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Humpback Whales

We have been pleasantly surprised to see humpback whales from the balcony of our hotel room on the past two mornings. This morning I was able to capture a few decent shots of them with my telephoto lens. I guess the combination of good weather and lots of whales has meant record number of humpback whale sightings in the last few days on Maui and Oahu.

Hello from Waikiki

Well, we made it to Hawaii on Saturday! But we ended up having to buy commercial airline tickets at the last minute. We had been trying to fly to Hawaii space available via the Air Mobility Command at Andersen AFB. We had been waiting for a flight all week since Tuesday. We were all set to take a flight out Saturday evening but then as I’m sure many of you have heard via CNN, a B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber crashed on the runway at Andersen AFB and the Air Force closed the runways for a minimum of 72 hours to investigate the crash. Cyndi’s parent’s were already on their way to Hawaii, so Cyndi called Continental Airlines to find out what the get-off Guam tax was. Somehow, Cyndi was able to get the 30 day fare from the agent the afternoon before we flew out--Go Cyndi!!

Well, we are having a great time! The weather here is awesome! The cool breeze in the evening is a welcomed change from the oppressive heat and humidity of Guam. Yesterday, we spent some time in the afternoon with my sister Holly. The boys had fun playing with Holly and Matt’s two dogs Bird and Wilson. Then we went to the Navy Exchange and Commissary at Pearl Harbor. The Exchange there is huge--two stories.

We took the boys to a skate park in Keolu Hills this afternoon, and then we had lunch in Kailua at Maui Tacos. We finished up the day with some body surfing along Waikiki. The boys are having tons of fun. We are going boogie boarding first thing in the morning tomorrow, and the boys are pretty stoked about the nice south swell that is rolling in along Waikiki.

We are staying at the Hilton Village in Waikiki. Cyndi’s Parent’s Don and Shirley own a Hilton Grand Vacations time share unit that we are staying at with them. Its pretty nice and it has free high speed internet, so I should be able to put a few blog entries up this week so check back frequently.

Cardboard Boat Race

Every February, the Naval Base Guam MWR has a cardboard boat race. Last year, Elias Wolfe, one of Andrew and Jonathan’s friends won the single man boat competition on a borrowed boat.

This year his dad Bill decided to make a boat for him to defend his title in. I helped out a little with the construction, but Bill deserves all the credit, he stayed up until 1:30 AM to finishing wrapping the boat in duct tape. There was not much competition for Elias in the one man race, so he also decided to enter the team race with Andrew and Jonathan crewing the boat. They were the only team of kids, but they did awesome. The boat was seaworthy and had no issues. They didn’t place in the team race, but they were very close! Elias won the single man competition with a successful lap around the buoy; the competition was too scared to even enter the water! As a very kind gesture, one of the winning teams from the Navy Dive Locker, gave the boys their $10 gift certificates to recognize their hard work.
After the boat races, the boys took the boat down to Gab Gab beach and played in it all afternoon until she became water logged. She was rapidly decommissioned and laid to rest in a near bye dumpster.

Fishing...fishing...and more fishing!

Sorry for the delay in the fishing report(s)! I ended up going fishing three times since my last post. I went Sunday 2-10, Tuesday 2-12, and Wednesday 2-13.

Sunday was pretty much a bust, we only caught one Mahi. We headed out at ~6:15 from the boat basin. We went North and put our lines in at the Tanguisan Power Plant. We caught our first Mahi just before Ritidian Point. The weather forecast had changed between Saturday afternoon and Sunday Morning. It went from 3-5 wind waves with a mixed N and E swell to 7-8 wind waves with the mixed swell. We rounded the Point and were greeted by some nasty seas. We tried trolling through them but the progress was slow and our lines were getting blown across each other. We turned around and head back around the point. We trolled back down to Double Reef without a single hit. The Mahi were jumping everywhere, they just weren’t biting. Since the fishing was slow along the coast, I thought that we would try to hit the ledge buoy. There were a couple other boats that had been having decent luck out at the buoys. We’ll to make a long story short, we cruised out to the ledge buoy with following seas, caught no fish, and then pounded our way back into the wind for an hour. We called it a day after that and made for the boat basin.

