I just wanted to drop you a quick line and say many, many thanks for organizing a charter for me when I arrived on my cruise ship Oosterdaam. The shore crew arranged a shared charter by putting a sign in the window, and it worked out very well.
I was thrilled to get La Brisa, as we fished with them during the IGFA in 2006. Rey is a great captain, and with Salvador, they are an amazing team. We left the wharf around 8:30am and headed to Golden Gate after buying some bait. When we arrived, the sea was boiling with action, and boats charging about to the many marlin coming up on the surface. Our crew got into the middle of a huge ball of mackerel and sardines, and proceeded to load up with more bait, which turned out to be a good thing. We began fishing around 10:00am and over the course of the next 4 hours, we pitched continuously to marlin, and had 21 strikes, 16 hook-ups and battles, and successfully got 11 marlin to the boat, all of which we released.
I have never seen the sea so active with marlin, whales, seals, birds, and every other specie of marine life as that day.
When we finally had lines in around 2:00pm and headed back to the cruise ship, we were tired and thrilled with the day's fish. Salvador made a special abalone dish, with cold beers to wash it down, and then we just roared along, - and were treated to a magnificent whale jumping show en route back to port.
It was probably one of the best fishing days I've ever had.
I've circulated some of my pics amongst my friends both here in Canada, in the Caribbean, and down in the U.S., and we're now planning a trip back in November.
I'll send you some of the marlin pics I took during the trip, and feel free to share them with Rey and Salvador.
All the very best, and tight lines,
Bob Sallis
Kelowna, BC
Canada
