Panama to Grand Cayman

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 32)

Friday, July 10, 2009

by Mike

We sailed along nicely today making good speed, 8-9 knots most of the day, which should allow us to arrive in Grand Cayman sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Fine Dining and Fishing Report:

Succumbing to a desire for eggs, fried, this morning, I started some bacon and just got the eggs into the pan when a fishing pole started making noise. I ran outside and tightened the drag and turned the boat to the right from 50 degrees off the wind to 30 degrees off the wind to slow us down. Reeling in a fish while the boat is moving at nine knots is a lot of work. Even for a small fish.

Then I went back to tend the eggs and bacon, allowing the boat to slow. Back at the fishing pole I noticed that the boat speed was down to eight knots and there was a lot of line out. I turned more into the wind and eventually slowed the boat down to seven knots. That was about as slow as I could get without some sail and rope work, so I started reeling. In between cooking and eating, that is.

About 25 minutes later I had a 51” king mackerel and a full tummy. I tried to weigh it, but it bottomed out our 50-pound scale before I got the tail off the deck. I winched it up on the steps by the tail and started hacking into it. We ended up with several gallons of white-meat steaks.

We had blackened mackerel for lunch. Then, due to popularity of the dish (demands of the female), we had blackened mackerel for supper.