Fishing Along the Way

Our first catch was made with the boat and not the fishing line we trailed behind the boat since leaving Seattle. When we arrived at Turtle Bay, I discovered a foot long flying fish on our decks. It must have flown onto our decks in the middle of the night as it was already stiff and dry when I found it. Too bad, it would have made a tasty breakfast.

The first fish we caught with our line was on the leg of our voyage from San Diego to Turtle Bay, it was a small Dorado about 2-feet long. The filets we cut from it provided enough meat for one good meal.  



Our second Dorado was hooked on the voyage from Turtle Bay to Cabo San Lucas. This fish measured 46-inches from tail to head, and kept us in fish tacos for many meals.  Alex claimed credit for catching this big fish as he was the one who pulled it in and gaffed it.

Cleaning big fish like this is difficult on a sailboat, fish blood and scales get everywhere. We had been using our deck wash to clean up after fileting the fish but we discovered that the deck wash hose that runs along the ceiling of our vee-berth ruptured while we were cleaning the big Dorado. Our mattress, sleeping bags and cloths stored in the locker below were all soaked.  We cleaned up the mess as best we could but had to sleep on a soggy mattress for two nights before docking in Cabo San Lucas were we could pull everything out on deck to dry it out properly. From now on we’ll be using a bucket to wash the decks!