MORE EQUIPMENT FAILURES

(This post has been sitting in "drafts" since last fall....trying to get caught up before we cast off to the Bahamas in a couple of weeks.) 

Does this sound like a broken record? It does to me. Or how about, "The BIG ONE got away"? Well, it did. After a very stressful football game with Arizona State in Columbia, CJM and I pulled out Sunday morning for Islamorada. It adds a couple hours to the travel time from Columbia so we got in town just in time for the last hour or so of Happy Hour. Stress relief! We got FF III put in Tuesday morning after being dry docked for much of hurricane season. It was really dirty from Issac blowing through here a few weeks ago. We got Her somewhat cleaned up, fueled up, and ready to go fishing on Wednesday. Didn't get out too early but finally out. REAL stress relief! Fishing was really slow. No weeds or debris around but lots of birds. We were told right after Issac there was lots of debris and pretty many fish. The birds were mostly on Skipjack Tunas. We caught 3 or 4 and even one little skinny Mahi. We were kind of heading in when we came upon some more birds working. We, of course, trolled through them and got a double hook-up. Both fish were on our spinning rigs with 30# line and Billy Baits. One of them took off like a rocket. It reminded me of a Marlin or big Wahoo bite. These reels are spooled with about 300 yards of line so we can't let them run like with the big rigs. With CJM on the other pole, there was no one to man the bridge and help by backing down on the fish. I slowly tightened the drag as I knew we were about to be spooled out. Something had to give. Either the fish would stop or the line would break. He got off. S@%t! I reeled it in to find the crimp had failed on the lure and the hook came off.

Not one of my crimps by the way. A factory crimp. So what does this mean? Only buy unrigged Billy Baits or was this an isolated incident? We have actually caught and landed a 42# YF Tuna, a Marlin and numerous other big fish on factory Billys. I guess it was just bad luck. Maybe my good luck will come this weekend when Missouri plays South Carolina. I guess if I could catch them all it would not be as much fun. RIGHT! Stay tuned, CJM says we can go out really early tomorrow, so watch for the fishing report.

CTM

"LIVING TILL THE DAY I DIE"

I find myself quoting lines out of songs quite often. I guess that's because I spend a lot of time mowing with my head phones on listening to island music or as they call it "Trop Rock Music". With the recent passing of my brother, Dan, I can't get a couple lines from a Jim Morris song out of my head. "I don't want to be trapped in a death bed, surrounded by all of my friends, with time to recall all those things that I never did." And, "sometimes life just taps you on the shoulder and reminds you it's a one way street...." The name of the song is "Living Till the Day I Die".

Of course that gets me to thinking. I'm not getting any younger and my joints are probably going to feel worse next year than this year. So, I don't think there is any way I can take a year off from cruising. In fact, I think it is time to kick it up a notch. It may not be a long continuous trip. We may have to leave the boat here and there and go for short trips. But, it's on. With CJM's permission, of course.

I'm thinking of taking the boat to Bimini the middle of April, 2013 and leave it through May. Then, on to North Eleuthera around Spanish Wells for the first 2 weeks of June (the week either side of the New Moon) and then back to Islamorada. We will just come home as needed and back to the boat when we can. Did I forget to mention Jim Morris is going to be in Bimini from April 20-26? Might just be enough to get CJM to go along with my plan :)

CTM

(A footnote to this post.....CTM wrote this back in the fall and he is just now publishing it.  And, yes, I am a sucker when it comes to Jim Morris so WE'RE HEADED TO BIMINI!!! CJM)