Home Again...

We've been home from our US trip for a week now, and our lives are slowly moving back toward what we think is normal. Normal for us, I guess I should say. We were curious about how we would feel about returning to these little islands after spending weeks in a big US city. Would we become spoiled by all the smooth concrete pavement, fast food restaurants, shopping malls and consumer goods outlets on every corner? Would we become re-addicted to living in a place with over 1,400 Mexican Restaurants alone listed in the local Yellow Pages ? (you think I am kidding? Check it out: Mexican-Restaurants) This is quite a change from living in a place that lists a total of 71 restaurants of any kind in the entire nation.

The answer is definitely 'no'. We did not decide we would rather live in the USA. I fear we are forever ruined for the big city lifestyle. We've become island lovers. And while we enjoy visiting the bright lights from time to time, we literally cannot wait to step off that airplane back on Provo. We are even starting to look forward to seeing the customs and immigration people again!

After picking up Dooley the Devious at the kennel, we opened up the house, and then stopped by the marina to check on our boat. Everything was good there, and Dooley got re-acquainted with his old buddy Bernard and his dog Lucy:



I started the boat up and everything seems to have survived without us just fine. I wanted to take it out for a spin, but the wind was blowing like heck, and my new knee is still pretty tender. I elected to be cautious for now and content with just running it and charging the batteries.

We had only been home a couple of days when we got a call from our friend Preacher. He welcomed us back and said he was putting together a small cookout on a beach in Provo on Sunday. I am still a bit 'gimpy' with this new knee, but this was a beach we had never seen, and we did not even have to use the boat to get there. Perfect opportunity for some fresh photos.

This little beach is at the end of miles of dirt road. It's a bit off the beaten path, even for Provo. I mapped out the driving route on Google Earth, and was surprised to see the distance from our house to Osprey Rock is just over sixteen miles:



That's quite a bit of a trip when you consider the entire island is only about seventeen miles long from one end to the other. And most of this trip was on unpaved roads.

Parking at the end of that dead end and walking down through the bushes you come out to a wonderful little uncrowded stretch of sand and rock:



Other than the dozen or so people hanging out with Preacher waiting for him to cook lunch, the entire beach was deserted. Not too bad for a Sunday in late Springtime.

Preacher's nephew Tyreese and some of his friends were swimming in the water, and a few people were casting bait out to see if any fish were biting.



Here's another GE view of this area, and you can see the road and the rocky little beach where these photos were taken:



Basically we were all just hanging out, enjoying a laid back island day, and waiting for Preacher to do his cooking thing on the campfire. That's Preacher in the middle, and one of his brothers (Joe, aka "Hammerhead" ) talking to La Gringa on the left:



The day was going very, very smoothly. Especially when compared to the hectic three weeks we had just gone through up north in Texas. We did have a little bit of excitement, Provo style. Mrs. Lightbourn caught a fish, and those of us who were not busy, lazy, or crippled, ran over to check it out:



I was both lazy and crippled, so I just used the zoom. That's Osprey Rock in the background, by the way. There is a trail up to it, and that cliff is called West Harbor Bluff.

Of course the minute someone hooked a fish, Dooley the Destroyer felt a responsiblity to run over and take charge of the situation. His firm and unshakable opinion is that every fresh caught fish, and I do mean EVERY fish, needs to be immediately bitten. No exceptions.

Well, since this wasn't our fish to bite, I needed to secure the dog in a timely manner. I had forgotten to bring a leash rope from the truck with me, but I did manage to snag him by the collar with my cane as he zipped by on his way to disrupt the fishing expedition:



Mr. Lightbourn and his grand-daughters did bring the fish over to show us:



And a handsome creature it was, too:



I think this is some kind of boxfish, but I didn't think to ask what the local name was for it. I know we see them all the time when we are snorkelling. It doesn't look to me like something I would eat, but I suspect that the locals and at least one Jack Russell Terrierist would disagree with me.

