Compass Cay

May 13 – 15 (Friday – Sunday) – Compass Cay

Compass Cay is an island that is privately owned by Tucker Rollo.  The marina is currently managed by his son, Jamal but Tucker can be seen helping out at the marina office every day. 

Friday was a day of clean-up the boat and laundry after spending 4 days on a mooring in the marine park.  It was fun to catch up with our friends and get all of the latest happenings in their lives.  We discovered that Peter’s wife, Pam did not make the trip with him because she just had rotator cuff surgery thus Peter is going to return to Naples early next week instead of staying to until the end of May.  And Bart and Nat are planning to take their boat north this summer to Block Island for Bart’s daughter’s wedding.  Then they will travel to Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and a few other stops before heading back south. 

Bill joined Bart, Peter and Andrew for some afternoon fishing and they returned with a couple of dolphin (mahi).  Not bad for a short trip.  Just enough for the marina wide Pot Luck dinner that was planned for that evening.  Nat does a great job of rounding up all of the boats and getting everyone to bring something different so we have a wide variety of appetizers, vegetables, and desserts to go with the fish the guys caught.  The Pot Luck dinners are always a good time of food and stories.  

Saturday, Bill and I ventured down to Staniel Cay in our tender to get fuel (for the tender) and at the same time we had lunch at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club restaurant.   Now this is not a fancy place or the kind of restaurant that one would expect at a US Yacht Club.  This is the local hangout with a bar, restaurant, and quite the mixture of clientele from the locals to the mega yachts.  You just never know who you are going to see (celebrities) or hear.  On this day it was fairly quiet for lunch although we still saw very unusual stuff that is not fit for my blog.  After lunch we headed back to Compass Cay to be back in time for the afternoon high tide fishing again.  This time Bill caught a very nice Black Tuna.  Black tuna is excellent eating. 

On Sunday, after seeing Peter off to first Nassau to pick up his Captain and Mate and then on Tuesday he will travel from Nassau to Naples (302 NM), we fished all day.  First from our tender and then as the seas started to kick up a little and it was coming up on the high tide we went back into Compass and immediately Bart came over and wanted to go back out on his tender.  Bart’s tender is a 28’ Rampage that he tows over to the Bahamas with his 55’ Viking Sportfish, so that is not quite the same as fishing from a 12’ Rigid Boat.  Jamal, the son of the Compass Cay owner, also joined the group on this trip and they slaughtered the fish.  They got 1 Black Tuna and 11 very nice Dolphin.  The excitement was bountiful as in the first pass over the fish, 4 rods went off all at the same time and with the experience on board they were able to land all 4 fish.  The Bill and Jamal fought the same fish to the boat.  Now you ask how that could happen.  Well, the fish took one bait and before the line came tight, went over and took a second bait.  Thus they both fought the same fish to the boat and landed it.  Then Jamal lost a fish part way to the boat when a big shark came along and “stole” the fish from him.    Upon returning to the docks at about 7:30, Jamal began cleaning the fish and Greg from The Ring Leader (54 Nordic Tug) used the electric fry pan to cook up some fresh Mahi for everyone.  It was well after dark before Jamal finished cleaning the fish and everyone got a taste. 

Bill, Bart, Andy, Jamal

 

 

11 Large Dolphin and 1 Small Black Tuna



Other Compass Fun