Marty Bates - Billfish Foundation's top Atlantic skipper for Blue Marlin releases - 2010

Great to see that Marty secured one of the Billfish Foundations top skipper awards for the most Atlantic Blue Marlin releases - http://billfish.org/1598-2010-…and-release-award-winners. I suspect the vast majority, if not all, came from Cape Verde. (I'm unclear whether Marty, later in the year, did fish the Azores.)

Well done Marty!

Here's a picture of him - the one with the gaff, etc - whilst we were fishing together in Ascension Island on Shy 3.

Zitat von Jungle

Yes, had the pleasure of catching up with Marty last year in Azores. I gave him a copy of a UK sport fishing magazine which had a picture of him in CV!

Looking forward to seeing him and all the captains and crews again in September.

Jonathan

Hi Jonathan
Do you know what's happened to Ian 'the Yeti' Carter and Xácara?

At the beginning of the 2010 season - http://www.azoresmarlin.com/x-news.html - Ian posted this:

Zitat

The big news is that this will be our last season of fishing charters. After 16 years spending our summers working long hours 7 days a week, we have decided it is time to travel and pursue other interests. Our hobbies are micro-lighting and bike riding and we have been forced to do these activities in often inclement weather in the spring and autumn. We have been planning to tour Scandinavia by motorbike and the thought of riding up to the North Cape in May, in temperatures lower than we experience here in mid-winter, was just not appealing. This is a trip you need to do in the summer. So this will be the last season that I will be posting news reports onto this website. Enjoy them while you can!

Just wondered whether Ian and Sian had sold the operation or getting someone to skipper Xácara for them.

Then Marty. Amazing that he's taken to fatherhood quite like he has, like the proverbial 'duck to water'!