As mentioned, this part of Provo is the closest point to West Caicos. We were having some afternoon thunderstorms at this point in the day so the photography sort of went downhill . This is looking toward West Caicos, some six miles away:



With a little zoom, you can see the buildings of the Ritz-Carleton development out on West Caicos.



I am thinking that six miles across might just be a good kayak trip one of these calm summer days.

As far as we know, this development is one of several major resort projects that have been put on indefinite hold due to the present economic situation with the banks who were providing the funding. Lehman Brothers was involved in the West Caicos project, for example. Some of the other projects scattered around the TCI have also been slowed down by the current political changes going on in the islands. A lot of projects and permits are undergoing government review. We try to stay out of that whole political situation entirely. We consider ourselves guests here, and we just hope it all gets resolved so that a lot of these good people can get back to their full time jobs soon, before they suffer too much more financial hardships. Things are slow here, just like everywhere else.

I spotted a strange rock formation while we were here at the beach. It's a circular section of different composition from the surrounding limestone:



I am curous as to what kind of structure might have formed this. My best guess, so far, is that it is some kind of fossilized sponge that got covered over with sediment many years ago, and became part of the rock itself. I am certainly open to other interpretations, though. Here's another view, looking down on it:



That structure is about two feet in diameter and as hard as the rock around it.

Well, that pretty much sums up our first mini-excursion back at home. The weather has not been cooperating for boating and beach activities. We have had rain five out of the last seven days since these photos were taken. We ain't complaining, mind you. The cisterns are full for the first time since the hurricanes last September. And I can use some time to recover full use of my leg and my new knee. I would probably be frustrated if the weather was perfect and I was unable to take advantage of it. This enforced recovery time is probably a good thing.

I came home to the usual bunch of little maintenance jobs to start taking care of. One of my early priorities is going to be to do something about the soft top on one of the Land Rovers. This top is only four years old, and yet the sun and wind has just about destroyed it already:



I am in the process of trying to find a Land Rover supply house in the UK who is experienced at exporting parts to little countries like this. I'm a bit dismayed and somewhat surprised at how difficult it has proven to be. I want to buy a new top for this vehicle, for example, and some parts for the other one as well. Since we now have a vehicle with the means to seat people comfortably I am hoping to turn this one into something a little sportier. I am thinking I want this kind of top on it instead of the full canvas:



That should look pretty good, I think. And it's practical. And I plan to find someone locally to help me fabricate a combination roll cage and kayak rack for it. The shipping costs to send one from England are astronomical. It would cost me more to ship a roll bar from the UK than it would cost to buy the roll bar. In fact, this project might just justify me buying a small arc welder and learning how to build my own.

Another thing that has been a bit frustrating in trying to buy parts for the Land Rovers is the terminology difference between American English and Land Rover English. I kid you not.

Americans and Brits are all familiar with some of the common differences in automotive terms. We know that what we call a 'hood' is called a 'bonnet', and what we call a 'trunk', the Brits call a 'boot'. Those are easy. Wanna hear some more trickier ones? I am trying to buy a 'soft-top" or 'convertible top' for my Land Rover. Okay. That's not what the Brits call it. They call it a 'hood'. Not to be confused with our 'hood' or their 'bonnet'. To further complicate things, they also sometimes call it a 'tilt'. I have no clue where that one comes from. The frame that I need to hold the 'tilt' up is called 'hood sticks'.

Speaking of which, here is a photo of the inside of that soft top I need to replace:



Can you believe this happened to it in only four years? It's harsh here, I tell you. The problem is that we want to leave it open to get the ventilation, but then the dust blows in with it's salt load. Hopefully, the new small top ( if I can ever get one imported) will take care of this.

Oh, the list of confusing terms goes on and on. For example, this little side light needs replacing on the other Land Rover:



That's not a side light, or a blinker light or a directional signal light. Nope. It's a "side repeater". Where I come from a 'repeater' is a rifle. Oh well. I guess this difference in nomenclature has been a subject for amusement for a long time now. I think it was Playwright George Bernard Shaw who claimed that "England and America are two countries divided by a common language". Sounds to me like Mr. Shaw just might have been trying to order Land Rover parts on the internet.

