Well it's been a busy week at Captain Mike's... with a few surprises!
First off: a SWORDFISH! It's the first time anyone in St. Lucia can remember catching a swordfish in the middle of the day, normally they are only seen at night but on Tuesday 'Bumpers', one of our 31'Bertrams hooked up on a small swordfish....it must have been hungry! Of course the fish was released, but at lease we can say we have another first at Captain Mike's, a daytime swordfish.
As for the rest of the week, the weather has been simply gorgeous, no rain, and the same lovely stiff breeze that made last week's Independence Day yacht race a success. The water has been on the choppy side, which has made it a little tricky for Captain Lio of 'Free Willy' and his crew Jessie and Matthew to spot the whales and dolphins from a distance but they have done a fantastic job and come up the with goods all week.
I decided to hop on board yesterday afternoon to see if I could get any good pictures, unfortunately my camera decided to play up just as a lovely pair of sperm whales showed up, but I did manage to get this shot ( above) before it packed up completely.
It was a pair of young adult sperm whales, a male and a female, both around 30' long, who showed up about three miles offshore, just chilling on the surface. They were a little shy at first, slipping down under the surface every time we got a little closer, but eventually curiosity got the better of them and they popped up to take a good look at us. They hung around for about half an hour, pretty close to the boat, then all of a sudden their tails came up and they went below on a deep dive.
That was it for the whales, but we carried on heading south and just before we had to turn back met up with a large pod of spotted dolphins, close to a hundred I reckon. They gave us a great show, bow-racing, surfing in the wake of the boat and jumping high to get a good look at us, before we had to head into port.
Well enough of the whale watching... what about the fishing? I have to say it has been a little on the quiet side this week. We have had a fair number of marlin strikes but not as many as some weeks. The Wahoo have been biting well though and on Monday we had a nice sized yellowfin tuna, over 100lbs. Below are a couple of photos of our happy customers with their Wahoo catches this week. Happy hunting, and remember, keep it reel!
Neil Caraway from New Jersey sent me these photos from his fishing trip with us aboard Hack Attack last week. This was Neil's first Sailfish and it was a good sized one too! This one was released, and the boat also caught two 'Dolfin' and lost a BLue Marlin that day.
This is a pic of 'Hack Attack' our 38' Bertram, heading out for an early bimini start... the water is always so beautiful early in the morning. 
