During an overnight passage this week from San Antonio, Ibiza to Cartegena, Spain Charles caught a fish. Correction - Charles caught a REALLY BIG fish. Here's our story.

It was 1:00am, August 29th, and Charles was on watch. We were motoring at about 6.5 knots. I was asleep in the forward bunk. Suddenly there was a loud bang and the fishing line starting running out very fast. Charles scrambled to the back of the boat to see what had happened. The fish hit so hard it tore the pole out of it's mounting bracket and the fishing pole was hanging by a small safety string to the back of the boat.
I woke to the commotion and after putting the engine in neutral, I made it to the back of the boat to see Charles fighting like mad to keep the fish on the line and himself on the boat!

After around 30 minutes Charles had the fish close to the boat and we got our first sight of the catch.

We knew he was too big to bring aboard with the gaff hook so we devised a lasso with a bit of rope and as Charles pulled the fish's head out of the water, I slipped the lasso around his sword and fins. We pulled him behind the boat, tied him to the transom and spent the next 3 hours getting to Cartegena.
Around dawn we arrived and anchored in a small bay outside the harbor. We pulled "Don Quixote" up on the boom to measure him and take some photos. He measured 7 feet, sword to tail, and we guessed his weight to be about 70 pounds.

Charles cleaned the fish while we were at anchor and cut him into pieces that would fit into our refrigerator. We continued on to the marina in Cartagena.
We have been dining on fresh swordfish for 2 days now and have shared our catch with everyone! By Sunday all that will be left of "Don Quixote" are a few photos and a really BIG fish tale...