Mike's Exciting Day 2 Update

Today we had some medium-to-light wind to start the day which was pretty
nice. We were expecting to have some lightish wind much of the first 2-3
days.

On the Minnow we have a number of strict rules. On the open sea, in order to
maintain order it's important to adhere strictly to a set of rules. We have
a zero-tolerance policy onboard the Minnow.

The first rule is "no falling in."
The second rule is "the fishing poles have to be in use during the day."
The third rule is . well, we don't have a third rule yet, but there is
currently no rule against adding another rule.

So far we have not had a problem with rule breakers on the Minnow.
Therefore, we were fishing this morning. A couple of dolphins (mahi-mahi)
bit our hooks. David grabbed the first one (a 19-pounder) and Bob started on
the second one (a little one). While the fish were being dragged toward the
boat, a gaff hunt commenced. A gaff is a broomstick with a curved hook on
the end for grabbing the fish out of the water and onto the boat.

It was exciting. The big one jumped out of the water a lot and was fun to
watch. When we finally got the fish to the boat we just left them dragging
along about 10 feet behind the boat. This was due to the failure of the
gaff-hunting expedition.

This prompted a fish-glove hunting expedition. It failed, too, but I did
find a pair of slick leather gloves. So I donned the gloves, grabbed a fish
cleaning knife, and headed down the steps to take on the fish. Bob dragged
the little one up on the steps and I wrestled with it quite awhile before I
finally got some fingers in it's gill.

Since dolphins are notoriously hard to kill so I stabbed it in the head
about 100 times. This worked pretty well. It did quit flipping, although it
was bleeding all over the steps.

Then, as I started to turn my attention to the bigger fish, it returned to
life with a vigor. So I held it down best I could with both hands. Wet,
slimy leather gloves are very slick. It kept flipping, and flipping, and
flipping. This would have been OK except it was flipping right in the pool
of blood and slime. I was covered.

After the other guys stopped laughing, they began a discussion about how to
kill the thing. Apparently alcohol in the gills will kill one. We took a
verbal inventory for booze on board. None. Rubbing alcohol? None. Could I
sever the spine? I tried but couldn't. Bob decided that a hammer was the
ticket and fetched one. Some spirited blood-splattering, skull-crushing, and
fish number one was pronounced officially dead.

The next one succumbed to skull-crushing quite easily and the rest of the
fish cleaning went without incident.

The ensuing clean up took longer than the fish catching and cleaning
combined. It required a long session with our
newly-installed-saltwater-washdown faucet in the back. But the freshwater
shower and clothes washing took even longer.

The good thing . we seemed to be going noticeably faster since we were about
240 pounds lighter (30 gallons of fresh water).

Oh, the other good thing . the fish was tasty.

Arts and Entertainment:

After dark Serge, Bob, and I watched Smoky and the Bandit. Serge learned
some new English phraseology from Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie
Gleason).