Hemingway and Cabo Blanco Peru

picture. Ernest Hemingway fishing off the Northern Peruvian Coast

In 1952 Ernest Hemmingway made a little fishing village in northern Peru famous worldwide after his Peruvian friend caught an enormously large fish. The village is called Cabo Blanco and the fish was a Marlin that weighed more than a thousand pounds. It still holds the world`s record for the largest Marlin ever caught. Many have come close but no one has pulled a larger Marlin out of the sea...YET. After the news hit the world`s newspapers, Hemingway´s little fishing club in Cabo Blanco recieved many visiters, including dozens of Hollywood actors and writers such as Mario Vargas Llosa. I never visited the club, which, by the way today is just the remnants of an old hotel overlooking the beach. However, I was after the fish. I wanted to beat the record. How dumb was I! My friends and I had a vision and a goal to bring home the bacon and have a fish BBQ after returning from the open seas off the coast of Cabo Blanco. We would be fishing in the same waters as Hemingway once did. As we walked out on the dock we saw the fishermen load up their daily catch onto ice trays. When we passed by dozens of Barracuda and giant squid on the dock, our hopes of catching fish seemed like a for sure deal. I could see myself cutting off fresh filets of tuna, sword fish and marlin to make sashimi. The nightmare started when we set sail for the open waters of the pacific. I quickly learned that the Pacific is not Pacific in nature but terribly rough. Within the first hour I was throwing up. Then my buddy threw up. My other friend fell a sleep due to a severe hangover from drinking the night before and the cowboy of the group sat in the fishing chair diligently watching the fishing lines for any activity while drinking beer after beer. For 6 miserable hours my friend and I threw up while the other two slept and kept guard. The only creature that was caught that day didn´t come from the dark waters below but from the blue skys above. A poor sea gull, (I think it was a Albatros, despite what my friends think) swooped down and ate one of the lures that was trolling behind the boat. The captain took in the line and unhooked the lure from its beak in a way that seemed like he had done it a hundred times. The bird flew away knowing he´d better think twice before dining on a brightly colored plastic mini squid lure that skips on top of the water directly behind a large yacht. To put the icing on the cake, the captain and his first mate ate the majority of the sandwiches leaving us hungry. We were sunburned, tired, sick, hungry, and extremely bored and we paid for it with our time and money. I learned that fishing is not always a guarantee but for anyone is as avid about deep sea fishing as I am should stick to fishing in Mexico and Florida where I believe are more fish and much better service. picture. our view was beautiful in the chilly morning.

picture. First mate taking the hook out of our catch.