Catch and Release Bozo

April 8 - 14, 2007

Sunday, April 08, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I was up in time to make it in for our 9 am volley ball session. There are only four of us left who play 2 on 2, so we may be at the end of our ball for the season.

We played until 10:30 and then Ollie and I headed back to our boats to get them ready to depart for points south. Team Dream Catcher left the anchorage at 11 am and followed Ollie, Pam and Olga (Ollie's visiting sister) out of the harbour.

The wind was pretty far up on the beam and we were only managing 4 knots of speed. Given our late start, Amy and I decided to anchor behind Hog Cay and continue south to the Jumentos tomorrow. Ollie was motor sailing and making 7 knots, so he opted to run all the way down to Water Cay. We purists must endure.

Frank on Cats Away and his guest Debbie arrived at Hog Cay with us and they too decided to spend the night here and continue on in the morning.

We spent an hour or two cleaning up a few boat jobs and then had Frank and Debbie over for barbecued grilled chicken and corn bread. It was very tasty indeed and we sat around trading stories and drinking Frank's wine until 9:30 before everyone retired for the evening. Tomorrow we head down Water Cay and points south

Monday, April 09, 2007 - Fishermans Anchorage, Water Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

We upped anchor right as the sun came over the horizon and set the spinnaker for the ride south. The wind was still kind of far up on the beam, so after 2 hours or so, we swapped the spinnaker out for the main and genoa.

The wind was pretty light and we averaged a stately 5 knots for the trip down to Water Cay. We did however, get to sail the whole way which always beats motoring in our book. On the way down we caught 7 fish, 5 of which were barracudas that got tossed back. One was a non-edible jack of some sort and the final fish was a 3 pound Yellow tail Snapper which we quickly made our own.

At some point during the trip down, I managed to stab myself in the hand with our fish gaff. Ouch!

The wound bled pretty severely and I ended up having to duck tape my hand back together with some paper towels. Pretty high tech, I know.

After an hour or so the wound finally stopped trying to bleed me dry and I suspect that I will live. Amy was pretty grossed out by the whole thing, especially when I told her the gaff tip hit the bone in my hand. She said if I hadn't been bleeding so bad, she was going to throw me back. She can be mean when she wants to.

The trip down to Water Cay was a nice calm affair and we had the hook down by 1 pm. Dejarlo and Whistling Winds and Cats Away were all there ahead of us and they planned a group dinner on Willis's boat which we too were invited to.

Amy and I made fresh Yellow tail Snapper Taquitos as an appetizer and they were well received. The main course was lasagna that Amy reported as being very good, but which I can neither confirm or deny as it looked like goo and I fear goo.

We sat around until 8 pm exchanging stories and then we returned to the boat and retired for the evening

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - Fishermans Anchorage, Water Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

We awoke to a beautiful calm anchorage. I caught the 6:30 am weather report from Chris and then made breakfast tacos. Once fed, Amy and I donned our wet suits and headed out.

We briefly looked outside on the east side of Water Cay, but there was a pretty good swell running and so we decided to come back in and hunt the banks where we scored a bunch of fish last week. Within minutes, I scored a mega sized Hogfish and a nice 5 pound Nassau Grouper. When the dust settled, we had 3 Hogfish, 2 really nice Nassau's, a 4 pound Margate and a 3 pound Schoolmaster Snapper. Not a bad days work.

Back on the mother ship, we processed our catch and put all but the Schoolmaster in to the deep freeze. We are getting close to full in the frozen aisle on board Team Dream Catcher.

Tonight's dinner plans included all 13 people in the anchorage. We had originally intended to have dinner on Dejarlo, but when Tonga Time showed up, we opted for a change of venue. Charlene (Tonga Time) graciously allowed us to have dinner on their boat as it is absolutely huge and had no trouble with seating for all 13 of us.

I made buffalo wings, medium spicy, for an appetizer and they lasted 7 minutes. It's nice to be loved. I also cooked up the last 5 lobster tails that Ollie kindly supplied from his frozen food selection. Somehow, even on someone else's boat, I always get to be grill man.

As an aside, I don't know if I mentioned it our not, but lobster season is now over and we will have to wait until August to start taking them again. So sad.

Anyhow, the main course at dinner were some very tasty Hogfish fillets also provided by Pam and Ollie. There were an assortment of sides, but I'm not really a side kind of guy. There was however so much food, that the 13 guests present were not able to finish it all and several doggy (or ferret) bags were provided.

Back on board, we had the night version of the running of the ferrets and Amy went to bed to read and I fell asleep on the couch watching a movie, only to wake up around 3 am when Milo sat on my head. Trust me, its not a pleasant way to be woken

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 - Two Palms Anchorage, Flamingo Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

We awoke with the sun, got the weather, and then raised the anchor for the 9 miles trip down to Flamingo Cay. We anchored in the northern bight and launched our dinghy. By 11 am, the rest of the boats from the Water Cay anchorage showed up and the hunting party went out at noon.

Amy and I hunted in a few different places, but all I found was a small, 1 pound Lane Snapper. I also shot a large Nassau twice, but he managed to evade capture, which is a shame because he had a pretty serious head wound.

