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This was the year we re-powered the old boat. The Cummins 504 engines
had been rebuilt and were now on their last leg. We went from the 200 hp
engines to new Caterpillar 3116 models at 300 hp each. This required
larger shafts, plus, plus, etc, but the end result was a vast
improvement. Having done that I put in a larger refrigerator, a freezer
on the fly bridge and we proceeded to make plans for a trip to "the
Cape" (i.e Cabo San Lucas).
I reserved a slip at the new Marina (when slips were available), assembled all the filters, belts, parts, etc as might be needed, did all the paper work, documentation, insurance, etc. Ken, Daniel, Geoff and I also planned to bring along "insurance" in the form of Mark Henwood ("don't leave home without him"). |
| But before making the trip there was other business to attend to. We represented the Marlin Club for the South team in the National Coalition North-South Tournament. Geoff, Ken and I were our team. On the way to Cat Harbor I talked to Gene Grimes on the "Legend" and he told us of one of the boats seeing lots of fish just outside of the Santa Barbara Anchorage. Therefore, we opted to head for that island instead of Catalina. In the morning, we came across feeders and Geoff was able to drop a bait in front of a tailer that popped up alongside the boat. That fish was released. In early afternoon nothing was happening so I changed one of the lures to a pink Door Knob lure and within minutes of hitting the water it was nailed by a marlin. Geoff happened to be "up" at the time and was able to handle that fish as well. The two releases on 20 gave him and us 430 points. He won 1st Place Angler honors and gave us 2nd Place Team position. This helped the Marlin Club to 1st Place Club honors and the South teams the over-all victory. Geoff won a hand-held Trimble GPS rods for the team. |
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In November we finally got underway for the great adventure. The early part of the trip was highlighted by a problem of fuel transfer due to the fuel dock screwing up the transfer valves. As a result we lost a lot of fuel and almost ran out of fuel just outside of Turtle Bay. We also had an oil leak on one of the new engines and that was why we had Mark on board. This was somewhat of an El Nino year and the moral is: Don't go to Mag Bay during an El Nino season for the fishing is all out of whack. The result was that we saw very few fish and caught only about 4 marlin during the trip south. There was none of the striper activity as usually seen outside of Santa Maria, Mag Bay, Thetis Bank, etc. We did get word of some Blue Marlin activity southwest of Santa Maria and headed in that direction Geoff and Daniel were able to get a couple of small Blues, but I managed to hook a larger one (estimated 450-500) and was able to bring it to the boat and release it on 30# line in only 1 hour. And, of course, we made out to the clam beds loading up for evening dining. And then it was down to Cabo where we left the boat in the Marina for the next few month. Once a month we would fly down for 3-4 days of fishing, enjoying the wonderful (?) hospitality of Cabo San Lucas. Sorry, no pictures, just some videos, of the trip. |
