time I made it back to the boat with my prize.  Looks like we won’t starve after all.

 

We finally had to leave our beloved Lee Stocking Island paradise.  Basically we were being buried alive in stinky garbage.  Our internet needed a cash infusion, we had burned so much gas skiing and tubing and running and gunning that we simply had to go back to civilization.  So back to Georgetown we went.  Our choice was simple: that was the way the wind was blowing and they have free water there.

So after weeks of living in the protection of this great anchorage we had to deflate the tube and stow the mercury, lay out the jacklines (safety lines to connect your harness to while at sea), take down and stow the shade awnings, secure the galley drawers, start the main engine and head for the cut.  Cuts are breaks in the islands with depths that allow one to pass from the inside (western shallow bank side) to the outside (eastern deep ocean Exuma Sound side).  These cuts can be very dangerous especially if the waves and tidal currents are opposing which creates dangerously steep and breaking waves.  From past experience we have learned that the motion of the boat is greatly controlled if you have at least one sail up while motoring.  This dampens the rolling of the boat.  It is also very nice to set the main sail while you are not in the big waves and swells of the ocean.  So we did this and motor sailed through the cut into some really big and confused waves.  The boat takes these conditions amazingly well and we hardly get a drop of water on the deck but it is still a period of great stress for me.  The wind was fair and we were able to set the genoa and cut the engine as soon as we were through the cut.  Anna always comments on how nice it is when we cut the engine.

Once in the open sea and deep water the waves lengthen out and my confidence builds.  We start by gaining “sea room” which means get the hell away from land which equals “danger”.  Eventually I am satisfied with our sea room and we get the boat on a heading for our destination and let ‘Otto’ the autopilot take over steering and trim our sails for speed.  Today was unique in that we were able to head almost dead down wind.  So we set her ‘wing and wing’ meaning the main was set off the starboard side and the genoa off the port.  There was a lot of roll and snapping of the genoa so I went forward and set the whisker pole.  This is an aluminum pole that attaches to the mast and then genoa sheet and helps hold the sail out and flat away from the boat.  Once set, things settled down nicely.  Unfortunately like so many of our other sails in the ocean Kim and Anna start feeling the effects of seasickness.  So I am sent running below for drugs and water.  Finn pretends he is seasick and makes me run for milk and toys.  After the girls are sufficiently doped they both go to sleep or some version of a coma and it’s just me and Finn.  Today he goes below and just runs amuck.  Every once and a while he climbs up the ladder and asks if I can go down and play with him…I tell him I have to watch over Otto he asks why three times, gives up and goes back down below.  Finally it is time to set the lines.  Some people actually sail hundreds or even thousands of miles and never fish.  Who can understand that?  I have two trolling rigs and a bunch of back-ups if I need them.  One set up is a big Penn Senator that was Uncle Tim’s that Uncle Don had set up for sharking.  I had to give Don back the Shark rod because it was so big it wouldn’t fit in a rod holder…instead Grandpa donated a big spinning rod that does the trick.  The other set up is a fancy shimano rig that I hope to use for jigging up giant cod in Norway.  This rod has a high speed reel strung with braided line.  Grandpa saved the day a few weeks before when he realized the reel had been installed backwards at the store…thanks Dad.  On each line I have a bird teaser that flutters and splashes like crazy (thanks to our friend Mark for the recommendation) and to the teasers I have a leader and an off-shore style lure.  These are of the tube variety which have a separate hook that usually separates from the lure when you have a fish on (good if you catch a fish that jumps a lot).

Anyway I trolled for 20 nautical miles without a bite.  The only action was Finn hollering for help in the head (bathroom) like a dozen times.  The girls woke up just before we entered the harbor.  We hove-to and took the main down and motor sailed with the genoa the 5 miles down Elizabeth Harbor to Georgetown.  It was interesting to see the entrance to the harbor in the day light. 

