Our delightful weather continued to hold pattern, so we decided to head toward Georgetown, where we would meet up with Luc and Marie Andrée, our friends aboard lnnu upon their arrival around the 15th. Cruising conditions could not have been better, calm winds and seas, bright sunshine, true trawler weather! Since we were in deep water, we set up trolling lines. Our first hit came in about an hour, a barracuda. Barracuda hit hard and run a bit, but then it’s just haul them in and unhook them. Because their diet consists of smaller reef fish, they are frequently carriers of ciguatera, a nasty bacteria that can be ingested by eating them, so all barracuda go back! Shortly after releasing the barracuda, we had another hit, very similar with a hard hit running some line off the reel, but this one was easy to reel in. As we got it closer to the boat, we moaned about getting another barracuda, but when we got it close enough to get a good look, we knew it wasn’t a barracuda, but a wahoo! They have a similar profile, but different coloring. So, our first wahoo! Woo-hoo!
We got him on board, the lines went back in, and the cooler came out. I usually clean the fish within a half hour of bringing it on board; mostly because we don’t have a cooler that’s large enough to accommodate the whole fish, plus our icemaker doesn’t have a turbo mode so we make about a pound of ice an hour- just enough to ice down filets; secondly because the sooner it’s cleaned, the better it tastes! So, wahoo for dinner! Later on, we landed two more good-sized mahi, also fileted and into the cooler! Now, the dilemma: what to do with all this fish, since our deep freeze is recently out of service and our fridge freezer is literally packed! For the moment, it’ll keep in the cooler, and we can easily make ice underway.
As we closed in on Georgetown, we weighed our options of pushing on vs. making a stopover at one of the cays along the way, and decided that our timetable allowed for a few days. Since the weather was predicted to continue the same pattern, we made a u-turn and headed toward the cut at Rat Cay. There are numerous good anchorages in the area, and we’d not been before, so the conditions were prime for visiting some of those places we’d not been before. We dropped the hook on the west side of Rat Cay about 3 pm and launched the dinghy.
Now, what to do with the fish? We took the dink around the north shore of Rat, and stopped to chat with a few sailboats, one from Rock Hall, MD. In conversation, we asked if they’d like some fresh fish, and they were delighted to accept. So we returned to Maerin and made up a few bags of what we couldn’t keep and returned to distribute it amongst our new friends! They were happy for the fresh catch, and Barb got some chocolate in exchange! We made a few shore stops to explore and give Molly a chance to swim off some energy and of course, get a good roll in the sand or two! We returned to Maerin and got out the grille for a dinner of fresh wahoo! You just can’t beat the taste of fresh grilled fish, and the wahoo was absolutely delicious! We had a lovely evening watching the sunset and a very calm night at anchor.