Extreme Fishing and Sewing Fame

Januray 5 - 11, 2008

Saturday, January 05, 2008 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The wind was back to normal levels this morning, so Amy went in to yoga with Donna from Cariba and I went wind surfing. I drug a white buck tail lure behind the board and actually caught to jacks (one Horse Eye and one Crevalle), both of which I returned to the wild.

Around 11 am I went over to Escargo, Mick and Mary's trawler to help them with some computer problems they were having. By noon I was back on the boat and heading in to volleyball. Ball turned out to be pretty lame and by 1:30 I called it a day.

On the way home, I stopped by Ollie's boat and hung out with him for an hour sharing a rum and coke. As I was getting ready to leave, we got a VHF call from a woman who fell on one of the hiking paths and broke her elbow. Her husband had apparently heard about Ollie getting fixed up on Christmas day by the retired Navy corpsman and wanted to know if we could get hold of him.

Since I was leaving anyway, I stopped by and got Frank and took him over to the boat in question. He checked the woman out and I think they are sending her to Nassau first thing in the morning.

Back on the boat, I made pizza for dinner and Amy and I watched Dodgeball before turning in for the night.

Sunday, January 06, 2008 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I spent the morning rebuilding Doctor Steve's (internet stalker #2) laptop. It mysteriously crashed on him the other day. Later, before noon, Steve, his wife Kathleen and his 7 year old son Emmett came over to play with the ferrets. Emmett met the weasels the other day and thinks their pretty cool.

They stayed about an hour or so and after they left I went wind surfing again, although this time I did not drag any lures. Around 1 pm I headed in to the beach, but Amy opted to stay on the boat. I didn't play ball today as Sunday is usually my day of rest, but I did hang out on the beach a while and I met several new people.

At 3 pm, I returned to the big boat and gathered up the Amy unit. We loaded in to the dinghy and headed over to Doug and Cheryl's boat Prudence for drink and dinner. We got the tour of their boat (Southern Cross 35) and we were both impressed with it even if it is hull challenged (not a cat)

We sat around enjoying their company until 8:30 when we returned home. I was a little worried about running out of gas on the way home, so we drove rather slowly and took the shortest route possible. Fortunately, we arrived at the big boat without problems.

Amy turned in for the night and I sat up with the weasels watching Nacho Libre for about thirty minutes before I decided it was too dumb to continue. Wow how lame is that? To bed by 10.

Monday, January 07, 2008 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Hello, and welcome to Monday. The wind was up this morning and so I jumped on my wind surfer at first light. Adam from the sailboat Scud is a much better surfer than I and as such, he offered me a bunch of pointers which I tried.

It seems I have gotten good enough to start using the harness which in theory connects a strap to me and the wish bone and allows me to use my body weight rather than my hands to keep the mast upright. As I said, in theory this sounds great, but the practical application is requiring a little more work.

Suffice it to say that I'll need to keep working at it. Anyhow, thanks Adam.

After surfing, I returned home and had breakfast with the weasels and Amy before heading over to town to drop off our one empty propane tank. The evil surly lady was there and she said they have no propane at this time. She also said that she'd have it by Wednesday, but then she told me I had to pay in advance. What's up with that? We've never had to do that before and although I paid, I have a bad feeling about this.

Propane-less, I returned to the boat and did a general cockpit cleanup before heading in to 12:30 volley ball. The games were good despite the somewhat blustery conditions and we played until 2:30 when the fun volley ballers showed up.

I returned to the boat around 3:30 and Amy and I went in to the beach to play Koob. We played three matches and you didn't hear it from me, but I pretty much stomped all over Amy.

We returned to the boat, changed clothes and headed up to poker. We had 24 contestants and in the end I finished 6th and Amy finished 5th. No money for Team Dream Catcher this time around.

On the way home, we stopped by Cariba and had a post poker drink with Donna and Toby. We didn't get home until the ultra late hour of 11pm.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We woke up late this morning, mostly because of our late night pit stop by Cariba. Amy had to be forcably removed from bed to make her appointement for yoga with Donna and Colleen at 8:30. While she was gone, I took my wind surfer for a cruise.

When I got back, I went over to Cariba to help Toby sort out some laptop issues. By 10:00 I was home again and Amy returned shortly there after and made us grilled cheesies for breakfast.

Afterwards, I ran a couple of new wires from the wind generator to the power panel in an attempt to see if I could get the amp level back up to where it use to be, but to no avail. Damn you wind generator!

At noon, Amy and I headed in to the beach so I could play ball and Amy could hang out with Kathleen from Euliad. After three hours of ball, we finally returned home and I made us a large chef salad with sauteed shrimp on top for dinner. Most excellent.

The remainder of the evening was spent reading books and listeneing to music. To bed by 8 pm.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Another day in paradise. There was the usual early morning yoga for Amy while the weasels and I shared an Egg-a-Moobie muffin for breakfast.

After breakfast, I continued my experiment into what is sure to go down in the journals of time as the most extreme sport to ever be conducted in our lifetimes. Extreme Windsurf Fishing! Yes, that's right sports fans. Let's give the fish a chance to fight back!

How many totally wierd "Extreme" sports do you see on tv back in the states? I mean, you've got your snowboarding and your kite surfing and your dirt bike flip up side downers, even the down hill shopping cart luge, but when in the history of sports has there been the possibility of the participants getting eaten by the opposing team?

That's right sports fans, high speed wind surfing while dragging bait behind you!

Ok, so really I just tie a fishing lure behind the board while I surf back and forth in front of the cut out to the open ocean, but it sounds much cooler if you use that redneck tractor pull voice. "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!"

