Ocean to table in a day

 Grant has always loved fishing and since we moved here has been ready to take on the big blue ocean. One of his co-residents, Willie, has in-laws who live in the area and have a boat. His father in law was kind enough to take both of them out on Saturday morning (and his other co-residents were kind enough to cover for him in the morning since he was on call-luckily didn't get called in though). They met at the harbor in Point Loma at 4am and then headed out into the middle of the ocean, driving so far out that there was no sign of land anywhere. He captured this awesome picture of some dolphins jumping around them. He said there were tons of dolphins swimming along side them for quite some time, some of them even closer than these!

They were planning to head into Mexican waters (meaning we stayed up too late figuring out how to buy a Mexican fishing license). I'm not sure they made it-and quite frankly I'm not sure how you know you have reached "Mexican waters." Is there a buoy somewhere with a Mexican flag on it? Anyways, after driving out for a little over an hour, they decided upon a spot and put their lines out. They used live sardines that they hook and then swim out to bait the bigger fish. Within 5 minutes Grant hooked this beauty! (it's a Mahi-Mahi-my favorite fish!)

A bit later, Willie caught a female Mahi Mahi (notice the head shape is different). I read that they are sexually dimorphic (not knowing what that meant), but now it makes sense!

Their other big catches were these yellow fin...they caught 5 large ones I think. His fishing partners are  nice enough to filet and vacuum pack them for us!

Another cool catch was this little blue shark (when I say little, that is relative to the sharks you see during Shark Week :) He was still 4-5 feet long. He looks so happy and cute. Apparently you have to have some other means to kill a shark (like a gun) before pulling them up on board so they just let him go.

And this picture illustrates why I'm not really the fishing type :) Sorry for the grossness, but I just love how happy Grant looks. He was so excited he could barely sleep the night before, and then was just radiating all day after he got home.

They planned on being gone a lot longer, but unfortunately a lot of their bait died, so they had to come in early. This is the kind of feeding frenzy you get when you throw dead sardines to the pelicans.

 I'd say they were still pretty successful though! I obviously hadn't heard from Grant all morning because he was out in the middle of the ocean, but this is the picture he sent me on the way home. I was shocked to see the size of this tail in the back of the car! I was also relieved because we had a big dinner (13 people) planned with all of our neighbors and we were in charge of the fish. I knew this would be plenty to feed us all :) 

Grant showing off what he brought home for dinner to everyone :)

And then he began the part of the process he was less familiar with. He got some pointers from Gary and Willie and with the help of Google and his sportsman knife, our kitchen was turned into a fish butcher shop. It took a little while, but he did an incredible job fileting the Dorado.

We got over 5 pounds of delicious filets...everyone wins. Grant had the time of his life and we had the makings of a delicious dinner.

Three of our neighbor couples only live here for the summer and are leaving to head home to Arizona for the more tolerable months there. We have gotten to know them well over the summer (they have been coming here for 16+ years for the summers), so we decided to plan a fabulous end of summer dinner together. They took care of the filets (cooked to perfection) and some appetizers, veggies and sides...and like I mentioned earlier, we for obvious reasons, prepared the fish. And for some reason, I decided to prepare the fish in 3 different ways. Thanks to Grant the grill master, and Jenny (who was visiting for the weekend) for helping me!

The first 3 plates here are the Mahi-Mahi. Macadamia crusted (closest), grilled on cedar planks with pineapple-mango salsa (middle), and seared with soy sauce and wasabi (far). They were seriously all SO good! I'm excited that we will have fish in our freezer for days now!

I don't think I've ever eaten something that was caught the same day, and if I have, I definitely wasn't so intimately involved in the process. I love that Grant caught it and cleaned it and then we cooked it and shared it.

Our life here somethings feels like a dream...one of the women at dinner said that we were eating dinner in true "Pottery Barn style." Doesn't this look straight out of a catalog with the umbrella and lanterns? Gorgeous!

I am getting sad that summer is coming to a close, but am truly grateful that we have the opportunity to live here this year. Some nights we just look at each other and can't believe how blessed we are to be living here.