The Day Our Ice Melted (Wednesday, March 21)

We woke up a few times in the night to rain. The morning yielded scattered showers as well. We decided we weren’t going to go anywhere because it was still too windy. After we put our sleeping quarters away and opened up the “galley” (by opening up the galley, I merely mean we made the cooler accessible), we noted that our ice was melting fast. We decided that we absolutely needed to leave for civilization tomorrow. That means we needed to get to Bahia Honda and bypass Newfound Harbor. Bahia Honda is about 25NM from Saddlebunch Harbor.

We took inventory on what we could eat (specifically the contents of the cooler) and Scott made us grilled cheese. Heaven forbid that our cheese supply goes bad before consumption. After breakfast we noticed that the chicken bones that I had set out the previous night were bare. We basically dropped everything to set up our fishing gear. 

Scott tried first with just a lure and they were interested but not totally buying it. Scott recommended putting on hot dog to really get them going. What the heck, the ice is melting anyway! They loved the hot dog but kept stealing it off the lure and hook. We switched to a smaller hook (which turned out to be the key) and put hot dog chunks on it. Scott passed off the rod to me and within seconds I had a fish on! It really was the hook though; I’m not trying to take credit for catching the first fish (although I’m sure my dad would argue otherwise since fishing is in my blood).  We caught three more little fish (Ceasar Grunts, I think) and released one. We used the other two for crab trap bait.

Scott took the honor of chopping it up and putting it in the crab trap. I couldn’t stomach hitting it over the head with a winch handle to knock it out. Scott periodically checked his crab trap to make sure the bait was still in there. One time he brought it up for a check and a large shadow came up with it. He had attracted a nurse shark that was sticking her nose in the cage and latching on. She wanted that fish head! She came almost to the surface before seeing us and speeding off back to the bottom. Eventually something took the crab trap bait without setting it off and we used another grunt. The day ended with no crab caught. 

In the evening Scott called me up from below to see the craziest thing. Schools of fish were leaping

through the air near the mangroves. We’re talking hundreds of fish, all in synch. We assume they must be running from something bigger than themselves, underneath the surface.

We’re planning to make it to Bahia Honda tomorrow before we starve!

Checking out of Saddlebunch Harbor,

Lauren & Scott