Open the below photos in a full-screen slideshow in Flickr
December 12th, 2009 – At Sea, 17º 25′S, 038º 10′W
by Herb McCormick
I was sitting in the cockpit yesterday afternoon with my fellow watch-mate, Dave Logan – a recurring character in our narrative – making what I thought was an especially enlightening and insightful point about something or another, when I sensed I no longer had my friend’s undivided attention. No, he was staring intently at something over my shoulder, something astern of Ocean Watch, and then he let loose a cry in rather exciting tones. This was noticeable in itself, for nothing excites Logan.
“That’s a big one!” he yelled.
 |
| What Logan had seen was a huge mahi-mahi leap fifteen feet in the air. |
Now Logan, allegedly, is a fisherman – we’ll return to this in a moment – and we’ve all heard fishermen jabber on about “big ones” before. But this time was different, for what he’d just seen was a huge mahi-mahi leap fifteen feet in the air, and the business end of that very fish in question, through some miracle of the universe, was actually now attached, via the most tenuous of connections, to the stern of our vessel, and Logan was sprinting for that very hand line as the words were coming out of his mouth.
Oh, yes, it was a big one.
Today, afloat in a sea of windless high-pressure off the coast of Brazil, roughly three days removed from our next port of call in Rio de Janeiro, the crew of Ocean Watch was motor-sailing down a flat Atlantic Ocean under bright sunshine and a cloudless sky. Last night, we feasted on as fresh a fish dinner as one could imagine, thanks to the prowess of Logan and his skill with the line he’d trolled astern.
I’ll confess here at the outset that almost everything I know about fish was learned on the customer side of the glass seafood counter at the Stop & Shop supermarket in Newport, Rhode Island, and from the menu of a restaurant called Scales & Shells right down the road. But that isn’t the reason you haven’t read much about fish in the logs of our voyage. The reason is, we haven’t caught many.
This is not meant to be a criticism in any way. And for me, fishing is just one of those sports that’s always seemed to be gear-excessive, and I’m always already lugging enough crap around with me. Look, I have two kayaks and all their attendant gear strapped to our transom, so I’m by no means a nautical minimalist…quite the opposite. Anyway, I have great respect for fisherman, I love eating the fish they catch, I just have no clue, really, about any of it.
That said, I can count. And, you know, fish on the Around the Americas expedition? Um, not so many.
Logan, in actual fact, is an accomplished fisherman. I’ve asked him about the lack of production on this particular voyage, which doesn’t seem to be a subject about which he has great passion. But he has been patient: We’ve sailed too fast, we’ve gone too slow, the water was too deep, the water was too shallow, the groundhog didn’t see his shadow, the rings of Saturn weren’t aligned with the House of Aquarius… There are reasons, okay?
And it’s not like we haven’t hooked more than a few fish. In fact, since we’ve been down here off South America, it seems like he’s tossing one back about every ten minutes. The problem, says Logan, is that they’re skipjacks. “A self-respecting cat won’t eat those,” he insists.
We’ve also seen plenty of fish…flying ones, that is. We’ve watched dozens soar across the wavelets even today. They’re a visage most offshore sailors witness on a regular basis. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, in one of my future lives I’d enjoy taking a swing at the flying fish thing. They get to swim…and fly! You have to admit, it’s a fairly intriguing concept. Although Logan says, the reason they’re flying is because something large is trying to eat them. And eventually, they land. Or submerge. Or whatever it is they do. I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.
The Brazilian flying fish we’ve seen are fairly robust. Some of them have landed aboard. Honestly, they’re pretty
 |
| Dave Logan and Herb McCormick hoist their catch onboard. |
big. A few have even found their way down below. Skipper Mark Schrader, in his solo-racing days, used to compete against a sensitive and eccentric Japanese sailor named Yukoh Tada, who enjoyed collecting the flying fish off his deck of a morning and frying them up for breakfast. I’ve woken up hungry a few days on this voyage, but not that hungry.
Catching fish at sea is an art, and on the last leg our voyage, another accomplished fisherman, Rick Fleischman – a professional fishing guide in Alaska – came aboard with a ton of gear and landed a hefty tuna one afternoon, which was sensational. And if anyone really wants to learn more about the subject, another old sailing and fishing friend of ours, Scott Bannerot, has written the definitive work on the topic, a book called The Cruiser’s Guide to Fishing. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Anyway, the lure Logan used to snag yesterday’s mahi-mahi is a pretty good story in itself. It had been a gift from a fellow albacore fisherman back in 1976. “Here are some old ones that are kind of used up. Take these,” he’d said.
Logan took it along on a couple of ocean voyages back and forth to Hawaii, and reckoned he caught about ten more fish with it. Then he put it away, probably in 1978. “It had lost roughly half its feathers by then,” he said. It had been in his trolling bag ever since, until yesterday.
“I’d used up all my fancy lures that are supposed to be fish-slayers,” he said. “Even back in ‘76, it was the best of the lot. It still seems to be. That’s the most magnificent mahi-mahi I ever caught.”
Even so, once Logan had his prize on the figurative and literal ropes, wrestling the thing aboard was not a forgone conclusion. I’d grabbed our net to assist with the job, and to put it mildly, I did not bask myself in glory at the task. In fact, I whiffed a couple times before Logan called for a gaffe hook, which was sort of alarming, as it became apparent that if we didn’t get the fish aboard he might use it on me.
 |
| Logan had the fish on the cleaning table, and before long he’d carved out two beautiful fillets. |
In the event, somehow we got the fish over the lifelines and into the net, at which time David Thoreson produced a bottle of Aquavit he’d found in the bilge; pouring a tot of alcohol into the gills of a fish is supposedly a humanitarian way of inducing its denouement. And it was good to see the Aquavit disappearing: It was going to kill someone sooner or later. Moments later, Logan had the fish on the cleaning table, and before long he’d carved out two beautiful fillets, each almost two feet in length (he estimated the fish weighed about 30 pounds).
There was, afterwards, a small moment of fisherman’s remorse. “I feel bad about killing fish usually,” said Logan. “Then again, live by the sword, die by the sword. That’s what he does.”
All guilt was assuaged when the first big fillet came out of the broiler last night, prepared simply with a bit of olive oil and cooked to perfection.
We’ll get at the other fillet tonight.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.