Weeks earlier we had sailed all day and till well after dark on our way from Dotham cut near Black Point to Georgetown.  On that passage we had sailed ‘close hauled’ the entire trip in winds to 20 knots against an unfavorable current.  We even had to tack out to sea once to gain more sea room as well as reef or shorten the main sail so that we wouldn’t heal so much.  I trolled that day until dark, again without a bite,…maybe 35 nautical miles.  I don’t know how much Kim remembers of this trip as she spent a fair bit of it sleeping on two bean bag chairs wedged between the kids’ bunks in the aft cabin.  I did get her up to have her help me reduce sail.  I have to give her a lot of credit as she never complained or said she couldn’t do something even though she looked a bit like death warmed over.  We did have quite a debate as to whether we should stop at dark or continue on and then whether we should spend the night at sea or go in the cut at Georgetown after dark.  Kim will tell you I have a number of problems and one of them is that once I am sailing I don’t want to stop.  That combined with the fact that I knew the forecast for the coming days and figured this was our best day to make it to Georgetown for the next week made it easy for me to decide to press on.  After dark Kim and Anna started to come out of their comas and Anna did a fantastic job running the AIS monitoring vessels as they approached and passed us.  The next decision to be made was do we risk the cut after dark or stay out all night.  To stay out all night you either tack back and forth or hove-to or do some combination of the two.  You have to watch out for ships and keep your sea room.  I am a glutton for that sort of thing and didn’t mind doing it but Kim…not so much.  I finally reasoned that the approach to a harbor that is as popular as Georgetown is very likely to be safe in all but the worst conditions.  We also had good moonlight and a great charting program on our laptop.  Finn had long since gone to sleep so around 10:30 P.M. Kim, Anna and I pushed buttons on Otto to steer our way down the zigzag path of the harbor.  It was a pretty neat experience, once inside the cut we had breakers to our port all lit up in moonlight and the lights of a big city 5 miles in the distance.  As we approached the anchorage we realized that the lights were not of a city but that of 400 mast lights on sailboats.  Somehow we squeezed in between the boats in the dark and dropped anchor.  It was windy and squally and I was nervous about how close to the other boats we were so I opted to sleep in the cockpit to try and keep track of our relative positions.  I was finally driven below about 3 in the morning by a rain squall.  I am pretty sure Kim doesn’t remember any of that.

Let’s fast forward a bit.  We tired quickly of Georgetown and motor-sailed to Lee Stocking, another 25 miles of trolling with no luck.  Spent our time at Lee Stocking and then back to Georgetown, re-supplied, rid of our stinky garbage and it’s time to start heading north.

After a family debate coupled with weather forecasting models we agreed that we would shoot for a Sunday “Day-Sail” to the Galliot Cut near Big Farmers Cay about 15 miles north of Lee Stocking.  There was to be a big swell from the Northeast due to a big storm well away from us.  Winds would be out of the northeast clocking through the day to the east north east.  Our proposed track lies in a northwesterly direction and my hope was that we would be on a beam reach or not more than a close reach which is normally a fast and controlled point of sail.  We have also managed to avoid this point of sail for the entire trip so I was particularly eager to make this run.

Meanwhile a sense of urgency to catch a fish while trolling has been building.  Anna, completely unaware of the cut of her question, has been repeatedly questioning why we only caught fish trolling when grandpa was with us?  At this point I have trolled a good hundred miles without a bite.  The one quarry that I am most after is Mahi Mahi and trolling the Exuma Sound is supposed to be the place to catch them.  This run is likely to be my last really good chance to catch one of these guys for weeks…so the pressure is really on.

We prepped Midwatch on Saturday night and only had to do a few last minute things on Sunday morning and we were off with a good fresh wind gusting to 20 knots.  We motor sailed the 5 miles to the cut partly to charge the batteries.  Believe it or not we use more electricity sailing than at anchor;  Otto is a hungry autopilot.  As we reached the cut you could feel the tension in the whole family.  The breaking waves and agitated sea state were far more than we had yet experienced.  This is a good wide cut and I believe the tide may have been slack or minimal so we got through with minimal trauma.  We were able to carry full sail and the angles were good so I got my close reach.  Once Otto was set Kim and Anna did their best to sleep in the cockpit.  It was a bit rough down below for Finn and he went to sleep on the cockpit floor.  The sailing was awesome and we pushed 6 knots through the water most of the trip.  The first couple of hours we lost a knot or so to a contrary current but it turned around and assisted us for the bulk of the trip.  After an hour or so Finn woke up and was chipper.  I asked him if he wanted to fish and he eagerly agreed.  We set the lines and moved to the back of the boat to watch. 

 