(And that black plastic thing over the wheel is called an 'eyebrow arch'. That's all I am going to say about that.)

I am hopeful that within the next few weeks I will have a new top to replace the one destroyed by the harsh climate here. Oh, while on that subject, I wanted to do my little bit of public service for other people who struggle with corrosive environments. I know I have been known to harp and complain about the constant struggle with keeping tools and metals from oxidizing here. I have been using all types of different oils and sprays to try to control rust. Well, I think I might have found something that seems to be working far better than anything else I have tried to date. The product is called "Corrosion X" and it is made by a company in Dallas.



I first used this stuff to protect our little diving compressor hookah, and was impressed at how well it prevented rust. After getting frustrated by trying to use WD-40 and other products here, I imported several cans of this stuff through a local friend who runs a paint and supply shop here on Provo (thanks Brenton). So far, I am thinking this just might be one of the best products I have seen yet for protecting metal and loosening frozen parts. It's expensive, but it might just be worth it.

While I am passing on good information, I also wanted to tell you we have found a product that is deadly on ants. We don't have a huge ant problem here, but they do swarm around from time to time. I had tried spraying insecticides and putting out ant traps, with the usual results. Now, I have been using this inexpensive, simple concoction that uses Boric Acid as its active ingredient.



You put a couple drops of this stuff where the ants are crawling, and they go nuts over it. They will pile up over each other to eat this stuff. No kidding.



And then they run away and never come back. Fantastic. No poisons to spray, no obnoxious fumes, gloves, sprayers, etc.

I just realized that I am ending this post with a photo of a bunch of ants eating poison instead of a sunset. This is not a trend, don't worry. It's just that it has been cloudy and raining for the past several days and I don't have any fresh sunset photos. I will get some as soon as the weather clears. In the meantime, dealing with rust and bugs is definitely a part of life in the tropics.

Ok, okay. I can't end the post with a photo of a bunch of soon-to-be ex-ants. SO I went back into the photos we took on the way to Osprey Rock and found something else. (No, it's not a sunset. I don't HAVE any fresh sunsets. Not yet. Hang on a bit, til the weather clears.)

We were driving down that long dirt road toward the beach, La Gringa at the wheel because my new knee won't bend far enough to work a clutch yet. Suddenly she says "What's that? Is that cotton?" And I took a quick look and we were passing by this:



(That's part of Chalk Sound in the background.) And anyhow, she was right. It IS cotton, growing wild here alongside the road. I had written in a previous post, a year or so back, a little about the history of Provo, and the cotton plantations back in the early days, and how the soil played out and the slaves got left to fend for themselves. (see Chesire Hall Plantation )

We were kinda amazed, and actually slid to a stop in a cloud of dust, scraped Dooley off the bulkhead, and backed up to take a look. I even hobbled out with the camera. Actually I was wondering if it was really live cotton, or if someone had exploded a mattress or something.

And yep, it's real live cotton plants still suriviving after all those years. I pulled a boll off, and it was doing just fine, filled with cottonseeds. Well, it was doing fine until I pulled it off, I guess.




So, although it's not a pretty sunset or even a sunrise, it's gotta beat a pile of dead bugs as a way to end a post.

Dishevelled

I have been trying not to start every one of these snippets out with a sunset photo, but there's a reason for this one:



See that upright post thing just to the left of center there on the edge of the driveway? That's a galvanized steel pipe. Earlier this week the satellite TV installation crew finally got started. While I was preoccupied with trying to fix the garage doors, two guys worked a big part of the day in the hot sun. With pickaxe and shovel, they scraped, chipped, and chopped out a two foot deep hole in the limestone. They built a wooden form and hand-mixed two bags of concrete to pour around the base of it. They got it exactly vertical. They did a good job. Then they left for the day.
Well, that evening, just at sunset, when La Gringa and I stepped out front to fire up the charcoal grill and watch the sunset, we got that image, above, of the intended new sat dish antenna location. Yep. Right in the middle of one of our favorite views.

