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Saturday, May 6th - Harbour Island, Bahamas
The fabled pink sand beaches of Harbour Island have not
disappointed the crew of ZIA. The beach is a three
mile long stretch of soft, barely pink sand with a long
gradual drop off to deeper water and protected from big
waves and current by
an offshore reef . It is perfect for the kids. We have
been hanging out here with MIAKODA and the four girls
have been having a ball.
We parted ways this morning as they took off through the
Devil's Backbone for Spanish Wells and on south to the Exumas. We will hang here for another day or two
before stopping in Spanish Wells and then heading back
north. Or maybe we will head west to The Berry
Islands for a day or two before returning to the Abacos.
The weather is threatening to be mild and perfect for
the foreseeable future so our options are pretty wide
open.
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We
arrived in Harbour Island in the middle of the
Bahamas
Billfish Championship fishing tournament.
After our hugely frustrating fishing experience on the
way here, I was excited at the prospect of having a
group of experts around and hoped to pick a few brains
on the subject. We anchored off Valentines Resort
and Marina, where a majority of the 50 boats were
docked. It was quite something to see them all
take off around 7am, heading out to sea for a long day
of fishing. Lines in the water at 8am and out of
the water at 4pm, according to the rules.
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The world of sportfishing is pretty amazing. This
particular tournament has five legs conducted over the
course of three months throughout the Bahamas. It
costs about $11,000 to join. Top prize is
$500,000. The rules and regulations are strictly
enforced, as you can imagine. We were lucky enough
to meet Howey and Rose on the beach on Wednesday, a "lay
day" during the competition, who explained much of this
to us.
The only fish that count are "bill fish." This
includes Blue Marlin, White Marlin, Spearfish and
Sailfish. A boat gets a certain number of points
for each, 600 for the Blue, 200 for the White Marlin and
the
Spearfish, and 100 for a Sailfish. These aren't
fish that you catch for eating, rather for the sport of
fighting them and getting them back to the boat.
Most of them are then released. The Blue Marlin,
as you can tell by the number of points allocated, are
the prize fish and are typically the only ones that
might be "boated." If you boat a fish,
you have to bring it in to be weighed in order to determine the number of points it is
worth, a point for each pound. Therefore, only if
the fish is over 600 pounds does it pay to kill it.
The winning boat, "Boomer" caught a 695 pound Blue
Marlin on the first day of the competition but
unfortunately we were not here to see it. They are
only allowed to use 100 pound test line on
their reels, with 500 pound test on the leader, so the
trick is all in the give and take of the line as the
fish runs and fights against the drag of the reel and
the boat. If it runs too much, the captain has to
back down with the engines to keep from running out of
line. If you resist too much, the 100 pound test
line just breaks. Whatever you do, you have to
make sure there is no slack in the line. This
allows the fish to shake off the hook.
I
complained to Howey and Rose about my problems and it quickly became
apparent that I need to fix the drag control on our rod.
This controls the amount of force required to pull the
line out once a fish is hooked. Somehow, ours is
broken because we cannot set it tight enough. I
remember when it got snagged in the prop of a passing
powerboat going into Cruz Bay in St. John. This
must have messed it up. Anyway, at least now I can
blame a little of it on equipment failure!
A
few of the boats brought in some good sized Mahi Mahi
and I made my way down to the cleaning station to get a
few tips on my filleting technique. I had just
read that you can skin the Mahi before cutting the meat
off the flesh and I got a hands-on lesson from Vanessa,
a bikini clad babe who was fishing with her parents for
the tournament.
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Vanessa was sympathetic to our fishing woes and
generously gave us a big bag of fresh Mahi Mahi. I
guess the next best thing to catching your own is
mooching it off someone else!
Mooching has been something of a theme for us here in
Harbour Island and, dare I say, in our cruising
lifestyle in general. The beach is all open to the
public, but there are several nice hotels along the
waterfront that also offer restaurant/bar and pool
facilities. After a long afternoon of playing in
the water and sand, a quick little dip in the hotel pool
does wonders for cleaning out all the sand and washing
off the crusty salt.
We have been spending our days
doing school in the mornings, having lunch either on
the boat or in town, and then hanging on the pink sand
beach. Along the stretch of bayside beach where
the local fisherman keep their boats there is a couple
of food shacks that serve up a variety of dishes for
lunch. Conch being the traditional dish of the
Bahamas, one of the stands was devoted entirely to conch
salad, a tasty mixture of raw conch marinated in fresh
lime with peppers and onions. We were lucky enough
to be there while one of the fisherman was cleaning the
conch. Brian even got a lesson in how to do it
himself. The girls were each given one of the
newly vacated conch shells.
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We
stayed out of the sun yesterday but the girls and I want
to have one more day at the beach before we move on.
We are planning to transit the Devil's Backbone with one
of the local pilots this afternoon or tomorrow.
Our next stop is Spanish Wells, Eleuthera.
I
posted some new pictures on the bottom of the
April
photos page.
I
hope everyone is enjoying the weekend. We hear the
weather in Annapolis is gorgeous. The Volvo Ocean
Race is restarting from there today, heading for New
York. It is a great day to be on the water in the
Chesapeake!
Love,
Christy, Joe, Cassie and Juliana
Next entry
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Many thanks to our
friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up
the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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