Oh yes! We've caught a lot of seafood in what will be our eight years of cruising on October 26. There is nothing like eating minutes-from-the-ocean fresh tuna or mahi-mahi. On one of our five trips down the Baja we hooked a 50 pound albacore tuna on our boat pole. It took and hour and a half to land it on the side deck. The girth was 26 inches. Boy, we had enough tuna to last for months however, we only have a two cubic foot refrigerator. Luckily, that day we arrived in Bahia Santa Maria and there were 4 power boats anchored there. These guys always have big freezers so we distributed most of the fish to these folks.
We usually eat our tuna sashami style and the flavor cannot be met by even the best sushi restaurant. We will also quickly sear a nice chunk in a super hot pan so it remains raw in the middle then, slice it and serve it on a bed of cabbage (which all cruisers have) and top it with onions and sesame seeds followed by a drizzle of sesame oil and soy sauce. Man, I'm getting hungry now!!
We usually eat our tuna sashami style and the flavor cannot be met by even the best sushi restaurant. We will also quickly sear a nice chunk in a super hot pan so it remains raw in the middle then, slice it and serve it on a bed of cabbage (which all cruisers have) and top it with onions and sesame seeds followed by a drizzle of sesame oil and soy sauce. Man, I'm getting hungry now!! We always catch Mahi-Mahi, (called Dorado in Mexico) on our crossings. We caught a four-footer along the inside of the Baja one time and it feed ten people some pretty hefty portions with plenty left over. When we catch fish I fillet them right away on the side deck then Jean washes the fillets in fresh water, dries them with paper towels and leaves them out on the counter to air dry. Then, she puts them in a ziploc bag with more paper towels and into the refrigerator they go. It's important to keep the fish dry because moisture will accelerate deterioration.
We've had Mahi many different ways, fried, bbq'ed, chowder, raw, steamed, you name it. One thing that adds a small measure of taste is we catch all of our fish on home-made lures. For Mahi I take a 3/4 inch diameter wood dowel about 5 inches long and drill a hole through the center. Then I taper the ends and paint it blue and yellow, the color of a Mahi. The I put a good size double hook on a strong leader and thread it through the hole in the center of the painted dowel. Costs about 75 cents and catches a fortune in Mahi. For tuna I take a couple of 2 inch squid skirts that you can buy at any Kmart, shove one inside the other and just run a line through them with a hook attached. We caught our 50 pound tuna on just such a lure. There is no need for one of those expensive squid skirt/lead head combinations or any need for anything larger than say, 4 inches.
By far, the best of the seafood are the lobsters along the Baja. You can usually buy them pretty cheap from the local trappers or trade something for them. We once traded 2 gallons of diesel fuel for 4 lobsters and one other time we gave a fisherman a couple dozen fishing hooks and he returned later with 6 lobsters! We've searched for lobster now and then but, they are hard to find and it's really hard to judge their size under water. My first lobster was like, 6 inches long! So, it's easier to just trade for them. We've also purchased large shrimp from fishermen for $12 a kilo and many cruisers tell stories about getting buckets full of shrimp for next to nothing. Yes, there is a lot of seafood in the Pacific and we've had a lot of it and looking forward to catching much more. I hope my brother Richard, whom I've fished with most of my life, is just a little bit jealous.
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