Day 248, Tuesday February 25
Plans written in the sand at low tide. We left conception, heading north.
We are really undecided, cause we had wanted to go down to
the Ragged islands, but slowly the thoughts of home and knowing every mile
south is a mile we have to recover to head home, we turn to Cat island. We are quite looking forward to Cat island as
our good friend Caroline Wright was born here.
As soon as we are
under way Dawson puts new line on our rod and rigs a new leader/lure and we get
the rod out. There has been a fair bit
of chatter on the radio about fish on over the last two days so we have our
hopes up. About an hour in we spot some
activity on the water, with sea birds diving and fish jumping, we are next to a
feeding frenzy so change course to go through it, hoping to catch one of the
fish on our line, but no luck. There are
hundreds of about 16 inch fish jumping about with seabirds fluttering amongst
them all diving for smaller fish. There
is little to no wind unfortunately so we are motoring. We have been quite successful sailing versus
motoring as we keep our plans flexible to go with the wind. There are many things to consider
though. Waves, tides, future weather and
safe anchorages etc.
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| Dawson landing the mahi mahi |
While underway we do a myriad of domestic duties. Cooking, cleaning, blogging.... Other than the departure and arrival there is lots of water, so with the autohelm it is a no brainer for getting there. Dawson is actually reading a book during his watch. Julie was playing solitaire on the ipad during her watch.
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| Dawson holding 48 inches of Mahi |
We are just about to pull in our line as we are approaching the south end of Cat Island and will be turning into
the shallows in about 20 minutes. We
figure might as well leave it out a few more minutes and bang we have a fish on
the line. Dawson quickly grabs the line
so we don’t make the same rookie mistake we did a couple of days ago losing the
line because it ran out. It takes Dawson
40 minutes to reel it in. Once again
Julie bumbles around keeping us on course, getting stuff out of the way,
getting the sprayer with Scotch ready, towels, cutting board, bag, knife, net
etc. About 20 minutes into landing the fish Dawson looks up and spots a whale surfacing for air about 300' off the boat, he yells to Julie who happens to be looking in the right direction and spots the whale just as it dives. We can’t get the fish in the dip net due to it's size but Julie follows it as Dawson just hoists the fish into the cockpit. Not much chance Julie would have caught the
fish if it got off the line at this point.
This fish was not as tired as the last one and it was banging against
the side of the hull. Once in the
cockpit it also bounced a bit, but we quickly put a wet towel on its head after
Dawson managed to spray some alcohol into its gills. Wow this fish is bigger than the last
one. Another Mahi Mahi and about 48
inches long head to tail. Dawson bleeds
it out all over the cockpit, which is fine as the cockpit is easy to spray
clean and scrub. Once again we are very
excited. We put the fish is a garbage
bag, then put ice packs on the bag and a wet towel over top to keep it cool
until we can fillet it which is in about 2 hours as we are close to the
anchorage.
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| Towel over fish to calm it |
We decide to go into New Bight as we can get some
supplies. As we are getting closer the
internet starts to work and we can see via facebook that San Cles is at anchor
which we are thrilled about as we have enjoyed their company immensely and had
lost where they were. Upon getting
closer we also see Syrena has made it safely into anchor.
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| The local band, one of Brits is trying his hand on the saw |
It is now about 4:00 and we start cleaning the fish. A few boats pull up to ensure we are aware
that there are sundowners on shore. One boat pulls up and tells off of the sundowners and that they have hired a band. We
indicate we will come as fast as we can but that we have a fish to clean.
It takes us about an hour to get the fish cleaned, stored away, and an
initial rinse to the cockpit. Another 30
minutes and we are off to shore. We know
just 3 of the boats, the other 5 or 6 are new introductions. A British boat with 3 couples on board has arranged for a rake and
scrape band to come and play for us for an hour or so. This is the first true rake and scrap bands we have seen, earlier ones had electric guitars and a drum kit. This band is made up of grandfather and two granddaughters, the oldman is on a small accordion one of the girls on half a 45 gal drum with a skin on top and the other one is playing the carpenter saw by scraping a file on it. The music is great and the company even better. The sunset is excellent and we are treated to
the “green flash” phenomenon. It is 7:30
by the time we are making it back to the mothership. We give 3 ladies from the British ship a lift
as they are anchored near us. We have
had a lovely time on shore.
Luckily we did not eat any of the munchies that are typical
of sundowner socials. We did not have
time to put something together, so the rule we have is no contribution, no
eating. We decide to BBQ the mahi mahi
with an olive oil, lime and garlic marinade and it is fabulous.
The anchorage is very peaceful so we have a great night
sleep.
Cheers
Julie and Dawson
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