48 hours of beautiful sailing weather later and we are now
comfortably docked in the city of Arrecife, on the island of Lanzarote in the
Canary Islands. We all got our sea legs and miraculously no one has been seasick
yet (knock on wood). And if you’ve
ever thought that being on a sailboat isn’t exercise, think again! The smallest
task, like pouring a glass of water, is a total isometric workout. When aboard
these are the small victories. Now picture trying to go to the bathroom…
Saying Goodbye to Madeira
Beautiful sail weather
So it was all comfortable cruising on Argo until about 2
hours before we were about to arrive and then there was all out excitement on
the sea! Darv’s big plan for this trip is to troll everyday we are on the water
and hopefully catch a few nice fish. Second day of trolling and we hooked our
first fish. This one was a fighter! It took every ounce of Darvil’s energy not
to get pulled over the boat. The fish was going to be too big for Darvil to
take on alone so dad joined in on the fight. But Darvil will tell you the story
better, so here it is straight from the horse’s mouth:
“When the thing first hit, it took all my body weight just
to keep the thing from pulling me overboard. I had a lanyard on the rod, but
the lanyard couldn’t take any of the weight because it goes from the rod to a
point behind me. So if I ever let that lanyard start to tense up, it would
tighten up against my waist and pull the rod to the side, and too far would
cause it to slip out of my belt. This was my first deep sea fish, so I had no idea what I was
up against, but I knew I needed a winch! After 20 minutes my arms started to
turn to mush, (keep in mind we were moving at a good 5 or 6 knots on a
sailboat) and I needed help if anything would happen. The thing spooled the
line a couple of times (and the drag was set VERY high). After an hour we got
it close enough to the boat that we could see it was a blue fin tuna. In another hour, we had it on is side
right up to the back of the boat. Chas had been helping me support the rod, as
I sat on the deck with my feet up on the rails. Soon, Em came back to relieve
Chas as he readied the homemade gaff to hook him. He was massive, a foot longer
than I am tall, and must have weighed over 200 lbs. I really have no idea, it may have been 300. I remember
thinking that we would need to come up with a good trick to get such a huge
fish 5 feet up onto the deck. Just as we were going to gaff him, snap, the line
broke. The line broke, and so did my heart. It was some good action, but I
think I’ll be bitter about that ending for the rest of my life. This was
yesterday and I still can’t move my arms.”
Our first sight of the fish! TUNA!
He's excited now !
It's a big guy!
Team work
Givin' it his all
So close ...
Just before the line broke :(
So there you have it! We all had a good cry but then it was
back to the business of sailing ourselves to Lanzarote. There’s always more
fish in the sea… We made land fall in the Canaries about 11:00 am and arrived
at our marina at dusk with barely enough light to dock. But with the help of a
few spotlights we managed to make it in safely. This morning we had to change
dock slips, and let’s just say it takes a village to dock Argo in a tight slip
with windy conditions! At last head count we had 11 friendly sailors that were
ready to catch a line! Dad wasn’t sure if he had enough beers to thank
everybody!
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