Finally, finally I caught a decent fish. I hadn't caught anything worth eating since we left Mexico over a year ago. Granted, half of that year was spent on the hook in a polluted anchorage, but still...
I think it was a small yellow fin tuna by most anybody's standards, maybe 20 lbs. But I was thrilled. The red meat down here has been mostly tough and tasteless and all the freshest fish goes to the restaurants, so we eat a lot of chicken... chicken alfredo, baked chicken, chicken burritos, chicken sandwiches... you get the idea, I was starting to cluck.
[note; thanks to Chuck I found out that the horrible red meat of the so-called yellow fin tuna did not belong to a yellow fin tuna. I suspected when the meat was inedible, but obviously had a hard time identifying the fish. Turns out it was a Jack Caravelle, know in Mexico as "el toro" and his life will be spared if he ever ends up on our decks again.]
I hooked it up just after we sailed out of the gulf of Nicoya on our way to Coco del Playa where we would check out of the lovely country of Costa Rica hoping to catch an upcoming weather window. But a small Papagayo popped up and forced us into the bay of Tamarindo. We did make it to Coco by about 5pm on Friday, which meant we could buy the Port Captain a beer, but we wouldn't be checking out until Monday.
We had checked out of Costa Rica and sailed all day and through the night. The sun illuminated an absolutely still sea and water so clear we could sea dolphin running the gauntlet under our bow as if they were flying in air. That's when we ran smack head on into a herd of turtles. Is it a herd? Or a pack? A gaggle? Dois thought they were birds and I thought they were turtles and it turned out they were birds on turtles. Hundreds of them. So many that we tried to weave around some and bumped others.
Twenty beautiful miles of turtles and birds and a million trillion baby jelly fish. We think the turtles were eating them and were just punch drunk, that's why so many didn't get out of our way. No turtles were harmed in the making of this blog. Although I think there's a jellyfish in the engine water strainer. Ew.
We had a magnificent sail up the coast of Nicaragua and after not sleeping much last night, we agreed to stop in Corinto for a little break and to hide for a day or two waiting out another.... you guessed it.... weather window.
Peaceful