At 6 knots of boat speed the birds really flutter and lots of water was spraying up around the lures.  At one point we started to pass through a lot of Sargassum (seaweed from the Sargaso Sea).  This is prime Mahi Mahi (Dolphin Fish) habitat.  I discussed this with Finn and he really got it so that he was pointing the clumps of weeds out and saying we should catch one soon.  I looked back and realized one of our lures wasn’t behaving correctly so I reeled it in and pulled some Sargasum off the hook.  This is actually not that easy at 6 knots in big seas while towing a rubber inflatable dingy that is crossing back and forth in your wake.   The last thing I need is to hook the dingy.  Anyway, I cleared the hook and let the rig back, set the rod in the holder, sat down and wham!  Fish-on.  The starboard reel is screaming and the rod is bent over big time.  A second later wham!  Fish-on and the port reel is screaming.  We have a double and there is no way I can stop them.  Fortunately Kim and Anna jump awake.  We have to move fast…real fast or we will run out of line.  Best I can think of is to heave-to.  For those non-sailors out there, heaving-to is a way to set the sails and angle of the boat so that both sails basically counteract each other and cancel each other out and the result is that the boat sort of stops and drifts slowly sideways in a fairly controlled manor.  We have done it a few times but I think it is still a mysterious process to most of my crew.  I jumped in the cockpit, had someone put Otto on standby, brought us about and cranked in the genoa and let her lay backed across the stays.  I sheeted in the main and set the rudder and ordered Anna to the wheel to hold it in place.  Kim was working to stow Finn in a safe place and if all went well I would need her on the gaff.  Well when we came about with both fish on, the lines got all weird.  The fish weren’t pulling very hard anymore and it seemed like they were circling.  It was looking to be a real mess.  On top of that we were drifting slowly towards shore with really big breakers crashing so there wasn’t an infinite amount of time to sort this all out.  I started in on grandpa’s rod as that looked like it was going to be the biggest problem.  By now the line was under the boat and the fish was on the other side a long ways away and I couldn’t really tell what direction.  I pulled a bit too much at the wrong angle and the line ended up getting caught in between the rudder and keel where the propeller is.  This is not good but I was still able to slowly retrieve line.  After what felt like an eternity of scraping the line across the boat bottom, watching the breakers get slowly closer, and seeing the other rod get bent in the wrong direction Kim hollers out that it’s a Mahi.  She worked at gaffing it on the other side of the boat from me but the fish stayed too deep.  Finally I was able to work him under the boat and he came through clear.  He was pretty small as Dolphins go and after a few misses with the gaff I impatiently tried to lift the fish over the side with the line and of course the fish fell off.  No matter…we still have another fish on.  Fortunately this fish is not yet under the boat but it is way off the bow so I untie the rod (normally keep them tied to the boat for obvious reasons) and walk/crawl forward and around the forward stay and back down the port side.  This one had taken a tremendous amount of line but I had the high speed reel so soon we were in the fight again.  She came in close quickly but we couldn’t get her close enough to gaff and then she took off and went acrobatic jumping 5 or 6 times.  The kids really got into that part.  Finally the fish tired and I was able to get her up for Kim.  This time Kim was ready and got a good stick in the fish after the 2^nd or 3^rd try.  Anyone who has ever tried to gaff a big fish, while on a sailboat, in a big sea while sea sick and half asleep knows just how hard this is.   If you know Kim you know how strong she is.  She hefted this fish over the side and held it knee high while it went berserk for some period of time, she may have even been screaming at it…I am not sure!  I think everyone was screaming with excitement.  I was finally able to put the rod down and get a hand in behind the fishes gill plate get the hook out and gain control.  I brought her to the back of the boat and tied a rope through her to keep her secure.  Then it was time to get ourselves together and regain our sea room.  We secured the rods and gaff and Kim and I handled the sails while Anna piloted the boat back on course.  Anna was amazing.  She really has a good sense of what this is all about and handles the wheel really well.  We had to go close hauled to get back to our track and it was pretty wild in the 20 knots of wind.  Once we reached our track we could bear off the wind, trim the sails, set Otto, deploy the fishing gear and then get to work cleaning our fish and a whole lot of blood on the deck (and Anna’s face!).

 

 

 

This really picked up everyone’s spirits…though Kim still wasn’t feeling well.  An hour before the fish hit we had given Anna a seasick pill and it really seemed to work wonders.  She was feeling great and engaged the rest of the day.  Unfortunately we only have two more of these pills and you need a prescription for them.  Kim has to go through some sort of internal battle as to whether or not she can steal a pill from her daughter.  I am staying out of it.

Perhaps 10 miles on our way we had a hit and a miss and then I got to watch another Mahi smash a lure and get it.  This time we were prepared.  We hove-to, Anna took the wheel, I pulled the fish in, Kim gaffed it but this time Finn slept through the whole thing.

For you fisherman out there:  When pulling this one in we could see another 5 or 6 Mahi ghosting alongside the fish on the line.  I had Kim take a few casts with a spinning rod and one hit but it was just too rough for Kim to cast and retrieve effectively so we gave it up.  This fish was not to be kept…already had too much meat, so I just hefted him over the side got a picture and tossed him back.

 

We continued on to Galliot Cut and sailed through without the engine on.  The tide was right and it just pulled us through but I will admit I was a bit scared of it.  I like being away from land a lot better.  We made great time and it was the first day of daylight savings and our chosen anchorage was right near the cut so we had time to play.  I will let Kim describe the rest of the day.

This catches us up to today (March 11).  We got up early and headed north on the inside (shallow bank side) at high tide in our highest sailing winds to date (20-25kts).  Only had a few miles to go on a reach so we never bothered to set the main and flew along under genoa alone and virtually no waves.  This is Kim’s kind of sailing and now that she has had a good taste of it I think my days of miles of Mahi Mahi trolling are numbered.  For the time being it is back to work and school till noon for us with short hops north on the “inside”.