Whenever I’m asked, “what do you want to do on your trip?” my mind goes to 2 answers: I want to go diving and I want to go fishing. With the diving out of the way and not being able to dive 24 hours before flying, that just leaves fishing (and drinking) left on my list. I show up to the boat with way too much camera equipment and snacks but a girls gotta be prepared and god knows I’ll never make it more than 2 hours without eating.
If you’ve been to Grand Cayman, you’ve probably done one of their most popular activities, sting ray city, which means you’ve seen the wall. If you haven’t, well then you haven’t seen the wall and I will tell you about it. The island is roughly shaped like a beer opener, with the top of the opener being west end and where it hooks in is North Sound. From west end over to rum point there is a natural barrier formed by coral that keeps north sound calm and protected from the rough seas. This also makes it difficult to exit the sound, there are only a few narrow breaks in the coral large enough to allow a boat through and as evidenced by the several masts peaking at the surface not everyone is skilled enough. However, I’m fairly sure our captain can do this in his sleep as he doesn’t slow down one bit as I look at coral barely a foot away from the boat.
All I want to do is catch Mahi. That’s it, one singular Mahi. First bite! It is tasty with beautiful colors but not a Mahi. First fish is a black fin and just big enough to feed one sashimi for breakfast. No bother, lines are in the water and it’s just a matter of time before we get another bite. Over the next several hours a few things become very apparent:
- There are no Mahi, they have all left
- I am extremely good at catching barracuda, which is an overall useless talent, but I’m owning it anyway.
There is no such thing as a bad day on the water. I wanted to go fishing and I did exactly that, I caught several fish. They may not have been exactly what I wanted, but seeing as to how successful I was I decided a celebratory margarita was warranted.
Now back to Florida and cruising the mangroves…
After that? Who knows…
salt collins 