And they don't just use the small three foot sort of sat dish down here. No sir. To get a good signal here you need an eight foot diameter dish. It's one of them big suckers.

We discussed the situation at length as we watched the sun disappear behind the gray metal pipe. We imagined an eight foot fiberglass dish attached to the top of the pipe. The sunset did not get any better with the pipe in it. We know how hard it was to excavate that hole with hand tools in a limestone hilltop. We did not want to have to tell the guys that we wanted it taken down. We even discussed whether we really need a television. We have gotten along just fine without one for almost two months. We have commonly gotten through days or even weeks without turning on a television even when we could. We talked about just using their new pipe for a flagpole.

But what we finally had to admit is that we don't even want a flagpole in that spot. We really don't want anything between us and our view of the ocean.

But we do want a television. we need to be able to keep in touch with what's going on in the world. We enjoy the odd movie, well, not exactly the odd movies. What I meant to say was that sometimes we like to watch a movie. Or more likely Discovery Channel. We watch "Tropical Update" religiously during hurricane season. We even considered, briefly, whether or not an 8 foot diameter dish on that pole would be all that much of an eyesore. It would be in the view from the front door, and from the kitchen window. So I blocked out about an eight foot dish sort of area on a recent photo taken from our front steps, just to be sure we really could not live with it there. It would look kinda like this:



And yeah, we really couldn't live with it there. I mean, I like technology as much as the next guy...but this....well this was not going to improve anything about this view. And what else do we have up here, really. It's all about the ocean views. And the sunsets.

It fell to me to inform the installers that....this just wouldn't do. I felt bad about it, but well, there it is. They were not happy, of course, but they showed up the next day (after the concrete had set good and hard) and with the help of our builder's big blue machine they managed to knock the whole thing loose:



They put a strap on it and lifted it out of the hole, concrete and all. As a side note; I was very interested in how well the poured concrete adhered to the bare limestone. Excellent adhesion. Tenacious to dislodge. Bad news for the satellite installers in this case, but good news for the house.

Romeo drove the now uprooted installation to a new location, out of the line of sight between us and any part of the ocean.



And the sat tv team started over. But this time they had to chip away a couple hundred pounds of concrete from the pole, before they once again took pickaxe and shovel to the limestone. It took them all day to move this thing. It's now installed in it's new location up the hill from us, and although I think sat dishes are ugly no matter where they are installed...



We think we can live with it up there. (yes of course the trash will get cleaned up and landscaped. Well, the trash won't get landscaped...) I am wondering if it's okay to paint the back of these things. Sky blue, perhaps?)

Anyhow, you gotta admit, an eight foot dish on the pole there is not nearly as much the visual equivalent of a dental drill as it would have been in the other location. We cannot even see this dish location from most of the house. We minimized our exposure to this view when we designed it, realizing that eventually someone would be building up the hill from us. They can look down on our new sat dish. We don't have to see it.

This week life has been hectic. Again. On the day of the sat dish installation we had a total of six guys here working on various parts of the house. We managed to get the garage doors going up and down mechanically. Oh, the electric openers don't work, but being able to manually open the doors is a big step forward. There are adjustments to the automatic openers, and I will get around to troubleshooting those eventually. If I can find the manual for them. But in the meantime, I can finally get some things done in the future workshop, now that I can open it up to the sea breezes blowing through. Nice place to work.

Today is Sunday. For the first time in weeks, we had nice weather and a day without subcontractors all at the same time. So we decided to walk away from the homeowner projects and just go fishing. We grabbed a couple rods, some lures, the dog, and headed for the marina. We fueled up the boat, said hello to Duran and Chad, and headed out.

The fishing was slow but it felt so good to be on the boat again that we really didn't mind that. We did not get totally skunked but we did come home empty handed. We managed to hook up with a small barracuda and a small Amberjack. But we don't eat either of those fish and so after getting them on board I threw them back. They were fun to catch.

