By sea to Varadero
AJAYA'S CRUISE
Phil & Nikki Hoskins
Sun 1 May 2011 23:00
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Having toured some of eastern Cuba by car it was time to move
on towards Havana. A voyage of 330 miles (3 days) would see us in Varadero, the
largest tourist destination in Cuba and some 60 or so miles by road to Havana
which is served by an excellent bus service. But first the voyage which was free
of sailing dramas but contained many exciting moments in the fishing
department.
Before leaving Puerto da Vita we had to clear with the local
customs officers, harbourmaster and immigration. This is mandatory whenever
arriving and leaving visited Cuban ports and relatively pain-free. We
pulled up the boarding passerelle, cast off the dock lines, waved farewell to
our friends and we were off for our longest passage since leaving the
Bahamas last year when we sailed to Beaufort. We had steady
fresh breezes to blow us along the coast and we set the 3 fishing lines.
The cruising books state that Cuba is rich in fish life
although our friends had traversed the same waters a few weeks before and caught
absolutely nothing. We were a day out of 'Vita' when the electric reel screamed
out at an alarming rate. We were trailing our home made 'killer lure' which was
'chasing' 2 small pink plastic squid lures producing lots of splashing and
bubbles in the process, perfect for attracting tasty predators. Once we had
halted the outward progress of our line from the reel we began to slowly recover
some of the 120 lb breaking strain nylon until we could see what we had on
the hook. It was the largest Mahi/Dorado/Dolphin Fish we had ever hooked. A male
about 5 ft long was being pulled along by our boat speed and not too pleased
about things. Our electric reel lives on the port side aft. The fish was
swimming well to starboard and the line was sawing backwards and forwards across
the tubes of our new dinghy! The 'Admiral' immediately gave instructions to
cease such activities to avoid any damage but Phil managed to get the line off
the dinghy and unfortunately across his leg where a nylon heat burn quickly
appeared before control was reasserted and the large fish came closer to the
rear steps. This was a very powerful creature that was not ready to be hauled on
board or gaffed for that matter, a fact proven when Phil swung at the Mahi with
the gaff. The fish suddenly erupted from the water, thrashing mightily at which
point it spat out the hook and lure before swimming down into the depths to
continue its life below the surface. We looked at each other in amazement but
were not particularly annoyed by the loss as it had proved the better competitor
and deserved its second chance (or are we going soft!).
We lost four other huge fish on the voyage, all Mahi, and at
one time two fish hit two independant lures simulteneously causing mayhem for
the short time they were on the hook, however both fish jumped and sumersaulted
in spectacular fashion managing yet again to elude capture.So we arrived in
Varadero 'fish-less' but it had been good sport out
there!
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