Captain’s Log: Entry
139, November 30, 2007
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We woke up this morning with visions of
Marlin and Sailfish. Today is the first day of fishing in
the Flor de Caña Billfish Championships. I could barely
sleep last night, partly because I was so excited, and
partly because we are all sharing one room and Jeff snores
so damn loud! The Marina is beautiful in the morning so I
had to take some shots to share that with you all. The sun
rises behind the volcano and the entire Marina starts
glowing. The only thing that had me concerned this morning
was the wind. At first light, you could already feel the
offshores stirring up. We were determined to fish the
ledge, no matter what the wind was going to throw at us.
Fishing goes from 6 am until 5 pm, so at 6 am we were the
first boat to fly out of the Marina. We may have been the
first to leave, but it only took a half mile for the
entire fleet to go flying past us in our slow ass panga!
At about 20 miles offshore, I started to get worried. The
wind was hucking, and we were getting our asses handed to
us going with the wind. At about 30 miles we saw a larger
sportfish off of our Starboard at about a mile. We laid
down an intercept course so we could try and tuck in
behind him. By the time we made it over to him, he was a
quarter mile in front of us. I made a call on the radio,
and luckily the Captain let us catch up. At this point the
seas are a solid 6-8 feet and the wind is 15-25 knots. I
made everyone in the boat sit down on the deck to keep our
center of gravity down. It was pretty hairy! The boat in
front of us was a 50 Viking and it was getting beat down
too. He would go over a wave and when the wave passed in
between us, I could only see half of the Viking. If you
look at the picture where I am flicking off the camera,
you can see what the seas looked like in the background.
There is also a good picture of Kristin and Flaco holding
on (well, Kristin was holding on, Flaco was holding on to
his beer can!), in that shot you can see the conditions as
well. We then worked our way out to over 50 miles and
started fishing. It was a challenge just standing up in
the panga, much less trying to fish. If we went too much
down wind, we would catch a wave and start diving into a
gnarly trough. We had to troll on an angle just to
maintain some kind of normal trolling speed. At 58 miles,
we took the Va Pue over the ledge! It was the first time
the Va Pue had ever done that, and it sent a chill down my
spine. The bottom finder went from 400ft – to 500ft – to
600ft – and then it couldn’t even mark the bottom! We
started seeing a few free swimming sailfish and the
occasional free jumper. It was almost impossible to make
it over to them though. If you tried to go upwind, the
panga would go up a 7 foot wave and come crashing down, if
you went down wind, you would end up catching a 7 foot
wave. It was really frustrating. Our spread was insane,
and we had everything dialed. The only problem was that
the ocean was not even giving us a chance. On the VHF, you
could hear the rest of the boats bitching and moaning
about the conditions as well. I was just wishing they knew
what it felt like to be in a f*@!king panga way out there!
I was getting seriously pissed off. I wanted us to do well
in this tournament, and we were ready, the only thing
stopping us was the conditions. To make matters worse, the
water was green all the way out there! At about 11:30 we
finally got a shot at a sailfish, and as luck would have
it, he came unglued and we lost him. At this point I was
really about to lose it. It was like we couldn’t get a
break! We fished out the rest of the day and ended up
getting a couple of small Dorado’s, but could not raise
another billfish. Finally at about 2:00pm the wind let
down a little, so we could make the 3 hour ride back home.
I know I sound like I am doing a lot of bitching here, and
I am, but truth be told, I am really just thankful we made
it back safely and nobody got hurt. After all, a
successful trip is a trip that you make it home from! You
will also be hard pressed to find someone else who has
fished the ledge in Nicaragua, in a panga! At the end of
the day, Carlos Pellas’ boat the Rum Runner was in the
lead with one Sailfish and three Dorado. Paco Saca of El
Salvador was in second with one Sailfish, and our good
buddy Gabriel of Super Fly Charters here in Nica, was
holding down third with a Sailfish as well. We will keep
our fingers crossed for tomorrow and just hope the wind
gives us a chance.
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