Our trip to the Rancho

I just realized that I forgot to post a report on our trip. We got there on Saturday and got settled in. The weather guessers were not sure which way the hurricane was going to go so I decided we should go out on the panga on Sunday. Good decision. I had asked for Jorge as our driver. Another good decision. He took us out to some small bouys he has set up. Peggy caught a 15 lbs. Dorado and then I caught its twin. Then she caught a 10 pounder. It got slow so he took us to a new bouy. As soon as he tossed out some Sardinias, we saw a big fin slice the water. We threw our lines in. Jorge even threw one in. Within a couple minutes, I was "FISH ON!"...."BIG FISH ON".
It took me 35 minutes to get him to the side of the boat. About a 75lbs. bull Dorado. Great fight. Lots of air time.

After that, we told him it was time for some tuna. He took us out several more miles to where about a dozen boats were doing drifts. It was nuts. As soon as our bait would hit the water, the Yellowfin would be fighting over it. Within no time, we had 8 tuna in the box. At 10:45 AM, we decided we had enough fish and headed in. We had only brought down one cooler and we still wanted to do some kayak fishing.

The next day, we headed out in kayaks. We filled our tubes with lots of big strong Sardinias and headed out for blue water. We spent most of the morning fishing. We each lost two Dorado. I lost one that was about 30 lbs. but I wasn't going to keep it anyway. As I was fighting it, I told Peggy that I just wanted to get it to the boat and take a picture of it and then release it. And everything went right until I grabbed the line with my hand. He saw the hand and started fighting and again and snapped the line. Around noon, the weather started getting bad so we headed in. That was the last fishing we did.

In the middle of the night, the wind and rain started. In those cabanas with the frond leaf roof there is no mistaking when the rain and wind starts. As luck would have it, the hurricane came ashore right on top of us. The dining room lost a lot of windows. The whole building was flooded. None of the staff could make it in to work. So, they just told us to help ourselves to whatever we wanted to eat. Some people actually got together and made meals. We just grabbed a bunch of fruit and sandwich stuff and took it to our room.

By Wednesday, the storm had passed but the aftermath was there to deal with. One of the vans made it in to pick us up and to try to make it to the airport. It was an adventure but we made it.

Not really what you would call a kayaking trip but it was fun and different.

Wow! Great report and pics.

Thanks for sharing!

Nice report & pics. Congrats on a nice adventure!

That durado in the first pic is a monster. Glad to hear that you got out ok and that you got some fishing in before the storm hit. Great report. I can't wait to get back to Mexico.

FF

Nice report & pics. Congrats on a nice adventure!

An adventure is a disaster that fails to kill you...a disaster is an adventure that does!

An adventure is a disaster that fails to kill you...a disaster is an adventure that does!

I like that.

Great report - looks like good times.   

Thanks For the report ,

 Sounds like great fishing, it was no where near that good when I was down in June...

 Love the Picks , spent some time @ that cleaning table myself....

 My family and I where wondering how well those roofs held up in the rain, Hurricane....,

  Did you guys stay dry? ........ Danglin

Kinda cool experiencing a hurricane I bet. Especially when it's not your stuff getting thrashed...   as long as everything holds. Years ago a friend on mine experienced one hitting the islands and she said the waves were crashing right through the hotels and flushing in and out of the streets!! That's one for the memory books I bet.

Luckily, the Rancho is up on a hill above the ocean. So, the waves couldn't get up that far. If they could, it would have been a lot worse.

We stayed nice and dry. The staff kept trying to get everyone to pile into the two rooms next to the front office. They figured that was the safest spot because of having the second floor above the rooms. We always stay in the back row of rooms. They were just fine. Everything between us and the ocean blocked the wind. So, most of us in those rooms just stayed put. We spent a lot of the day, just sitting in our lounge chairs watching the rain come down. Those palm frond roofs actually stand up pretty good.