A Sailor Turns 50!

The initial plan was to do the Bahamas trip in 2014 around the time I turned 50. However, I was unable to keep pace with the projects I felt were needed on Ama Mama before the trip, and didn't feel that Ama Mama would be ready in 2014. Additionally, I was hoping to buddy boat with some folks from the Rockport Yacht Club, but they had to delay their plans for 2014 as well for various reasons. So, I decided to push the trip to June of 2015 when I'll still be 50.

With that decision made, my family asked me what I wanted to do instead for my 50th. I chose to rent a condo in Port Aransas with a dock where we could easily get out to the ocean to do some sailing and fishing. We rented a 3rd (top) floor unit at Bay Tree Condiniums in Port Aransas which had great views to the East over the channel especially at sunrise!

I again called on my friend Bill Coxwell to store my trailer at his C Cushions business after I put the boat in at the Rockport Beach park. That first night was July 4th, and we stayed in Rockport to watch the fireworks display.

The next morning, Carmina and Alex drove down to Port Aransas while I had a nice sail down the Lydia Ann Channel to Port Aransas. When I arrived at the condo, I had to fold the amas to fit into the boat slips that were double wide but had a post in the middle of the slip. This proved to be a minor pain every time we went in and out for the rest of the week!

As I was getting Ama Mama settled into her berth, Alex, of course, wanted to go fishing. So, I hooked him up with some gear and he had fun catching little perch and croakers.

Little did he know what was to come later in the week. That first afternoon down at the dock, a family had come in with some rather large King Mackerels. So, we chatted them up about how to catch them (ribbon fish on a 3 hook steel leader), and we decided to give it a go the next day. However, we didn't really have the right poles and line, and in our first two attempts, we snapped the lines. Guess what my birthday present was? Two new rod and Penn reel combos from Port A Outfitters for catching the big ones like I use to do on my way down to Mexico.

When we got back on on the water with the new poles and reels, we produced tangible results that afternoon. Alex was blown away! See extended video footage on YouTube of our second catch.

Carmina and Alex had a grand time cleaning the fish, and we had a BBQ King Mackerel feast that evening! We ended up catching 4 King Mackerels in total and had a couple more given to us by some fishermen that had too many for their liking. What we learned along the way is that King Mackerel while generally out in the deep waters of the Gulf most of the year, come into the coastal bays in the summer to spawn. Hence, they are plentiful and relatively easy to catch in the channel and along the jetties.

On Thursday, we pulled the boat out of the water at Port Aransas, and packed up a lot of our gear. On Friday since Ama Mama was out of the water, we decided to go on a fishing charter out into the Gulf of Mexico for guaranteed limit on Red Snapper. The charter company, Dolphin Docks, was not kidding when they said "guaranteed" because we easily limited at 2 fish per person, and then we caught a couple of sharks!

We had so much fun as a family being outdoors, catching fish, and living life hard! What a great week to celebrate my 50th with my family!