Get in! Get in!” Toby Larocque urged frantically as he and skipper Danny Infante slid a Hobie Pro Angler 14 off the panga’s gunwale and into the Pacific’s low ground swell. I put a foot in the middle of the kayak and in one quick motion swiveled to plop my butt down on the seat as Larocque leaned over the side to click a Mirage pedal-drive unit into its slots. Infante stuck a Daiwa Saltiga leverdrag reel in my face. I grabbed it, pushed off from the panga and pedaled hard as I free-spooled away from my lively 7-inch mackerel.
I caught sight of motion in the impossibly clear, cobalt water beneath the kayak, my eyes drawn to flashing pectoral fins and tails edged in electric cyan. The extraordinary display of so many striped marlin crisscrossing and on the hunt for prey was mesmerizing. I took it all in from a little plastic boat that
