Black Pearl Trip Part I

1 Day trip to Santa Cruz with your kayak on the Black Pearl.

For the day after Thanksgiving.
Cost is $160.
Rick is the captain on the motherboard trip.
He has 3 other deck hands to help him out.
Launch out of Oxnard at around 6pm Friday night.
Arrive back around 6pm Saturday night.
Plan is to hoop Friday night and fish all day Saturday.

Friday night I arrived at the launch, and I was greeted by the deckhands on the Black Pearl.
Throughout the whole trip these guys were very hospitable, caring, accommodating, and just fun to be with.

Thumbs up for these guys, and Rick who handled everything. Great group of guys. The next trip I want to be on is the Black Pearl.

For those who are thinking about doing one of these trips, wheels are very advantageous for bringing the kayak to the boat.
I did not have one, but I did get a helping hand from deckhand Dave. Even captain Rick, helped us carrying our kayaks.

After loading, I met up with Ken, and we waited for others to arrive.
There should have been 6 of us going. With 2 late cancellations, there was only 4. Shocked

I personally felt it would have been okay if the trip was canceled. The boat needs to make money, and obviously there was not
enough participants. But Rick went ahead with the original plan. He told me the Black Perl does not cancel trips. Cool

He said it is bad business to do so. People need to know you are fishing, not canceling if not enough people arrive. Otherwise they will never buy the tickets.

So there we are. Just four of us. Almost a deckhand per person.
The Group picture
The three amigos.

Before we left the harbor. The captain Rick asked about bait for our hoop nets.
Because the Black Pearl has none. Right now, Rick is having an issue with the bait people. If he can not swing any deals with these people
he will no longer do kayak trips. For Andy Iceman, you need to talk to Rick later this week and see if he
gets this worked out. The bait people usually gets a certain percentage from the boat, but since we are kayak fishing and not boat fishing, 150 scoops
of bait is too difficult to go through. We do not need that much.

Some of us did bring some, but not enough to fill all of the hoops we had aboard.
So the plan would be to get bait at platform Gina.

Next question Rick asked was about our fishing license and hooping license.
3 of us did not have a hooping license; and 1 never heard of it before.
It was not too big of a problem, we were able to get them at the other landing.
Think of this as a reminder: Bring your hooping license.

First stop. Platform Gina.
Bait was tough to get. BigBoy managed squid. Once we saw that, we changed rigs to get more squid.
Of all the fishing stuff I brought, I forgot my squid jig. uuugh! Embarrassed

The deckhands were able to put together some jig apparatus for squid, but it just was not our day.
A few mackerel and sardines is all we got for our hoops.

Second stop. Santa Cruz
Rick was thinking ahead, he got word from divers and found a safe side on Santa Cruz, away from the swell and wind that had bugs.
We stopped where a bunch of other boats were anchored for the night.
This would be the prefect place to be loud and obnoxious. Grin

With almost no swell and no wind, I loaded onto my kayak from the boat. It was weird at first, but I began to get the hang of it.
The night was late, maybe around midnight when we started hooping. If the bugs crawled, they did it earlier because none
of us got anything other than star fish. After a couple of hours we went back to the boat for some sleep.

Here is my opinion on hooping on these kayak trips.

1.) Hooping takes a tremendous amount of energy to do.
When I go hooping during the week, I am so tired the next morning. My body aches, and I am cranky. Angry

I can not imagine to go hooping a full session and then fish all day the next morning at 6 am. That is just too much.
Just stick to fishing.

2.) Hooping is best right a dusk.
We did not leave the landing until about 6pm, arrived at Gina for another hour, then traveled to Santa Cruz.
It took us a bit of time to get 3 kayaks on the water. Can you imagine 12 kayaks? Shocked

After seeing how long it took for 1 kayak to get on the water, Captian Rick said "We needed to leave at noon to get here on time for hooping." Cheesy

We were all a bit unprepared for this. It was a shot in the dark. We tried and we can see places where it needs improvement.

3.) Hooping is best if you know the area well.
We had no idea where to drop the nets. I managed to set up the FF and see possible places to drop. I think if we can search the area during the day
we can see the terrain better. Imagine someone taking you to a place you never been before,
putting you on the kayak and say 'now go hoop'.

4.) Hooping is best during new moon.
Close enough, we did that right.

Edit:
5.) Hoop nets take space.
If your trip had 12 kayaks and 5 nets per person. That would be absolute chaos on deck.
I never seen it, but with what we had was enough trouble.

6.) Hoop nets need bait.
The bait dock may only have sardines, anchovies or squid. Bring your own will be a safe bet.

This is my opinion on hooping for these trips. It has nothing to do with the Black Perl. For I knew we would leave at
6 and I was expected a late session. At the same time I was curious on how it would play out.

If you want to do hooping during these trips, do it last. And spend all the last energy you have.
It will make the sleep on the ride home better. Okay, rant off on the hooping.

This is the end part I of this trip. I have more pics coming up for part II and III.

Edit: I can not spell.