Monday was pretty spectacular. There was very little wind and the seas were less than 2 feet. If I wasn’t so tired and sore from the day before I would have went fishing Monday too.

The marine forecast looked like it was going to maintain this pattern of mild winds and seas for a couple of days so I called up some people and made plans to go on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tuesday morning I headed out of the Boat Basin with my friend Tim at about 8:20; we had to get the kids off to school and daycare first. We had lines in at about 8:45 and our first fish on within minutes. We had a double knock-down with wahoo just North of Double Reef. We boated one, and the other left with one of my only mac heads. The morning was glorious and the seas were beautiful. We trolled up towards Ritidian Point and we picked up a mahi by the Governor’s Place. There were mahi jumping everywhere! The frigate birds were circling and stealing the flying fish right out from under the mahi as they jumped behind them. There were also lots of mahi birds working the current rip around Ritidian Point. We worked the current rip for a while and picked up another mahi. We then saw some birds piling up on some fish. I thought it might be some Kawa Kawa, so we put out a couple of little jets on the flat lines. Next thing ya know we had a nice rainbow runner hit one of the jets. A minute or two later a bigger runner hits one of the mahi lures on one of the outriggers. We continued to work the birds and caught another mahi. We had to be back in by about 14:00 so we started to head back. We were about half way to Rota banks at that point. We trolled back in towards Ritidian and pulled out lines at the point and made a run for the Boat Basin. We saw more mahi jumping off Hospital Point on our way back in. Had the boat out of the water by 14:30 and picked up the boys on time. Total for the day, 1 wahoo, 4 mahi, and 2 rainbow runners. The biggest mahi was 25 lbs. Wahoo was 16 lbs.

Tuesday was one of the funnest days in a while. It was a short trip, but the action was pretty steady and the weather was awesome! After a slow start to the season, I think the mahi are finally starting to arrive in decent numbers.

On Wednesday, I took Cyndi’s Chief Scott Stanley out for a farewell fishing trip as he is leaving the Island in a couple of weeks. We headed out of the Boat Basin at 6:15 and the seas were still pretty good. There was a little more wind and a bigger north swell, so it wasn’t as smooth as the day before but it was still great weather for February. My plan was to head to Rota Banks and see if we could score some winter tuna. As we were running North, I couldn’t resist the temptation to put the lines it at double reef, so we made a detour. We trolled up to Ritidian without a single hit, so we pulled the lines and ran out to Rota Banks. The run was pretty good, a few decent bumps and airs here and there but not too bad. When we first got out to the bank, I was a little disappointed. There was not a bird in sight and it looked dead. We a trolled around a bit and I decided to try this ridge that comes up to about 230 feet of water for some wahoo. First pass over and wahoo on! Got the fish in the boat in no time and was feeling better about running out to the bank. We made a few more passes without any more takers. Just then we saw some birds starting to form up on some bait so we headed over there. We switched out the lures and put out some jets on the flat lines and a cedar plug. Within no time we had fish on, I was hoping for tuna, but it ended up being rainbow runners. We started catching them non-stop for about an hour. I figured we had spent the gas to get out there so we might as well catch them. They were hitting every lure we had out. The Cedar plug, Big Blue Cavitator, little jets, medium jets, etc... We got sharked twice with the rainbow runners and lost one lure. After about an hour, the bite slowed down and we were also getting a little tired of catching rainbow runners. So we decided to hit the wahoo spot again. I told Scott to get the lures switched out and by the time we made out first pass at the wahoo spot, he had only changed out the two flat lines. It didn’t seen to matter, we had a double knock-down with wahoo. After about 10 seconds, they both got off. We turned around and made another pass and boom, again, another double knock down. This time we got both in the boat. One of the hoos had hit the cedar plug, we had not yet swapped it out. So I decided to leave it out. We made a few more passes over the spot. About the 5th pass or so we had another wahoo hit the cedar plug, but he was immediately attacked by a shark. The shark missed, so I told Scott to reel fast. He started bringing the fish in, but the shark didn’t miss the second time, he swallowed the wahoo whole. He got hooked on the plug and went screaming off. After a minute or two he broke off, the hook on the cedar plug pulled through the leader. We had a few more misses on wahoo and It was getting late at that point and we had to be in by about 15:00, so we started to troll back towards Ritidian. We trolled all the way back to Hospital Point without a hit. At the last minute while we were debating pulling the lines, mahi on! We get the fish to the back of the boat and she spits the hook. Oh well, at that point we ran back into the Boat Basin and called it a day. Total fish for the day, 13 rainbow runners and 3 wahoo. I kept one of the wahoo and sold the rest of the fish to the co-op, which paid for the gas for the trip.

