Only in Mexico!
Capt. Mark Rayor
December 17, 2013
Buena Vista - Saltwater Fishing Report
Only in Mexico
It has been more than 5 weeks since I wet a line. Now I'm watching the north wind blow and getting a little cranky. It has also been that long since I've been able to compose a report and here is a little story of a wild ride.
We were contracted to take Jen Wren III to Mag Bay for 3 weeks departing a few days after WON's tuna tournament. Our agreement was with an England based production company putting together a film for the BBC.
I put together enough food and supplies for us to stay on the boat the entire time. We also provisioned a scuba air compressor to fill tanks. Jen Wren III is equipped with a water maker so basically all we needed for continuous operation was to take on fuel.
Our mission was to find underwater bait balls under attack by predators like marlin, dorado and tuna. Aboard was an accomplished award winning underwater photographer who filmed parts of the Blue Planet and Planet Earth. The camera equipment was the latest state of the art gear. It was explained to me that Blue Planet was filmed more than 12 years ago and with the advancement in cameras they intended on raising the bar. Also past productions had eye catching photography but not really a story. The goal now was to tell a story from a predators point of view. Most think about the poor bait and how difficult it must be to be prey. This was intended to take a little different wrinkle demonstrating that it is not easy to be a predator having to find and capture food everyday to survive.
We departed Cabo San Lucas marina in the morning after loading 11 Pelican cases of camera equipment and a couple of personal duffel bags for our photographer and his camera man. After a quick dive outside the arch to check out the cameras we were off.
I intended to run up near Todo Santos to get out of the Cabo boat traffic before slowing down to look for some action on our journey up to Mag. We would be able to look around for a few hours and still make our destination before sundown. As we were nearing Todo Santos our port motor lost power. After about 15 minutes of checking things out Chuy and I decided we had blown the turbo in that motor. Oh boy, now what? Our crew indicated they wanted to continue on. Now our top speed was 9 knots and I calculated we wouldn't make the anchorage at Mag until 2:30 or 3 in the morning.
Now we need to figure out how to get this baby repaired. It dawned on me I better get with it because once past Todo Santos we wouldn't have cell service again until we arrived at Mag. My first call was to Francisco Vindiola in La Paz. His shop rebuilt the motors in Jen Wren and he has a huge supply of Cummins parts and also rebuilds turbos. There was no answer and I was starting to get a little frantic. Next call was to my wife Jennifer. I explained the situation and that she needed to find a turbo somewhere, someplace.
In the morning I was able to download e-mail and received the news that Vindiola didn't have a turbo. He indicated he did have the parts to rebuild ours but that would mean getting it to his shop in La Paz. That would never work but my wife was busy on the phone. A complete turbo was located in Irvine California and my brother was scheduled to arrive in Los Cabos in 2 days. I was barely able to get a phone signal, but called and broke the news that he needed to pack a 50 some pound turbo on the plane. He was not excited about the idea but agreed. The day after his arrival Frank Fink was to drive to San Carlos from Los Barriles to meet his boat El Regalo. It was all falling into place as Frank agreed to bring the turbo.
After the early morning calls we gimped out of Mag at a steaming 9 knots in search of action. Luck was on our side and 2 miles outside the Entrada frigate birds were in a frenzy and we could see a huge school of bait getting hammered by predators. It was nothing short of a spectacular sight. The bait hung together and we were able to work it over getting some unbelievable video footage for more than an hour.
Outside the Entrada we weren't able to get any signal so had no phone or mail communication all day. Upon return I had mail stating Vindiola had put a turbo cartridge on the public bus to San Carlos and we needed to pick it up. I called and was little upset. Only in Mexico! I couldn't believe he put parts valued in excess of thousand dollars on a public bus plus we wren't equipped or prepared to rebuild a turbo charger on the deck of Jen Wren III. Here is where I learned more about turbos then I ever wanted to know. Francisco explained that with just taking out 4 bolts the turbo would break in two and we could change the cartridge. It all sounded too easy.
The Port Captain at Puerto Magdalena agreed to have someone meet the 1PM bus at San Carlos when it arrived. We planned to be out filming. Upon our return we were informed our parts had not arrived. It was really no surprise to me I never expected they would. What was a surprise was when a panga came up next to us around 9PM while we were barbecuing some fresh lobster for dinner. The pangero smiled and handed me our turbo parts. Apparently they arrived on the 7 PM bus and jungle drums in the small town alerted the people that needed to know.
In the morning it went just like Francisco said it would and in less than an hour we were up to speed.
Yes, now we have a spare turbo charger. Part of our agreement with the film company was that we wouldn't take photos. With that I didn't get much but have posted a few. More on our adventure later.
Our integrated Simrad electronics worked flawlessly and made traveling at night easy.
First day out of the gate at Mag we found what we were looking for.
We found a small spot of bait and our photographer got in position just in time to watch a bryde's whale scoop the whole ball up in one bite
How did Frank on El Regalo manage to slip us a banana out at the Thetis bank?
No place like home! Great to be back at the East Cape.
Mark Rayor
teamjenwren.com
markrayor.blogspot.com
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