My First Marlin by Rachel Larratt

As all deep sea fishing trips begin, we were up bright and early. It was almost 10 am as we reached the dock carrying loads of beer, margarita supplies and ample amounts of sandwich ingredients. The plan for the day was to head out from Marina Palmira in La Paz out to the area around Espirito Santo. We’d spend some of the day fishing and then a few hours snorkeling with the Sea Lions at the north end of the island.

Our boat for the day was the 38 foot Mediterranean “El Ganador” that we rented from Desea Adventures. It came crewed with our Capitan and our deck hand David. We settled in on the bow with our breakfast for the 45 minutes ride out to the open water.

Due to the fact that we’re not really fishermen and that we couldn’t be persuaded to arrive at the dock between 6-7am, we’d missed out on live bait. Our bait for the day would be brightly colored squid shaped lures. In total we had 5 rods out in the water. After trolling for about 15 minutes, I watched as a marlin leapt into the air. The zip of the line was unforgettable! My shipmates turned and saw just in time as the marlin landed back into the water. The line went silent. We all knew we lost it.

After 3 hours without a single bite, we moved on to go snorkeling with the sea lions. On our way to the colony we spotted a school of 8 or more porpoises. They were beautiful! I was hoping they’d swim along with the boat once we’d intersected them but they were on a different course. We arrived at the colony and within minutes, two giant sea lions approached the boat. We’d left the lures only 4 feet above the water and they’d come to inspect the possible “toy”. We quickly threw on some flippers and dove into the 85-90 degree water. It was almost like taking a bath. Within minutes we’d gone from the middle of the island to the west edge. The current was so strong that I had to swim to a nearby boat to retrieve a rope as one of my companions was a very poor swimmer and was being taken out to sea. Luckily she had a life jacket on and was able to stay afloat easily. I enjoyed the swim back to our boat, even though it was tough.

The water was incredibly clear and there were more varieties of fish than I have ever seen in this particular location. Tiny fish skimmed the surface in front of my mask and larger fish swam around the rocks at the bottom of the sea. We only spent about 30 minutes in the water due to the current because it was fairly exhausting. A few tour boats came and went and they also were not able to stay for long. Normally when we snorkel with the sea lions it is for an hour or longer. After watching the sea lions from the boat, we decided to try our hand at fishing again.