So to say the least, I had a great week fishing and took advantage of the great weather. By the time Scott and I got back in on Wednesday, the current weather had started moving in and it was windy and rainy.

The best lure of the week, the blue and white variant of the the Big Blue Cavitator. It caught two wahoo, 2 rainbow runners, and 2 mahi.

I also figured out that wahoo go crazy for the cedar plug. I am going to rig a couple for wahoo duty. This guy was brand new when I put him out! He got slammed!

Sorry for such a long post, but wanted to get all the fishing reports in! I can’t wait till you get back John.

I've been busy lately

The last part of January and now February have been busy here in Guam for me. Last week, the boys started soccer (Jon Jon) and baseball (Andrew). So we have practice every day M-Th at 5 PM for one or the other. Jon Jon’s first game is this Saturday at Noon. The Navy teams play in the youth sports leagues that are out in town, so the games should be pretty interesting.
I’ve also been working hard on the website for my photography business here in Guam. I’m trying to increase exposure and make it easier for clients to access information about what I offer. I recently went “live” with the site and you can check it out here:

www.rodriguesdigitalmedia.com

Its a work in progress and there are still several pages that I have not finished, but the most important stuff is there.

I recently scored all of the Basketball photos for the Youth Sports Program at Andersen AFB. So far I have done one team and have another 3 booked for this Saturday.

I’m in the process of breaking in to the Youth Sports Market here on the Navy Base. Spoke with the Youth Sports Director and they don’t have any type of formal agreement with any photographers. So, I’m going to distribute my literature at the practices in the upcoming weeks to try to drum up some business.

We are planning on going to Hawaii at the end of the month. It should be an adventure. We are going to try to fly Space-A and MAC it to Hawaii. This will be a first for us. Cyndi’s parents are flying out to Hawaii and we are meeting them there. Plus we will see my Sister Holly and her Husband Matt.

I’m planning on going fishing this Sunday. So look for a fishing report sometime late Sunday through Tuesday.

Does Japan think the rest of the world is stupid?

I’ve been following this story for a couple weeks now. Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that Japan’s, The Institute of Cetacean Research, is using Science as a disguise for their commercial whaling interests. I have visited their website and read a couple of their reports. Overall, I think the science is pretty weak. They are asking really simple questions like what are whales eating? Of xxx number killed, how many are male or female. They have a few models of how the whales may be interacting with other fisheries, but nothing about the sustainability of whaling. Overall, my opinion after a brief look at their reports is that this is bullshit science they are using as a smokescreen to put whale meat on the menu in Japan.

If its not whales, its Bluefin Tuna, or now Yellowfin Tuna that the Japanese are ripping from the seas to feed their insatiable appetite for these seafood products. They have no interest in conservation, they just want to keep pulling whales and fish from the sea at non-sustainable rates. I see it here in Guam with the truckloads of “Fresh Pacific Tuna” that get loaded on to planes to Japan every week from the long-line fleet that operates out of the commercial port here. There was a reason that the International Community banned commercial whaling--100 years of whaling nearly wiped out several species. Whales are still recovering and their report’s own data shows that their populations are no where near what they need to be to start harvesting them again. Whales are not like fish, they are large mammals that take many years to reach sexual maturity and then only birth one calf per year. It takes decades if not centuries for animals with these types of reproductive cycles to reach their historical population levels. It’s only been about 25 years since the IWC (International Whaling Commission) placed a moratorium on commercial whaling. Not long enough!!

I think the international community needs to take a hard stance against Japan and raise the bullshit flag and call their pathetic science experiment what it is, commercial whaling!

The Japanese need to realize that the World’s oceans do not contain a magical endless supply of seafood. Without significant conservation, all the seafood items they covet will be overfished or over-harvested to the point where the fisheries collapse, and then there will be no Bluefin or Yellowfin Sashimi for them to gorge on.

Just my 2 cents