Wahoooooo!

I've sorta been in the market for a new kayak for a year now.  My current kayak is a sit-on-top with cracks in the bottom that leak (which I could fix pretty easily with some silicone if I was so inclined).  It weighs a lot and doesn't do so well in wind, but it's perfect for beachcombing (dragging up over the rocks to get ashore), catching fish (it's really hard to tip), and swimming from.

The kayak shop just got some new sit-on and sit-in kayaks and tempted me to try one.  Intrigued by their speed, I opted for the sit-in.

I wasn't let down.  I was flying (relatively) through the wind yesterday, so I woke up earlier and took it back out today for a longer test to a faraway island.  I reached the island in record time and just as I was passing some anchored fishing boats and thinking how good this kayak might be for trolling, the drag on my reel started clicking off.

Handling a sit-in kayak in waves is tenuous, but then add to that something below pulling hard at your kayak and it becomes positively nerve-wracking (especially when you haven't yet learned how to get back in a sit-in kayak after flipping it).

The fight lasted about five minutes and there were some scary moments, but eventually I coaxed him up next to the kayak and got his head out of the water.  The return trip - straight into a strong headwind - took half the time it takes me on my sit-on.  So I'm thinking seriously about purchasing the sit-in kayak.  But this might mean the end of my Giant Trevally fishing from kayak, unless we can figure out an outrigger system to give more support to the 'yak.  Otherwise it'll just be too dangerous.

[I'm continually surprised by how small my kayak fish look in their ensuing pictures.  He was probably 6-7 pounds]

[I finally got to break in the sashimi plate I bought in Naha's pottery district a few months back]

It has been a dream of mine to catch a wahoo on my own (not while marlin fishing) since my early days in Palau eight years ago.  Today was the first one, so I fulfilled my dream pun by shouting "Wahooooooooo!"