Mirabella V is a big boat. It made boats 100' or
longer look little next to it.

Regarding the poacher:

I spent the last night on a day mooring at Buck Island, the
one south of St Thomas. Day-moorings mean you can
only stay one full day--right??? I'm sure it doesn't mean
day only--eh?

Anyway, the poacher came over early thinking he'd be
the only one there. He saw us but figured we wouldn't
say anything. So we got the numbers on the boat, which
he seemed to be trying to conceal at first. I decided to
take some pictures and caught him in mid-cast and then
dink'ed over to confront him. He looked white but
talked like a Jamacian. Fortunately, one of my crew
Sean lived in Jamacia for two years and could talk
the lingo.

We asked the poacher to release the fish, but he just got
angry, and said, "What you wan me to do man, rob
people?" I guess he thought that was a good argument.
He looked like the type that would rob people.

He also said he was just getting bait fish. But from
what I saw, from a distance, he was throwing away
the bigger fish. At one point he seemed angry and
slapped some of the fish by the tail hard to kill them
and then dumped them overboard. I guessed they were
parrot fish and not good for sale to the marine aquarium
market. He kept the fish in a cooler and seemed to
be trying to keep them alive and healthy. The all looked
to be very small fish.

Anyway, I was not happy that he seemed to be
routinely raping this prime snorkling location, where
fishing was prohibited, for personal gain. I'm going to
try and contact the locate someone who will take
action against him.

After this he motored to the other snorkling bay on the
other side to continue his dirty work.

I spotted him working on the water near the French
Quarter, but there was no sign of his boat or the cooler
he used to store the fish.


"Capt. Mooron" wrote

Nice shots Bart..... Man that is one friggin' big sailboat. How did you
meet the "poacher"??