Georgetown, Bahamas
23.31.055N
75.45.481W

FISH ON! I think that's what you're supposed to say. We were underway by 7:30am bound for Georgetown. The wind wasn't perfect but it wasn't bad either. We sailed just a little off course for a couple of hours then turned and motorsailed at 7 kts until about an hour out of Georgetown. Dale had rigged a couple of poles and let out the lures, then we both started doing a little brightwork to pass the time. We had both put away our polishing rags and had sat down for a few minutes when I heard the zing! from one of his poles. Dale has lost a bit of his upper level hearing so when there is a fair amount of background noise, he has trouble hearing those higher ranges; this was one of them. I had asked him earlier if he had his fishing paraphernalia really just in case he caught something, to which he replied that all was ready except for the cheap alcohol to kill the fish. Since we've never been able to land anything worth eating, we've never had to worry about killing it.

As I started this post, I think that you're supposed to say Fish On! but since neither one of us is very knowledgeable about fishing, I rather calmly said "Honey, I think that's one of your lines". I'm not a big fish eater, so I sort of just watch him figure out how to do his thing. I do have a prerequisite that he use 30 lb test line; anything bigger than 30 lbs is probably too big for this boat.

The fishing rod goes zing! Dale jumps up and runs and grabs his pole and tells me to slow the boat down; I put it in neutral but the jib is still up and we're still doing 4.5 kts. enough to keep us on course. Then he tells me to get the other line out of the water so that they don't tangle. Then he says that its a big one! (that's wonderful, Moby Dick on my freshly washed back deck). I grab the big gaff. He says that he thinks that its white - go grab the cheat sheet with the pictures; I lay the gaff down and scramble down the stairs. I no sooner get back up and he says that its probably a barracuda (we've caught big ones of those before) or a shark (we won't even go there). I finally spot it, it looks blue but when it breaks the surface, it looks grey. When it goes deeper in the water, it looks big. He pulls it closer, there's something about the head of it that looks like - no way, we could never be that lucky. Dale tells me to find the cheap alcohol. What cheap alcohol? You're not using my rum! "Then grab the rubbing alcohol!" I scramble back down the stairs and pour some rubbing alcohol into a spray bottle and scurry back up. Dale hands me the pole, "here, hold this"; he grabs his gloves and takes the gaff. I reel the line in and in a more excited voice than I would want to express shout "I know what I'm having for dinner tonight". The only fish I'm willing to order in a restaurant is on the line; a mahi mahi.
Dale gaffs the fish and hauls it up. Its thrashing about and starting to bleed. Dale squirts some of the rubbing alcohol into the fish's mouth; it thrashes some more. He squirts some into the fish's gills, it thrashes even more. He's giving the dang thing an alcohol bath but the only thing it's doing is covering the back half of our boat and the dingy in the davits with blood.

That's about the time that we made our waypoint and the autopilot starts sounding an alarm. I run for the alarm while Dale's trying to figure out how to kill this dang fish. I turn off the alarm and keep us on the same course and run back. Dale's decided that if we put a rope through its gills and mouth we can at least take the gaff out. He does this and then hands the fish to me; its heavy, so I tie it to the back arch. There's blood everywhere; Dale's covered in it but he's grinning from ear to ear. "Whaddaya think?" My great, white, hunter! I tell him I think we need to clean up the blood before it coagulates into the gelcoat. He grabs a bucket and brush and starts cleaning while I bring in the jib and turn us back around to enter into Conch Cut and the entrance into Georgetown. Fifteen minutes later and Dale has sliced 10 fillets from the mahi and surrendered the carcass to the deep; five hours later we had grilled mahi for dinner and yes, I ate it; every bite.

The end to this story is: yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks. Thank you Bob! Dale says to tell you that he caught it on a blue Triple D; just like you said he would.