After the Titanic-themed morning on Thursday, our original Captain Jeremy felt bad about putting us on a sinking ship and took us out for an evening of bait-fishing. Each evening before a charter, the captain of the boat speeds out in the dark to fish for scad mackerel or ‘opelu as the Hawaiians call it. This 6-10 inch fish serves as the perfect bait for mahi, ono, ahi, and just about any other big fish cruising around the fishing buoys. Fishing for the ‘opelu was interesting and once you got the technique down it was pretty easy. We put out into the main channel and jigged for the mackerel with miniature glowing hooks. Since ‘opelu have such soft mouths, setting the hook has to be done gently and playing the fish to the boat is important so that you do not rip a hook right out of their jaws. Between six of us, the live tank was filled with 30 fish in under an hour with a good time had by all.

On Saturday morning, we stood red-eyed and ready on the deck of the floating Kai Akua and rumbled out of the harbor for a two hour ride to our fishing spot. The sky was getting light as we pulled up to our intended destination and lines were immediately put into the water. The first reel started to sing and I had a fish on. Adrenaline coursed through my whole body as a worked the fish closer to the boat until finally the ahi was gaffed and pulled into the boat.

The boat saw two other bites and two other “small ‘kine” yellowfin pulled in but nothing else. We cruised through one section of water that appeared promising that was teaming with dolphins, a good sign of other fish, but had no other bites for the day. We headed back in to the harbor where we took some pictures and then filleted our catch of the day and realized we were the only boat to catch anything that day. For the next day until we left I enjoyed fresh delicious ahi which was the perfect meal to end our stay on Maui. Overall we had a wonderful time and would highly recommend this trip to anyone who would be on that side of Maui for any length of time. Captain Jeremy Webb of the Kai Akua is a standup gentleman who runs a great ship.

After tying the knot with my beautiful wife, we scuttled off to Maui for our honeymoon with couples massages, our high end hotel room equipped with BirchBoxes for my newly wed wife to use each morning, and walks on the beach in our thoughts. Before choosing Maui as our honeymoon destination we were using this Travel Destinations website which helped us consider other destination options. Since this is more an fishing/hunting chronicle, I will skip to the romantic part where my gorgeous bride proves herself to be a class-A girl. As we roamed the streets and shops of Lahaina town on West Maui we found ourself walking by the marina where many different canopies are set up displaying boating packages to do anything from scuba and snorkeling to sunset dinner and even… fishing.  I tell the truth when I say that this was her idea, and as we walked amongst the different fishing vessels and talked to a few different captains, we settled on the Kai Akua, captained by Jeremy Webb. Jeremy did not have anything on the day we wished but pointed us to one of his associates who would be able to take us out on our desired schedule. All was set and we went to bed early to meet our captain at 2:45 am to catch the morning bite on the backside of Lanai.

2:45 came early but found us loading food and beverages on the boat ready for a big day ahead. Our new captain explained the game plan for the day and had just finished explaining where the life jackets were when he fired up the engines and slowly moved the boat out of the slip and towards the exit of the harbor. Never having been on a boat this big, I really did not know what to think, but I did notice that we seemed to be tipping or listing. Our deckhand opened up hatches to the engine to find excessive amounts of water gushing into our hull. We were about a hundred yards from the slip and made a dash to get back before the boat literally sunk. Everyone on board had to stand in the exact center of the boat so that it would remain afloat and once we were close enough to the dock, the girls were put on dry land and everyone else started bailing. Long story short, we bailed for over an hour waiting for someone with a pump to show up. When no one did, we abandoned ship and sat and watched the seawater pour over the sides and push the boat to the bottom of the harbor. Sandwiches and drinks floated in the oil stained marina as our bait fish swam around the deck of the boat. No one was going fishing today.

Now you may be thinking to yourself that if one was lucky enough to sink in the harbor and not in the open ocean, they should call it even and not tempt the ocean again. Not us. We took the approach of “get back on the horse that bucked you.” We had planned on going fishing, and we were going to go fishing.

P.S. We were truly lucky to be in the harbor when the ship started taking on water. I cannot imagine being in open water at 3 or 4 in the morning bobbing around in the pitch black with live and dead bait floating next to me. Later evidence showed that the exhaust had somehow blown a hole and was sucking in water faster than we were actually bailing. The ship was pumped and brought to the surface by the end of the day but the company and captain have some decisions to make about whether to repair the boat or scrap it. Scary situation, but a real gem of a memory.