It was scorching. We were ready to head back home. We had already caught enough fish for dinner, but as we turned the boat back towards the beach, we felt another stronger tug on the line.

My name is Susanna, and I am twelve years old. I was in Costa Rica for vacation with my family. Besides my Mom and Dad, I have four siblings. My only brother, Chris, is thirteen. My sisters, Beth, Lisa, and Ellie are 10, 9, and 3. Also with us were our grandparents.

The day in question was in the middle of May. We woke up bright and early and quickly prepared to go fishing. Now, we weren’t going fishing on an ordinary lake. No, we were going to fish in the Pacific Ocean for Mahi Mahi. We all squeezed into the car and drove down to the beach.

As we walked down to the two medium-sized motor boats, Ellie turned to Mom. “Mom, I have two questions. One is: ‘What if our boat sinks?’ and the other one is: ‘What if an alligator eats our boat?’.” Mom quickly reassured her, saying that it was extremely unlikely for our boat to sink, and even if it one boat did sink, the other one would help us. She also told her that there were no alligators in this ocean.

Each boat had a man in them to drive the boat and another one to help with the fishing. Chris, Beth, and Lisa boarded the bigger boat with Grandma and Grandpa. I joined Mom, Dad, and Ellie on the other one. As we sailed away from the beach, we felt the wind rushing through our hair, almost blowing our hats away.

Soon we slowed nearly to a stop, so we were moving at a slow but steady pace. There were dolphins swimming beside our boat! They were not the beautiful bottlenose dolphins, but the sleek common dolphin, but it was still very fun to see. We took lots of pictures, then continued on to the place where we would fish.

Before long we arrived in the area. We put out the lines and waited. Soon a fish took the bait. I hurried over and helped to bring it in. After a while we caught another Mahi Mahi, while the other boat had caught several fish too. We spent a long time fishing, and finally decided to head back to shore. Little did we know that our experience fishing that morning had barely begun!

Another fish was taking the bait. But this time it felt different. The pull on the line was way stronger than before. Dad slowly began to reel in the line. Soon Dad was tired and the fisherman took a turn. Pretty quickly he told us that the fish was probably about 300-400 pounds! Before long he was also tired of fighting the fish and Dad took another turn. By the time each of them had taken several turns, the fish was pulling our boat much further away from the shore than we had planned to go.

Eventually we brought the two boats together so Grandpa and the fisherman from the other boat could join us in our boat. They helped take turns fighting the fish too. After a while, one of the fishermen reported that the fish was actually about 500-600 pounds!

Then the fish seemed like it was coming up to the surface, although quite a ways away. It jumped over the water a couple times, but we did not have a camera ready, and missed it. We were all very disappointed. For the whole next hour Mom had her phone and her nice camera ready to take pictures of it if it jumped again. Not much was happening so Ellie laid down on the bench in the boat and slept with my hat on her face to block the sun.

Eventually the fish came to the surface and jumped again! Unfortunately, Mom’s camera had just died since it had been on for practically a whole hour, and her phone would not take a picture. We kept trying to tire out the fish so we could get some good pictures. When we saw the fish jump, the fishermen said that it was at least 700 if not 800 pounds! Then they told us that it was a Blue Marlin! We were very surprised!

Finally, the Marlin broke the line and got away. We turned the boats around and headed back to shore. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad were looking through their pictures to see if we might have managed to take a picture of the Blue Marlin. They did not find any. Everyone was disappointed that we did not have any pictures, we were still glad to have had the experience of trying to catch a Blue Marlin. It was probably the biggest fish the fishermen had ever hooked.

As we drove back to Grandma and Grandpa’s condo, Dad was looking through the pictures one last time. He found one picture of the Blue Marlin. It was a perfect picture! It showed the whole Marlin, from the tip of its nose to its tail!

That night we had a delicious dinner of Mahi Mahi. We had had a great day in which we caught six fish, almost caught a giant Blue Marlin, made a great memory, and most of all had fun together.

This story is a true story. All people, places, and events are absolutely true, however all names were changed. I hope you enjoyed reading about one of my family’s greatest adventures.