Wahoo!
29 December 2005 | Passage from Abacos to Eleuthra
There is a reason it is called Wahoo- because you scream Waaahhooo when you catch one! Yes we did! We left Little Harbour at sunrise to make the 50 mile passage to Eleuthra. A sea turtle swam around Eira as we were pulling out of the anchorage. We had to motor-sail and were in the Atlantic Ocean heading south, the waters were a deep blue black in colour- very deep water. Daniel, John and I were playing a game of Yahtzee in the cockpit when all of a sudden ZING!! We all assumed our positions- Mom to the helm to slow the boat down Daniel to the other pole to reel in the line and John to get the gaff for Dad. We saw it jump out of the water, the colors were spectacular and yes we had a wahoo! It played on the line for awhile and Menno finally got it in the boat! Daisy was going crazy the entire time! We had to put her below. The fish filled the length of the cockpit, we measured it and it was 4'9" ! That is as tall as Daniel!! We guess it must have weighed a good
50 lbs or so. There was a remora fish on the wahoo, this is the sucker fish which attaches itself to the bigger fish to clean the fish and to eat any foods that the big fish doesn't. There was also a "cleaner fish" in the wahoo's mouth and this fish actually cleans the big fish mouth and also eats any extra food! The beautiful colors of deep blue and purple on the fish begin to fade away as it dies and it turns silver grey in color. We caught the wahoo on John's wahoo lure which Santa brought for him! Terrific! Menno and the boys cleaned the fish in the cockpit and this took quite some time! We have a freezer full of wahoo steaks! All very exciting!
A large school of dophins swam around Eira for a while and entertained us as well. The rest of the crossing was uneventful.
A great day.