A little while ago I was able to cross off another activity that has been on my “bucket list” for a long time : Deep sea fishing somewhere around Grand Cayman.
We did a full day and it was a corporate activity ; myself and the two awesome guys in my department 🙂 As you will see, we had an great time.
So we are on our way out of the North Sound to open ocean. Here is a sea bird likely waiting to go get its breakfast. Seven Mile Beach hotels can be seen in the distance.
Once out of the North Sound, we headed straight out … on the way out we went over the wall. The wall is where I have often gone diving. At around 80ft, all of a sudden the shelf drops off and goes to over 6000ft deep. Here on the boat sonar we can see the sudden drop into the abyss. Kind of looks like a chart of recent stock market activity.
My two fishing mates today! Do you think we look like a bunch of competent fishermen?
This is the gizmo that we are trying to get the fish to attack. There are 5 of these being pulled +-500ft behind the boat. Its essentially a colorful artificial squid.
This is what we were always on the lookout for … “floats”. Essentially anything floating around. In this case a large drifting plate of seaweed. This type of seaweed is called “Sargassum”. The story behind the name is that hundreds of years ago, Portuguese sailors spotted this stuff in the Sargasso sea (which is near Bermuda) which is how it got its name. We are looking to pass close to these since small fish use these floats to hide/feed and the bigger fish, which eat the smaller ones will also likely be in the area.
Ok now we are fishing! It did not take too long and we had “FISH ON!!!” As soon as one is hooked, the Captain Jon would yell out “FISH ON!!!” and pandemonium would ensue on the boat. It was awesome 🙂
Here we have one hooked and I am in the hot seat! Its quite a strenuous activity. These fish sure can pull.
Here is our catch! One was added to total 6. Was also caught 2 Barracuda’s that were put back into the ocean (they are not very good eating) These fish are “Mahi Mahi” also called “Dolphin” by some locals.
A happy bunch of fishermen! I have to say it was a really great activity. We had a whale (fish …) of a time 🙂 We kept all of the fish. At the dock the captain of our charter boat (Slackem Charters in case any one wants to know. Their Website is http://www.slackemcharters.com) cleaned them. The fish was excellent. A lovely white meat with a not-strong flavor. After one meal i’d say we froze about 5lbs worth ; and that was after all the fish was split 3 ways between us.
So here was our approximate path for our day on the sea. We started at the base of the “P” and headed straight out to sea, approximately 6 miles out. We could barely see the shore. Then we turned and headed east. Once past the tip of the island, we turned back and fished closer to shore. Most of our fish were caught when we were farthest from shore.
If you have time on Grand Cayman and want to do something really fun … I can now highly recommend you go deep sea fishing! After Julie saw my pictures (as well as the wife of one of my colleagues …) she now wants to go.