Fish On!

En route from El Salvador to the Gulf of Fonseca, Kai put our fishing line in the water. Tim was down below adjusting our watermaker. In just ten minutes we heard a zzzzzip. “Fish on” Kai yells. That’s when all panic sets in. My role is to slow the boat down and sometimes that’s challenging, especially when our spinnaker is flying. But this time we were motoring. This time it was easy to slow down. This time I could be a fisherman, well a fisherwoman.

Kai starts reeling in the fish. “I need help,” he says. So Tim pops his head up from the cabin and comes out to help us. Sounding a bit cocky, Tim takes the fishing pole and says, “It’s feels like a small Bonita - who wants to bring in the fish?” Feeling empowered this morning, especially after successfully making it out the crashing waves of El Salvador, I volunteered.

I sat on the big winch to brace the fishing pole and start reeling in. Kai helps me as we struggle to bring the fish into the boat. “This is hard work, I think this is a bigger fish,” I blurt out. Kai and I keep reeling but we’re having trouble keeping the tip of the fishing rod up.

Tim comes back out to help and I relinquish the role of fisherwoman. As he too struggles to bring the fish closer to the boat, we see a thin humongous fish with black stripes. It's at least four feet long. What is it?



We take out our Peterson fish guide and leaf through the pages. “If we don’t know what kind of fish it is, do we want to keep it?” Tim asks. We think it’s a Wahoo, the fastest gilled creature of the sea, but we’re not sure. Resourceful Maya finds a picture in the book confirming our thoughts. My brothers used to have a 470 sailboat which they named Wahoo, but I had never seen one of these sleek fish in person.

Tim keeps reeling. We hunt for our gaff which has fallen to the bottom of the lazarette. Tim hooks the fish and does it slightly off center, gaffing the poor fish through the eye. That’s when I convert the fish into food so as not to dwell on the fact that it’s a beautiful shimmering living being.

Take a look at the picture. I'm not telling a fish story and this one didn't get away! The fish was almost as long as 6 foot Tim.



As Tim fillets the fish, I prepare the sushi rice and then Oma and I make tasty melt in your mouth sushi. For the next week, we feast on the biggest catch so far.