Of course one member of the family was highly critical of our decision to throw the fish back. Dooley the Demented Dog does not believe in releasing any fish for any reason. He had to personally inspect the barracuda and give it a couple bites for good measure.



He went right for the barracuda's throat. Maybe he was a lawyer in a previous life. ( I meant the Jack Russell Terrier's previous life, not the barracuda's.)

A little while later La Gringa hauled in a small Jack. And of course the dog was still pretty worked up thinking about the barracuda we threw back, so he really went mental over the much livelier jack..

Couldn't quite reach it...



Though he tried his best, La Gringa kept it just out of reach of his teeth:



He growled. He barked. He made loud and sinister sounding threats in a language I don't understand. Then he suddenly got one of his famous ideas, and decided he needed to get closer to the fish:



(look at his feet. You think he's excited?)

Oh yes, he will get right up on the gunwale of the boat out in the deep blue ocean, if he thinks he can get close enough to bite a fish:



So we had to let him at least be able to say he bit it:



We did not want him to hurt it, because we were throwing it back. (I kinda like that photo. Clear skies. Blue water. Late afternoon sun sparkling on the waves. Cuddly little domestic lapdog pet gone bloodthirsty and feral...)

After that the fishing slowed back down to nothing. We still enjoyed the day. We saw a huge turtle swimming around on the surface but did not get close enough for a photo. So we headed back to the house and back to our never-ending list of things that need to be fixed, painted, installed, moved, removed, adjusted, dusted or just cursed at. Tomorrow morning we are expecting our guys from the builder to be here. We are expecting a plumber to be here. We are expecting our architect to drop by to sort out some issues. And we are hoping the hurricane shutters arrived this weekend. And I got word that the water filtering and UV system I ordered from the USA is here and waiting for me to clear it through customs. We have a lot to do over the next few days and the weather is forecast to be perfect for boating. We haven't given up all hope of getting back on the water this week by any means. Construction-associated workers generally pretty much get thin and vanish by around 4:00, and we still have daylight until after 7:00...

I have started doing a few things in the still unfinished workshop. It's really fun for me to unpack tools I haven't seen or used in years. Kind of like Christmas. I am getting reacquainted with saws and sanders and chisels. As a warm-up project, I am building two racks of shelving for the pantry. I've managed to get the first one together from framing lumber and plywood, and even got it half painted this morning (before we decided to chuck it and go fishing):



Hey, that's not bad for a Sunday morning. I am a little rusty on the woodworking, but it's just like riding a bicycle. Meaning, I guess, that if you let your attention wander eventually you are going to run into something and bleed. Hey, for some of us, BandAids are shop tools, also.

I hope to get this shelf set finished and installed tomorrow. Then I get to build another one just like it for the other side of the pantry. I should be friends with the new table saw by then.

These shelves should take care of a lot of storage requirements. I always wanted a decent sized pantry, they never seem to be big enough. Hopefully, this one should be able to handle cases of tuna fish, dog food, coffee and beer. The four basic food groups and now we have room to hoard them in respectable quantities on those rare occasions when the supermarket has the brands we like.

So, while things are still very much under construction, we are slowly starting to see some progress. With a little luck, we might have some better boating and tropical blue water and maybe fishing photos to post in the next day or so. We are pretty tired of house photos, and I am sure everyone else is as well.

Winter Wahoo Rodeo

We have been flirting with the idea of entering a fishing tournament. This started last month when we watched the weigh-in of an early season tourney here, and realized that we had caught fish that would have won it. We also have no illusions about us knowing what we are doing. We are persistent in our fishing, and that's about all we can claim about it. We catch fish in spite of ourselves. We learn from experience, and what we can find out on the internet and from talking with local people who do know what they are doing.

We watched this "Wahoo Rodeo" tournament date approaching on the calendar, deciding not to decide until it was either too late to make the commitment or perhaps until we assembled sufficient excuses to blow it off regretfully. (Commonly called "playing it by ear" in the lexicon of the lazy.)

