After SEVEN weeks, we were giddy with excitement to finally leave the Abacos and sail to Eleuthra on Christmas Eve. We had seen so many of our friends make this journey, leaving us behind. It was now our turn. Little Harbor Cut turned out to be an easy cut to navigate and we were off. We thought we would have mild wind and seas, but it turned out to be VERY sporty. We were flying, often surfing down waves at 10+kts. We caught a skip jack tuna right out of the gates and pulled it in. Soon after, we snagged a Mahi on the line. It jumped off after a 20 minute battle royale. Then, we had TWO mahi bulls hit the lines. Brown and I grabbed the poles and did our best to keep the mahi, but the boat was moving way too fast. We were occupied and couldn't slow the boat down and we ended up losing both of the Mahi. We did not have the skills to pull them in, but one thing we need to practice is heaving to so next time, we CAN take the time to reel them in. It's always a tough one when stretched for daylight on a long sail. You have to make decisions about slowing down and losing daylight or continuing speed and losing the fish. We chose the former and still believe it was the right decision to get through Little Egg Cut and anchor down by Current Island before sunset.
#sailing #bahamas #mahimahi #littleharborcay #abacos #eleuthera
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It's our first tuna ever and he is jumping like crazy. The tiki torch is still going
and look at this sunrise. It's the day we've been waiting for for seven weeks. Wow.
I can't believe it's finally here. Man just think of the uh look at those rollers. Rollers
over there and there's reef right underneath all of that. Just think about the days when they didn't
charts. Charts. All right we're getting ready to head through the cut. All right. Wow. Yellow
Cut Harbor. Now tomorrow no wind so you either do it now or you just don't do it and uh all those
boats that they are waiting to do the same thing that we're doing. It's always a little rough going
through a cut and then well that's good. Once we get out into the ocean it really calms down.
You can see the waves breaking there
over the reef which is what we want to avoid. This is not a very wide cut. Wow this is great.
It's really smooth. All right now please. It's a skipjack tuna. It's our first tuna ever.
So excited. What a beautiful fish. The only way to do this is to slow the boat down. Camel. Yes.
How am I going to do that? I don't know. Okay let me try.
Man he is jumping like crazy.
Look at him jump. Come on baby. Come on baby. He's up there. Oh my gosh it's huge.
Wow baby. Oh it's fighting up the storm. Fight harder. Fight harder baby. Fight harder.
Man we had a massive bull on the line but sadly
we're learning you have to slow the boat down. That's too bad. Go baby go baby go.
One of the reasons why Eileen's line broke on our fishing ride
was it got tangled up in one of the hand lines and so down here we've got a huge mess
a disaster and I want to catch another fish so badly but we don't have anything to fish with
because it's either tangled up or broken so tonight's going to be one of those things
where you got to sort through all that we've got to re-rig and get ready for tomorrow. Man
what a day it's been what a crazy day getting started early big seas lots of wind
catching the first fish missing the second fish two fish on the line and then a cut and
now we're coming up for another cut it's we're in the bite right now it's just
what a day it's kind of uncomfortable it's really spirited out but man what a ride.
It's definitely sporty sailing today we had to drop the parasail because the wind angle changed
quite a bit needed to pull that down so we got the mainsail and the jib going and still doing six
and a half knots we're doing great making great time. Oh what a sporty day today man thank goodness
we're not motoring boat loves a beam reach. They are in eight knots and 16 knots of wind well the
sea state isn't helping either yeah we've got a lot we've got pretty big swell so we're separate 44
is getting it done out here isn't it yeah wow all right baby let's talk about what happened
what happened to that fishing line man i was taking a nap i was downstairs
trolling line and it was um the pole was bent way over it literally it about took all the line
and that happens you know you're just gonna break the line uh so i had to kind of figure out how it
was opening up we've never had that happen before we ended up tightening up on the drag
oh he couldn't slow the boat down he couldn't slow the boat down he was huge whatever it was
and it was pretty much beyond our ability and our equipment's ability to bring them in
to bring them in i mean it had to be a big tuna or something good thing is we didn't use a lure
which is a block of lure it just rocks it and we are only an hour and a half from a little less
than an hour from land yeah so here's land and we're yeah about an hour and a half before we do
cut all right thankfully it's really calm and we're 27 feet deep so we should be completely
fine going through a cut is always unnerving though good job captain brown feels good one down
one to go
