Went offshore w/ Josko and his son Marco on Relentless out of Falmouth harbor yesterday. Lots of good things to say about the boat and captain, Dan Junker - I'd recommend him to anyone looking to go offshore next year. Knows his stuff; good boat, quality equipment.
Anyways; NE 10-15, seas 2-4, turned into NE 15-20 and seas first 3-5, then 5-8. We trolled thru the dump; picked up a skipjack; lost a bluefin, had 3-4 more hits we really never saw due to sea conditions and generally got pounded around for a couple hard hours. Water temp was 60-62.4 thruout; we never found any warm water despite going down to the shiiping lanes.
It is not a good feeeling to see a 30' sportsfisher bury its bow as water rushed over it and sprays against the windshield and canvas. At about noon, 60-70 miles from home we more or less all came to the same conclusion that going further south was a bad idea as each mile downwind would have to be smashed back against the rising NE wind.
We trolled back north at 4 knots till about 2, then fortunately the wind died to 10-15, then to 10 and we were able to run home at 21 knots.
I learned a very good lesson about being offshore in northerly winds yesterday; 60 miles is a long way out in any circumstances, and 60 miles out against a wind and sea can seem like forever at 8-12 knots.
We saw a bunch of cool stuff; 2 ocenaic sunfishes, blue shark, leatherback turtle; porpoises; etc.
I'd do it again tomorrow :-)