(The poster is misprinted by the way. The largest dolphin was second place with $ 2,000. prize money. Tuna was third. Little things like a thousand bucks one way or another can become important.)

We honestly had lost sight of the fact that the tournament was upon us. We had started moving into the house last Tuesday, initiating a series of long, hot, frustrating and tiring days, and by Friday afternoon we had totally forgotten all about the tournament on Saturday. That would have allowed us to snap our fingers on Sunday morning and say "Oh DARN it! We missed the Wahoo tournament! Oh well, maybe next year ...."etc.

If by some freak accident someone had reminded us of it before it was too late, we were also prepared to cite the windy conditions, rough seas, and our small boat, lack of experience, and that we were totally tied up in moving. We had a house guest. We had fallback excuses in that our fishing gear is on the wimpy side, we don't have outriggers, had neglected to sign up in time, etc. etc.

Then, Friday afternoon the phone rang. It was our friend Jay Johnson, the owner and operator of the Bottle Creek Lodge on North Caicos. Jay said that he had brought his boat over for the contest and had room for a couple extra fishermen. La Gringa offered to keep tabs on the house situation so that Jon and I could fish in the tournament, bless her heart. The invitation was totally unexpected, and more to the point, Jay's generous offer totally negated any and all of the excuses we had assembled. He had the boat, the gear, had already paid the entry fee, and just needed a 'yes' or 'no'. So, with my enthusiastic son hopping up and down with excitement about the opportunity to see how a real pro would fish a tournament, we accepted Jay's offer. I saw it as a chance to learn to be a better fisherman myself. I might be an old dog, but I still love them new tricks.

We met Jay, his mate Ron, and one of Jay's friends from North Caicos, Brodie, at 07:00 Saturday morning at the Turtle Cove Marina. Jay's 30 foot Grady White , the "Reel Job", was all rigged up and ready to go:

At the stroke of 08:00 ( give or take a few minutes) it was full speed ahead as the 24 boats in the contest hit the throttles and scattered as soon as they left the cut in the reef:

"Reel Job" steps out right smartly, with a pair of Yamaha 225 horse four strokes on the blunt end. Four hundred and fifty horsepower....Oh yeah!!

Jay was all over that boat like a seagoing chimpanzee. He was setting outriggers, rigging ballyhoo, adjusting drag on the reels. We ran a spread of lures with a teaser. This was the first time I had fished with outriggers, and I have been thinking about adding them to our boat, "Cay Lime". I watched Jay setting up things that up until now I had only read about on the Sportfishermen.com forum. And Jay was great, explaining why and how he was setting things up the way he did. And it all made perfect sense. Hallelujah.

Around 9:30 am, maybe around the end of the first brunch beer, one of the reels suddenly jumped and did that attention grabbing shriek as the line flew off the spool. "Fish On!!" Jay grabbed the rod, set the hook and then handed it all to Jon. With a belt slapped around him to hold the rod, Jon found himself suddenly fishing big time. Maintaining an outward calm, while I know he was munching on the top of his heart...he worked a nice rainbow dolphin almost up to the boat.

Jay helped him set the drag on the Shimano reel. This equipment was all new stuff to us. In fact, it made me realize that our own gear is basically toys for this kind of fishing.

Just as the Captain was grabbing for the gaff, the dolphin lept into the air in a brilliant array of colors and flying water droplets.... and threw the hook. "Oh....gosh... dangit" is not even a close approximation of what was said in the sudden silence that follows the realization that the fish is gone. The line is slack. It's over, and ain't gonna happen. You are left with the emotional equivalent of an adrenaline pressure wash, and little else. It gets real quiet, but the realization that the fish is history sets in pretty quickly. So we replenished the bait and set everything back out.

Half an hour later Capt. Jay himself got hooked up with another dolphin, with the same result as Jon. A few minutes of good fight, and the fish threw the hook. That's two fish hooked, and two lost, but at least Jay losing one made Jon feel a whole lot better about the one he tangled with. We were pretty happy at that point, two hours into the day and we had already had two decent fish on the lines. That said to us "Right boat, right Captain, and right bait". This is optimism at it's finest.

