The captain and mate did all they could to get us on fish, just wasn’t our day . One Jack Crevall

We landed a nice mahi and a dozen bonitas. Great crew, great day!

This trip seemed doomed from the beginning. Initially, we were booked for January 21st. Enrique Arreola, the Yamaica III captain, contacted me saying he was unavailable to take us out on the 21st (When we had booked). He wouldn’t say why he was changing it when I asked. He also made me accept the new date time to be from 2am to 8am, instead of starting at 8am. He said to trust him, he’d meet us at 8am. It became apparent this was because he wanted to use this boat for another trip and couldn’t double book the boat.
We changed our plans for January 22nd and met Captain Arreola at the dock. When we arrived at the boat, Yamaica III, Captain Arreola passed us off to another boat, Yamaica IV, and a different captain.
As we left the port, we noticed other boats were passing us over & over. The Yamaica IV deckhand began going back & forth between the engine compartment, the hull, and the Captain’s deck. When he was in the engine compartment, he would be yelling back & forth with the captain, or on his phone with a third party.
It was apparent the boat was having engine trouble. Where as we were supposed to be going out for larger fish like Dorado, we never got to leave the bay.
The captain & deckhand, though not unkind, were unengaged. Regardless of language barriers some of us had, we still had Spanish speaking individuals, Google Translate, and would expect smiles, laughing, and positive engagement. We got none of that. They seemed impartial to us being in the boat.
We also should have gotten direction as to what to do and where to be. Again, we got none. Fortunately, we are all fishermen and capable, but that should have been amongst the first conversation in the boat. A novice fisherman would have been lost.
The deckhand tied the lures, baited a couple of lines, and threw them out to start fishing. There were two different times we had Jack Crevalle hooked and almost to the boat, then the knots failed and we lost the fish. This happened TWICE. Their inability to tie a simple, proper knot cost us two large fish. The deckhand and the captain acknowledged this when it happened, but they cost us two fish. Again, we’re all sport fishermen and know tying knots is simple & basic, especially for a charter fisherman. When we lost hooks & squid, they didn’t replace them, either. They left us with fewer books instead.
So in the end, we had a different captain, on a different day, at a time not reserved, on a slow & broken boat, poorly put together equipment, and were not fishing for the species of fish we’d asked to fish for.
We did catch a few fish,the deckhand made amazing Civiche with two of the tuna we caught, and we did have fun, but we had fun because WE set the tone, not the crew.