Yet another long trip

Well, it's been a while since the boat got back. As usual, the afterthoughts are many. As previously mentioned, the boat was nothing short of awesome. Let's start at the beginning. Mark picks me up in the morning and we start our trek south. Arrival in San Diego at the usual hotel, dinner at Butch's restaurant and before we knew it, we were at the landing ready to board. The boarding process was organized. This is the first time I had seen an 'organized' boarding. A few guys were hired specifically to help with our gear and board the boat - sequentially. None of the usual 'first come, first served' mad dashes for the carts. The 'red-shirts'(they were called) made sure we all had a cart, were lined up in sequence and boarded in sequence. Still did not bode well for the guys with higher numbers - who wanted the 'choice' places to place their tackle boxes. But still, more organized than I had seen or experienced before. Nice. After the initial 'why-the-fuck-did-we-bring-all-this-shit!' was stated by everyone, we were sitting in the galley waiting to leave. I am waiting patiently for the initial 'VROOM, VROOM' of the engines starting. Nothing. What the hell is the holdup? Well, I look outside, and we are already moving - and I didn't hear a damned thing. WOW! Time and again throughout this trip, we would be amazed at how quiet this boat was. On the way out to the bait receivers, the cook made us a sandwich for lunch. Initially, I thought......'pretty good sandwich'. Not really out of the ordinary in the world of sandwich kingdom....but, a good sandwich nonetheless. As the trip progressed, the food was nothing short of awesome. In the world of fishing boat food, this food was spectacular. Javier was his name. He was no ordinary boat cook - but a chef. Now I may not be the preeminent judge of the culinary arts - but, this guy's food was awesome. By now, some readers may start to wonder why I went fishing, and haven't mentioned the fishing yet. In my previous post, I wrote that the fishing experience is no longer just the fishing. It is the boat, the accommodations, the food and other necessities (read, niceties), that complete the multi-day fishing experience. The four day ride to the fishing grounds was very nice - boat, food, accommodations, all of it - thus far. I know if I was on another boat looking at us, I'd be thinking that I wanted to be on THAT BOAT. All right, enough burbling about all of that. Somewhere in the conversations with some of the crew, I found out that none of the crew (with the exception of the skipper) had been on a long trip before. Not necessarily bad, but not necessarily good either. We had known from our previous voyage about the 'black sheep' description that this operation had.

Here, I am going to go off on a bit of a tangent away from this trip to describe the overall environment. The patrons of this recreation are a dedicated group. By dedicated, I mean these are folks that like this type of fishing and go regularly. We're talking about a type of fishing that can't be had anywhere else in the world. There are places you can fish tuna and wahoo similar to ones caught on these trips - but the way you fish for them is the key. I mean, you have to be a true addict to go on a boat for two (2) weeks, not touch land - and do nothing but fish. For the money these trips cost - you can take your wife somewhere really nice. I don't think the number of patrons have grown much or shrunk much over the years. When I first started going on these fifteen to eighteen day trips 25 years ago, there were fewer boats - four, I think. So the boats that made the long trek were going much of the time at or near full capacity - to fish an area made up of three (3) islands (San Benedicto, Socorro and Clarion), one (1) rocky outcropping (Roca Partida) and Hurricane Bank (if the fishing at the islands got really tough). Over the years, the number of dedicated long-range fishermen have not grown much - but the numbers of boats have at least doubled to ten. As such, the trips these days are now going with a much lighter load. Add this situation to the environmentalists minimizing the areas (Revillagigedos are now closed to fishing) allowable to fishing - basically to one (1) spot - Hurricane Bank. Well, fishing boats are allowed to fish six (6) miles out side of the islands. We can make a whole separate issue with this one. Anyway, it is unfortunate, but I think there will be an adjustment soon. What I'm trying to get at is, the competition is fierce. And despite this competitive environment, newcomers kept slicing the pie thinner. So like I said, an adjustment is forthcoming and inevitable.

The 'Black Sheep' description is not necessary negative. This new boat has now been in the water a couple of years, and it is holding its own. Not necessarily to reveal the fickle side of the long-range fishermen, but to prove that - yes, some fishermen (especially the ones that can afford to go on these long range trips) do like a nice new boat. The staterooms are still small - but new! Each stateroom had its own flat screen and DVD player - not that you need it, but a nice touch. All pretty standard stuff in the staterooms, except for the portholes. Each room had its own porthole - basically a window to see outside. Makes the tiny spaces they are, seem just a bit less 'coffin-ish'. Nice, very nice. For me, I can sum up the deck with - nice stern area to fish and an actual set of stairs to the sun deck. Instead of climbing up a ladder - stairs you can actually walk up. And stabilizers on either side of the boat make the ride in lumpy weather steady. Not much good when you have a nice fish on and have to get past it - but, damn nice when you are riding uphill in crummy weather. So that about describes the boat. The fishing is pretty much the same no matter what boat you are on. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it isn't. It does help to have an operator that has been at it for a while, and a crew too. For a fifteen (15) day trip, we got relatively little time to fish. Besides having some unexpected mishaps with our bait supply, the water being 85 degrees and a bit of a green crew, there were a couple of chubascos chasing us around. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time moving out of the way of the storms. We trolled through some great areas that might have been good - but, by that time - our bait supply was almost gone. The lack of chum makes things tough. And oh, by the way the RSW system decided to break down about halfway into the trip. Not that we had that much in there anyway. Mark was having a salty trip. I think his back was bothering him more than he cared to mention. I had one good day of fishing for a few medium sized tuna, and Mark had a few wahoo. At the end of trip, we had enough fish to take home. As an added bonus, the cans of tuna we thought we got screwed out of on the last trip, came back to us. Good thing - because we were ready to beat 'em up with our fishing poles (we're too old to kick the crap out of anything - besides, we could get hurt!!!). For some reason, I must have been expecting more. I am scheming to go on another trip in a few weeks. Can I afford another act of PURE selfishness? Probably not. But I can scheme.