Hundreds of miles from the nearest anything, the VHF radio came to life:
Freestyle: “Heron Heron, this is Freestyle....We are slowing down to let you catch up. Get your cameras ready.”Heron: “Roger.”
As we sailed up along side Freestyle, our jaws dropped and our shutters clicked. Holy &*(@#!!
That is a monster fish, an incredible animal. Jim Cody and all hands aboard had landed a 7 (foot) black marlin—almost 200 hundred pounds of sport fish. Don can tell a better story, but it dove deep, nearly ran out their line, nearly shook the reel off of the rod, and required full drag and gloved hands squeezing the line against the rod to slow it down. That fish provided sushi, grilled steaks and sandwiches for many many meals, and yet most of it came home in their luggage.
Though Heron and Freestyle were partners in this adventure, shadowing each other mile after mile, this fish caused the gloves to come off. A few hours later:
Heron: “Freestyle, Freestyle, this is Heron.... We are slowing down to let you catch up. Get your cameras ready.”Freestyle: “What? We didn’t see you catch anything.”
As they sailed up along side Heron, there was dead silence and searching eyes, followed by roaring laughter from both boats.
Now THAT's what I'm talkin' bout! The crew of Heron had strung up their catch-of-the-day--a 7 (inch) flying fish that had landed on the deck the day before, drying in the tropical sun. True to form for a fine offshore racing machine (cough), we were proud to demonstrate our success in minimizing both weight and unsightly blood stains.
As it turned out, fishing turned out to be an exciting way to pass the time. We were happy to share Freestyle’s excitement, since we weren’t too sure what we’d do if we actually caught something. Thanks to a rig that Don had made up for us beforehand, we caught tons of seaweed and one gorgeous mahi mahi. We were convinced that it was too small and too beautiful to keep, so we released it. Honest. Here’s the proof:
Jay
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