But then the day got quiet. Too quiet. We trolled for hour after hour, in the broiling sun and six to occasionally eight foot seas. We watched for birds diving on bait, studied the sea for jumping fish. Kept an eye on the rigging...

We kept out of the sun as much as possible and studied the horizon. We watched the spread behind the boat. Many of us drank beer. We waited...

Jon is replaying his brief but exciting connection to a fighting fish over and over in his mind, and the hours drone by without another bite. At this point, for all he knows he will go home with nothing but the same old story of the 'one that got away'. People didn't wanna hear it five thousand years ago, and they ain't gonna wanna hear it today, either. Welcome to offshore fishing, son.

Jay went back and forth from driving "Reel Job" to adjusting the outriggers.. checking drags, watching the spread behind us.

He kept the lures untangled, tried changing a few of them to another color ( blue and black did not work on this day) and checked the bait to be sure it was running the way he wanted.

He told us tales of other tournaments he has won. He took second place in this very tournament last year, and didn't get a single bite until 2:30 in the afternoon. Could happen any moment, the man said. Watch the bait. Be ready.

Ten o'clock became eleven. Noon came and went. We munched sandwiches, listened to the stereo ( Heavy on southern rock), and watched the ocean. One o'clock in the afternoon and Brodie announced that if we were not going to catch any fish he was going to just drink beer. We were well equipped for that, but he was just venting frustration. Nobody gets drunk on a few Presidente Light beers in this sun. Not even Brodie. The constant rolling and pitching in the seas pretty much kept everyone in place. Jay broke the monotony every now and then by busting a wave, soaking the appreciative people on the windward side of the boat. Kept us awake, though.

The hours went slowly by, with five sets of sunburnt eyeballs watching silent reels, spooled up with line and the drag levers in the strike positions.

Jay's well used fighting belts sat close at hand, just in case we got a strike:

But after four listless, non-productive hours with no fish, it was not looking good. At least the cooler was chock full of refreshments.

Then around one thirty in the afternoon, the lethargic silence was suddenly busted wide open by that "ziiinnnnnnnnnggggg!!!! sound a fishing reel makes when a big fish hits the lure and runs with it. Two seconds after Jon grabbed the first screaming rod, a second one went off as well. Two dolphin had streaked in, each grabbed a hook, and tried to make for open water. Jon and Ron were both fighting fish and cranking reels. Jay and Brodie were scrambling around the deck trying to get the other four lines aboard so the live ones did not get tangled. I grabbed the boat's wheel and tried to keep it out of the way of a large motoryacht that was bearing down on us. From dead quiet and boring to heart pounding excitement in less time than it takes to holler "Holy Shoot!" or something that sounded kinda like that...

This time, we got both fish on board. This made for a very happy crew. Especially when we realized that both of these fish were probably contenders in the dolphin category.

This was my son's first Rainbow Dolphin (Mahi-mahi to the Polynesians, Dorado to the Spanish). He had never seen how one of these "lights up" changing colors in the sunlight. It's always thrills me to watch a dolphin leap out of the water, changing colors right before your eyes. They go through vivid, brilliant, almost irridescent greens, with neon blues, yellow, and even sometimes they turn an albino looking silver with spots. This can all happen within minutes. And they are all muscle and speed when they decide they do not want to be hooked. I am sure it was a fight Jon will never forget.

After the two dolphin, it got quiet again. After the high-fives all around, and cleaning up the blood splattered deck, heartbeats returned to normal. Listening to the other contestants on the radio we heard that someone had a large wahoo, but since we had no wahoo ourselves, we were more interested to hear if anyone else had caught any dolphin. And yeah, one boat reported that they had two "small" ones on board. Ah oh. What do they mean by "small" exactly? Competition. Anxiety. A determination to keep fishing. We need a bigger fish.

It was not to be.