So far I've only caught three fish, the biggest being a 6 pound Mutton Snapper, but trust me, when they hit and start trying to pull the board at from under you, the game is on.

My biggest fear is that I'll snag a fish and then attract a bigger predator (i.e. SHARK) that eats my fish. When that happens, I suspect my board and I will part ways, but on the off chance that I am able to stay in the upright position, I have taken to carrying my dive knive so that I may be able to cut away the lure and make my escape.

Granted this has probably not been my greatest idea ever, but that's what you get with too much tropical sun and an over abundence of cheap rum. Watch for me on the X-games soon!

Anyhow, I survived this morning's surfing session and went in to play ball at 1. The games were good, but not great. Still too many walk ons. Someone on a steel, junk rigged schooner is about to be fed to the ferrets if he doesn't stop screwing up our games.

In the afternoon, I spent some time on a software project I have been working on for a couple of weeks, but minimum progress was made as I am in fact lame.

For dinner I cooked up the last of my Hogfish and served it over a bed of linguine with fresh grated paremsian. All four members of Team Dream Catcher ate their fill and we retired for bed around 8 pm

Thursday, January 10, 2008 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

No extreme fishing today, instead it was a day of dinghy repair. Yesterday I noticed a couple of stress cracks appearing around the transom of our Livingston hard dinghy. I am certain that this is because of our over powered engine, which is twice as big as the manufacturer recommends, but that is beside the point.

Suffice it to say that I do not blame Livingston for the stress cracks. In any case, in fear of loosing my engine while at high speed, I opted to borrow a grinder from my buddy Art on Charis and after a good scouring of the offending area I planned on laying up at least 6 new layers of reinforcing fiberglass.

I dragged Amy, the dinghy and all the necessary pieces and parts to the beach early this morning and while Amy did her beach yoga, I got to work. Things progressed well until the grinder slipped from my hand and I took a grinder disk sized cut out of my right hand pointer finger. Shitty death!!!!

Amy had already returned to the boat via her kayak when this happened, so I called her on the hand held VHF radio and calmly asked her to bring bandages, disinfectant and duct tape back in to the beach. She and no less than 5 other dinghies poured into the dock in less than three minutes in a display that reminded me of Steven Spielberg's re-creation of the D-Day landing in Saving Private Ryan. Take cover!!!

With two band aids, one paper towel and a couple of strips of tape, we put my finger back together and a few minutes later the crowd dispursed and I was back in business. The repair work went very well and by noon I had all the patches in place and cured. A little sanding and we were back in business.

I made it back to the boat and cleaned up in time to make 1 pm volleyball, but due to the finger injury, I had to play left handed. I was surprised at how well I did playing this way as normally I look like a retard trying to use my non-dominant hand. Peter from Scud made fun of me serving left handed and said I hit like a girl. That's easy for him to say as he is in fact left handed.

After ball, Amy kayaked in and we sat under a large Heiniken umbrella on the beach and enjoyed the world floating by. Eventually, almost all of our friends stopped by and shared our umbrella for a time through out the afternoon and we thouroughly enjoyed ourselves doing not much more than hanging out and talking.

We returned home around 4 pm and cleaned up for Thursday night poker. It was our turn to run things and it turned out to be a busy night. We had 30 players shows up and when the dust settled, Amy came out on top over Ollie and a new player named Ann. I finsished 5th while Ollie's wife Pam finishd 4th. It was a classic Team Dejarlo versus Team Dream Catcher match, which I bet will also be found on ESPN Instant Classics soon.

After poker, Jillian (St Francis) had Ollie, Pam, Amy and I stay over after the bar closed and join her for a couple of drinks. Her husband (George) is currently away and I think she enjoys our company. We hung out talking until the ultra late hour of 11:30 before returning home and retiring immediately.

Friday, January 11, 2008 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

It seems our extended lay over in Georgetown has come to an end as tomorrow we plan on heading south to the Jumentos. Most of our day was spent getting into town and purchasing provisions as well as gathering water, fuel and propane.

We were successful in everything but the propane as there is none to be found on the island. The filling station has had our tank for several days, but to no avail. The evil surly beotch that works at the fill station wasn't much help and all I got was a semi-grunt in response to my repeated inquiry's of a refill date and then my much more forceful death threats. At least she's consistant.

Later, on the beach, Ollie offered to retrieve my tank when it is filled as he is planning on joining us down in the Jumentos later in the week. Propaneless, I joined Amy on the beach at the Chat and Chill and we spent two hours listening to an impromptu cruisers concert. It wasn't bad, but I'm glad it was free.

Afterward, we hung out with Doctor Steve, his wife Kathleen and their son Emmett at the picnic tables with a couple of other cruisers sharing stories and talking about future plans. Back on the boat, we prepared dinner and then had two different sets of visitors show up before we could eat.

The first was Jon and Barbara from Sam the Skull (formerly Johari). Barbara needed to borrow a couple of sewing needles and she remembered that I had the same machine, so she came by to snag a few. While they were here, they told me they had met the Sailrite people at the Annapolis boat show and that the spinnaker that I made two seasons a go from their kit was now featured on their website and in their catalog.

Sweet! I have achieved sewing fame! My mom will be so proud.

Anyhow, shortly after they left, Steve from Euliad stopped by to grab a computer CD I made for him. A week or two ago his laptop crashed and I rebuilt it with some software I keep on board and he needed a copy of some of the software I used. Steve hung around long enough to have a beer and say a few goodbyes and then he returned home.

Once guest-less, we had spicy Jamaican Jerk Grouper with rice. It was quite good and there were no leftovers. After dinner we broke down the dinghy and stowed our gear so as to be ready for an early morning start.

To bed by 8 pm.