Nassau - Catch of the Day

Spoiler alert: Kevin caught a fish. For those of you who want to know details, skip to the last paragraph.

So while all you people were sleeping, we made it 120 miles to Nassau. We'd been hoping the weather would hold and it did so we left at 4pm on Monday for a night passage across the New Providence Channel. It was just us and the big boats: cruise ships, motor tankers, cargo ships, and the like. A few hours after we left, a cruise ship caught up with us and it was so brightly lit it looked like a small city. Weren't sure if he even realized we were there until we heard a northbound tanker hail it on the radio (by name of course. All the big ships have the AIS system which tells them each other's important data like boat name, home port, and astrological sign.) The northbound tanker wanted the cruise ship to turn more to port and thankfully the captain said that he couldn't go to port as there were two small ships there (we were one of them). So at least the mega-giants can see us on their radar. That is encouraging.

We were motoring straight into the wind all night (it seems like that is always the case, doesn't it?) and it was ridiculously rolly with large nine-second swells, which basically means that you get hit by a swell and small waves and then the boat spends the next eight seconds pitching and yawing to recover itself only to be hit again on the nose by the next swell. Oh, and guess what -- we were down to our last seasickness patch (Kevin got it because a. he is more essential to boat operations, and b. I have inherited my dad's iron stomach). The waves slowed our speed down to a mere crawl at times (2.3 knots) and then the boat would recover (back to 5 knots - not setting any speed records here) before getting knocked on its butt again. So it was a rough night that didn't really let up until we got within a few hours of Nassau. But we made it to Nassau in one piece.

One good side effect of the exasperatingly slow speeds was that Kevin caught the most beautiful Mahi Mahi I have ever seen. He used a new "Alien" lure that he trolled out on a line around 6:30 am, and by 8 am he had a hit! I've seen illustrations of this kind of fish in books and the colors were always so vivid that I thought the artist might be exaggerating the hues - aquamarine, deep blue, and bright yellow - but that is what the fish looks like. This one was small, about 5 lbs, and my photo (when I post it) doesn't do it justice. In my photo the colors are kind of drab but Kevin says they are only vividly colored when they are alive. Plus I suck at photography anyway (you try taking a photo when the floor beneath you is jumping around like a rollercoaster). Actually better yet, try filleting the fish while the boat is jumping around like a rollercoaster, because that was Kevin's job. Blood and fish guts -- yuck. Tasty grilled fish cakes -- yum.

Where we are:
Location=Nassau, Bahamas
Lat=25 05.023
Lon=77 12.578