Fishing (December 15)

Started off from Ipala, and the wind picked up strength early in the day, so that by 9 am, the seas were up to 8 feet. I expected the wind would continue to increase through the day, as it usually did, and that things would soon get… interesting. But it didn’t. By the time Dan came up from listening to the radio at 10, the wind and waves had dies down, and we had to turn on the engine.

I asked Dan if we could do some fishing, to break up the monotony of the afternoon. He didn’t know much about fishing, and I didn’t know anything, but he said sure, and went to get some lures and swivels and lines and such. He tied a big ugly blue feathery thing to a thick black line and sent it overboard, where it skipped along behind us. We slowed the engine so it would sink a bit, and decided we’d troll for a half hour and then kick the RPMs back up. Neither of us was very optimistic.

But I’ve found pessimism to be the best bait, and a mackerel soon hit the line. Actually, he was about 5 minutes late, but we weren’t prompt about throwing in the towel. From this experience, I'm inferring that fish respond well to deadines, though like most things in Mexico, they run a little late. It was a good looking fish, it didn’t look all that big until we tried to it fit in the bucket and a large part of it stuck out. Dan hit him in the head with the hammer previously used to coax the started into working (such a useful tool!), and cut off his head before I could get a picture. The mackerel was very tasty filleted and sauted with garlic and butter for dinner that night, and the next night as the starring ingredient in fish tacos.

Killing fish is messy. Note the hammer of death at the right.