We trolled until around three o'clock, when we got into a school of small barracuda. After bringing two on board (Brodie insisted that those were his) we called it a day. The 'cuda were biting off all our baits, and we did not want to head out to deeper water again because we needed to be back at the marina before the contest closed at four o'clock. So we went in early. We were the first boat in with fish. And the first boat to put a fish on the scoreboard. This is something else Jay taught me on Saturday. In case of a tie (two fish of equal weight) the first fish on the board would win. "Ah ha!", thinks I. (For no particular reason other than I needed something to think, and "Ah ha" fit as well as " Oh Ho!" or "I see!"....but joking aside, that's good information to have.

So we carted the bigger of the two fish up to the scales, and after what seemed a long and needless series of readings, the official version of the weight was recorded as 23 lbs. I am sure it seemed a lot heavier when we caught it. Still, 23 lbs. ain't bad.

For the next hour we waited while other boats came in to add their catch to the contest. Many of the other contestants would walk up first to see what was already recorded, and if their fish couldn't beat what was already entered they did not bother to take it out of the ice. Finally, the official version of four o'clock rolled around, and the weigh-in was closed.

And our 23 pounder won the dolphin category.

Jon, Gringo, Capt. Jay, Ron, and Brodie. The team from the "Reel Job".

Out of the 24 boats signed up for the tournament, seven of them ended up entering fish. We don't know how many fish were actually caught, of course, since fish smaller than the entries stayed in the boats. The wahoo category was won by a team led by Froggy Williams. Froggy is the brother of our electrician, Derek Williams. Froggie's "Team Pursuit" also won this same tournament last year. Hmm....He must know something....

Here are all the final entries in a pile at the weigh-in scales:

The winning wahoo was 61 lbs. Not bad.

Another long-time friend of ours, Chad Stubbs, was interviewed on the local radio station as a member of the team with the first place wahoo.

The gray haired gentleman in the background was surely incredulous over something other than what Chad was saying, although the man can tell a fish story . If you need an opinion or fish story, Chad has probably got one. He's kinda photogenic, too.

A lot of photos were taken by local media, the contestants, and of course visitors who were hanging around the marina and the Tiki Hut watching the excitement. The next weekly newspapers have not come out as of yet, but if there is a write-up on the contest I will post it here.

After it was all over, Jay gave Jon a lesson in cleaning and filleting fish back on the "Reel Job"

Brodie claimed the two dolphin after Jay removed the filets, said us white guys left too much meat on them to just throw them away. The local guys make fish stew from this, and they are right. There is a surprising amount of good fish left when you just take the filets. Brodie kept the two barracuda, as well.


So, after basically giving up on even entering the contest, we got to fish on one of the winning boats. Capt. Jay won $ 2,000, and four tickets to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. And he certainly earned it. I don't think he even needed the rest of us, the way he fishes. Jay took care of everything just as though we were a paying charter. Oh, we brought our own beer and food, but he did everything else from rigging the bait to determining the spread. The rest of us received t-shirts and trophies.

I did crank in one of the barracuda, but we didn't bother to even enter it in the contest. It would not have won, anyhow. For what it's worth, our second dolphin would have also won that category if we had entered it instead of the larger one Jon brought to the boat. They were both winning fish.

La Gringa 'held down the fort' at the house for us, and yet managed to be waiting with a rum punch in hand when we hit the dock. She also talked Chad out of a sizeable hunk of the winning wahoo. Then, to top off a pretty spectacular day she and I were invited to fish on another friend's boat for a five day billfish tournament this coming summer. We don't know nuthing about no billfishing, either. But we can sure learn.

Anyone who wants to experience offshore fishing or bonefishing with a good captain with a great boat, contact Jay at the Bottlecreek Lodge on North Caicos. Jay and Sandy run a nice lodge, with fishing, snorkelling, exploring to your heart's content. Full bar with sat TV and internet, away from the crowds of Provo. Their website is :

http://www.bottlecreeklodge.com/

Thanks, Jay. It was a day to remember.