We were going to continue hunting, but ugly weather appeared on the horizon and we made a hasty retreat to the big boat. The weather looked like it was going to get bad, so we raised the dinghy. Ten minutes later, the wind veered sharply to the north and left us completely exposed.

Our current anchorage had no protection from the wind and waves, so we picked up the anchor and moved around to the west side of Flamingo Cay and anchored off a small beach with two palm trees. It was a much smoother ride and within two hours, all of the other boats moved over as well.

The rest of the evening was mildly unpleasant as we had clocking winds and rain through out the night. I stayed awake in the cockpit and the salon so I could watch our anchor. It was a very long night.

Thursday, April 12, 2007 - Fisherman's Anchorage, Water Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

Morning finally broke and as soon as it was light enough to see, we upped anchor and moved back around to the north side as the wind had once again clocked around to the west leaving us in a rolly, exposed anchorage.

We set the hook fifteen minutes later and I finally got to go to bed. Around 11 am Brian and Charlene on Tonga Time anchored next to us and we formed a war party and headed out to the outer reef. The wind was flat and the seas were calm and as we left our boats the sun even came out.

We anchored both dinghies and jumped in. Right off the bat I saw a large Nassau and dove down. Whammo! I nailed him right behind the eye and made him my own. The same hole that housed the Nassau had two lobster(both pregnant) as well as another Nassau and a Schoolmaster.

I tried to grab the Schoolmaster and missed him, hitting the coral instead, thus scaring away all living inhabitants within a 100 meter radius. We moved position and Amy spotted a decent sized Hogfish. She called in artillery support (me) and I swam down to 20 feet and invited him over for dinner. He accepted the invitation and joined Mr. Nassau in a bucket in our dinghy.

We tried two more spots and I scored a large 5 pound Schoolmaster while Amy apprehended a monster (8 inch) Big Eyed Toro. We also collected several conch along the way.

Back on the boat, I cleaned our fish and then Brian picked me up to go in to the shore to clean conch. He is much better at it than I and I asked him to give me a few pointers. After the first one or two, I got the hang of it and I feel much better about my ability to get the slimy bastards out of their shell without resorting to the sledge hammer technique.

After we cleaned up, Amy and I joined Brian and Charlene on board Tonga Time for some fresh conch salad. Charlene's version was very tasty. We hung out until 3 pm and then returned to our boat, broke down the dinghy and picked up the anchor. We decided to motor the 9 miles back to Water Cay before dark in case the wind comes up again in the night.

We had the hook down by 5:30. The anchorage was deserted except for us and a Bahamian fishing crew. We made a Chef salad for dinner and then turned in with the weasels by 8 pm

Friday, April 13, 2007 - Fishermans Anchorage, Water Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

We planned on taking advantage of the calm weather to do some more fishing today. Brian and Charlene were going to join us up at Water Cay, but Charlene threw her back out yesterday and as a result, Brian decided to motor back to Georgetown today.

Left to our own devices, we decided on just lounging about the boat instead of assembling the dinghy to go hunting. The freezer is almost completely full and I still want to troll on the way back to G'town tomorrow, so it didn't seem like a bad thing to not hunt today.

Most of the afternoon was spent reading and computing. Amy took time out to make brownies but the mix she got from the Exuma market kind of sucked. She vowed to get a from scratch recipe when we get back to the land of internet.

Around sundown, a local Bahamian skiff stopped by the boat and asked if we had a weather report. I had listened to the weather dude this morning so I read the forecast back to him. He seemed pretty nice and told us that he and his sun were camping on Water Cay for the week. They were from Long Island which is about 30 miles or so a way.

The Bahamian dude came back about half an hour later and asked if he could have a gallon of drinking water. We had plenty to spare and so we filled up his gallon milk jug. Amy also pawned off some of her brownies in what she called a good will gesture, but I think it was just to get rid of less than stellar quality snack food.

The sun went down and we fixed Queen Trigger linguine for dinner before turning in at 8 pm. Tomorrow we expect the wind to build back in from the east and we can sail back to G'town to hide from the coming front

Saturday, April 14, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We were up and under sail by 7 am. The wind started out fairly light and close to the nose, but it filled in and clocked to the east as the day progressed. We sailed close hauled under main and genny for the 24 miles run up to Hog Cay cut and then under spinnaker and main for the remaining 14 miles into the harbour.

It was a great sail accompanied by some pretty good fishing. Right off the bat, we snagged two barracuda which were released back in to the wild. Right around noon, we had two simultaneous hits, both which turned out to be large Mutton Snappers. One managed to free himself before being brought on board, but the other fell victim to the fish gaff and he now currently resides in the freezer. For the record, Mr. Mutton weighed in at 9 pounds and yielded 12 single servings.

We sailed under spinnaker all way up to Hamburger beach where we dropped the anchor in 4 feet of water right next to Frank on Cat's Away. We assembled the dinghy and went up to St. Francis so I could return George's pressure tester. While there, we watched some rugby on tv with George and had a couple of beers. He tried to explain the rules to me, but I'm not a hundred percent sure that I understand them all.

We left St. Francis and swung by Latitude to say hi to Kenny and Linda. They invited us aboard and in exchange for a couple of drinks, we shared stories of our recent Jumentos adventures. We returned to the boat around 8:30 and decided to forgo dinner. I sparred with the weasels and we turned in by 9:30