The captain
Captain Alí Alonso
Fifteen years following the big pelagics, and (more to the point) fifteen years learning from people who were already very good at it.
Cape Verde: the blue marlin school
In 2016 he was crewing in Cape Verde with one of the Atlantic reference captains for blue marlin. More blue marlin are caught off Cape Verde than anywhere else in the world, so a season there teaches you what would take several somewhere else. That is where the dead bait switch came from, and a way of working the fish you do not pick up on just any boat.
Morocco: white marlin
For two seasons he fished one of the best white marlin grounds in the Atlantic, alongside championship captains. From that period he brings knowledge of the best areas and techniques for the species.
The Canaries: bluefin tuna at the highest level
In the Canaries he trained with one of the charters with the strongest record of bluefin tuna captures in the islands.
How he reads the ocean before a trip
Alí’s day does not start when we set the lines. It starts days earlier, ashore, crossing what the satellite shows with the current models and the fleet reports to work out where it is worth starting.
This is one of the real briefings he puts together before a trip: water temperature, currents, the productive line and the zones he would work that day, in order of priority.
Nobody can guarantee you a fish. What changes an eight hour day is starting it in the right place, and that is what this is for.
What actually makes the difference
Trophies are quick to count. What takes years is learning to read the bottom and the current, knowing where each species moves depending on the time of year, and getting something useful out of a group of shearwaters working or a pod of dolphins half a mile off. You do not study that. You pick it up aboard, and Alí picked it up in three different places.
With that, and with the analysis we run before every trip, we start the day where the odds are best for whatever is in season.
We are a young boat and we do not hide it. What we bring is the school we came up in and a way of working that shows on the water. That is what we intend to build one of the best charters in the islands on.
We don't wait for the fish. We follow them.
Tell us when you are coming
Send us your dates and the species you are after. We will tell you honestly what the ocean is likely to be doing.