We left Golfito this morning at first light heading towards the north side of the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. It’s about 70 miles from Golfito to the next anchorage north, which is a very very long day for us. The stop in Golfito netted exactly what we had wanted – 46 books from the book exchange that Rob hadn’t read yet. That makes 60+ books he has onboard for the Pacific season. We also got to see old friends and meet some new ones and went on a marvelous hike yesterday morning up the hill that’s left me realizing I’m not getting enough exercise onboard.
As we rounded the corner at the end of Golfo Dulce Rob put out two hand lines behind the boat and I came downstairs off watch. A few minutes later I heard really weird noise outside and Rob making a huge exclamation. Of course if he’s hollering something very serious is going on, so I ran upstairs and saw our starboard fishing line up on the deck and the bungee attached to it nearly shredded. I looked over at the port side fishing line and there was a huge dorado on it. Making a long story short, I’ll just say we’re really glad the first was so big he one snapped the line because the small one was really hard to get aboard.
We’ve gotten skunked two times in a row by dorado now, losing the first outside Puerto Vallarta, Mexico a couple of years ago when I thought a picture was important. It worked off the hook before I was done taking the picture. The second one we lost was last week on our way into Costa Rica when the net completely gave way. Unfortunately, Maya likes to play in the fishing net and had chewed around a portion of the lines where it attaches to the frame. The net completely separated, the fish fell though and when the line went slack she was gone.
This morning there was no messing around with the camera or even the net. Rob grabbed the gaff hook and wrestled it aboard quick. It was huge (maybe 35 pounds) and there’s a pile of meat that’ll last the three of us a long long time (yes, Maya does get some even after the net incident last time). This is the first dorado we’ve had onboard since Lee & Kathleen caught, cleaned and cooked that one for us on the Ha-Ha so many years ago, and I’m going to send this mail now and go pan fry a lovely fillet for lunch.
Teresa
