Had big plans for playing out in the ocean today.  Had my Chloe Bug as well as John and Gracie along for the trip.  We packed lots of goodies, had loads of bait, and the rods were rigged and ready.  We launched in Stone Harbor and raced through the ICW to Townsends Inlet.  The ocean was quite nice. Little bumpy, but entirely manageable.  Boat was running like a top until we went under the TI bridge.  I tried to throttle her back up to scoot out into the ocean, but it was a no go.  When I tried to go top end, she sputtered and lost all power.  But she would cruise at slow speed, so we continued.  Probably not our best option, but we had come this far.

We made it through the inlet and headed for our first and only wreck of the day.  Found it and marked it, with some issues working the chart on my fish finder, but we got there.  Dropped a wreck marker on the spot and then tried to anchor up.  First two attempts were busts.  But I did manage a nice Kingfish for our efforts.  Bob H. and his family rolled up about that time and he tried, and tried, and tried…to get his wreck anchor stuck on the wreck.  We thought we finally got it right, but our anchor pulled.  Then we couldn’t get the boat started to move back onto the wreck.  Finally, after John pumped the fuel ball about a million times, we got her started.  And she ran great, but for the last time today.  Anyway, we managed to get right onto the wreck and the girls started to bail Tog after Tog.  Chloe was the high hook on the day with several nice Tog.  All of which were nicely unhooked and put back into their wreck homes as per Chloe’s instruction.  Grace and John did well too.  Both landed their first ever Tog’s today, and John managed the biggest of the day.  Girls were supposed to buy US ice cream for catching the biggest fish of the day, but of course we paid (well, John did).

Bob’s crew were doing their fair share of catching next to us.  Saw Alex pull up some nice Tog, and Marie managed 2 nice Triggers, which is what we were hoping for today.

Well, with no motor, we were stuck.  Bob and family were kind enough to hang out with us until Sea Tow came to the rescue (we’d have done the same for them if the roles were reversed – and Thank you to Bob for doing so!).  The big plans were to hit several wrecks, catch lots of Triggers, maybe some Kingfish, and possibly a few Brown Sharks for the girls to wrestle with.  But, my fuel line had other plans.  On the bright side, our day wasn’t nearly as bad as the poor folks whose boat caught fire while fueling at Avalon Point.  We saw the remains while being towed in through Green Head Hell.  It wasn’t pretty, but thankfully everyone was okay.  Sea Tow was great.  They hauled us back to the ramp without incident.  Best money I spend on the boat each year.  Great having the peace of mind that they are around if and when needed.  The funny thing is, I’ve only ever needed to be towed twice in my long boating career.  And both times for stupid things that went wrong on a fishing trip. And both times while John, AKA Jonah, was onboard.  Hmmm…

Anyway, despite the issues, we had a really fun day.  Boat will be worked on Tuesday and back into action shortly thereafter.

Tight Lines!