Sunday. The rest day after the Bermuda Big Game Classic. Dan Jacobs and his team pulled off another great one – thanks to all of you.

I am pretty sure that Bree won the tournament. We will know for sure tonight at the awards banquet.

MAKO had a tough tournament, releasing a Blue in three days of fishing. We missed two bites on the first day and one sneaky White Marlin attack on the third day. Things were quiet for us, but we could have done better. That is what suckers you into going out and doing it next year!

There is one more tournament in Bermuda next week…the Sea Horse Anglers Club. We are looking forward to that.

Finally, the wind has died down. The last day of the Classic was nice and it is really nice today. Let’s hope it holds.

Tuna fishing remains hot on the North side of both banks. I am not aware of anyone who tried tuna fishing on the North side of the Island, but that might pay off too. MAKO’s calendar for the rest of the summer is looking pretty good, so with the right weather we ought to be able to provide some pretty regular advice as to conditions.

Talk to you next Sunday.

- Capt. Allen DeSilva

MAKO finished the crossing late this afternoon. For a new boat, things worked really, really well. A few bugs to work out, but that is expected. We are ready to GO!

The weather for the trip was much better than expected. We left North Carolina in calm conditions with the ocean like glass. We made good time that first day, despite all the fuel weight aboard. We averaged in the low 20 knot range all the way until dark.

View MAKO’s First Crossing in a larger map

We had a quiet night making about 10 knots until dawn. The new Garmin electronics sure performed well. More on that later — Garmin is a new brand to me and relatively new to the sportfishing market but I think they have a really good set of products and I want to do a report on just that in the coming weeks.

Around 6:00 am we sped her up with about 220 miles to go to Blue Cut (the most direct cut in the reef system). Things continued to run well, with an average speed again in the low 20s to conserve fuel. We pulled into the customs dock on Ordinance Island around 4:00.  Not too shabby!

To the crew at Briggs Boat Works, thanks for building such a great boat. We cannot wait to put her through her paces in Bermuda.

Joe, Brian, Peter…thanks.  It was a great trip.

- Capt. Allen DeSilva

It is true!  Mako went overboard on May 15 thanks to all of the guys who really pitched in to get an awful lot of work done in a shiert period of time.  The crew at Sunny’s, James and the guys at Electronics Plus, Bobby and Wayne at Bluewater, Joe Moore and a lot of other people deserve a gigantic thank you.

Coming to the end of finishing a boat consists of trying to get a thousand details remembered and completed.  That is what we will be up to over the next week or two until we bring her over to Bermuda.  We are dying to go fishing!

Thanks to all the friends that have been calling to arrange their trips.  I can tell you that you will enjoy the new ride!

- Capt. Allen DeSilva

The first leg of the trip was an overnight run from West Palm Beach to Key West.  Here is De Mako sitting in the marina in Key West.  It is worth noting how the docks look as we stopped along our way.

 The next leg was to Isle Mujeres, near Cancun.  Who did we see coming around the corner, but the old Anne Warrick…built by Sunny Briggs just before he built De Mako.  It is a small ocean!    We saw some sights.  Isle Mujeres is really ready for large scale tourism, with a HERD of tourists coming down the dock to the charter boats – the picture nearby shows the start of the stampede.  Nice place overall.  Lots to do it seemed and generally a pretty spot. 

The next stop was Roatan.  This is a really small island that belongs to Equador.  Interesting how big the commercial fishing fleet is.

The first marina we tried in Roatan.  Everything was lovely except there was no water or electricity.

This ia the fueling process at Roatan.  Honestly.

Unfortunately, it is true.  Every single person we say in San Andres was having more fun than we were.  This pair’s giggling could be heard from our speeding golf cart!

To see all the pictures, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackandbluefishing/sets/72157617648948405/

You recall that our boat in Bermuda (MAKO) is being built as we speak by Sunny Briggs and the team at Briggs Boat Works.  Well, she is about to splash in the next few days.  Now, I know we are biased, but check her out!

MAKO

Captain Allen is going to Carolina to oversee the frantic details from here until the end.  We are confident that MAKO will be ready to go by June 1.  More pics after his upcoming visit.