Fish On!

We woke at 2:30 am to prepare for our trek to Wanchese, where our whole-day deep sea fishing charter on the Doghouse awaited. Driving thru what we figured to be heat lightning, we arrived and set out on a  62 ft custom built Carolina with Capn. Britt and his first mate, Marc.

It wasn't long before we stopped and the Capn. scurried down the ladder from his post. We started pulling in amberjack...on average 20 lbs...until wet had hit our limit of 8. I should add here that one of the ones that got away was reeled in as half of a fish. The poor thing was eaten by a shark as it was being pulled in. Then we moved on to bigger fish...

Another short ride and we had ourselves a tuna. Yellowfin. Then another, bigger one...about 50 lbs. Finally the tuna run finished with a blackfin.

All the while, the skies were darkening and the wind was picking up. After 2 more fish (mahi mahi) were reeled in, we were told to head to the cabin..the weather was getting worse. We've fished on the ocean in some pretty bad stuff, but in the 20+ years I've been out, this was the worst. My mental rosary was clicking furiously as I tried not to panic. Everyone else in the cabin shared the same concerned look on their face, but no one dared to speak out. I kept telling myself that as long as Marc didn't donn a life vest, or didn't order us into ours, we were ok. Finally, after nearly 2 hours of being tossed about like a cork on what looked to be 10 ft waves and in between thunder claps and lightning on both sides of us, the storm moved on. There was even a rainbow to finalize the event.

We headed to shore, not sure we should laugh it off our or swear off the idea of deep sea fishing. I can say that we all were thankful to arrive back safely.

The day ended with us sharing a meal of tuna and avocado ceviche (click here for the yummy recipe!), followed by packing and freezing at least 100 lbs of fresh caught fish...over half of which was tuna. And then just decompressing and watching video of a couple of the tuna catches.

A good day.