19:58S 5:06W
Tales of Amok's Adventures
Mike Jones
Fri 12 Feb 2010 20:28
Well the excitement for today was that Toby has caught us a lovely brace of mai-mai for dinner. No sooner had he pulled the first one onboard, did he advise me that sometimes they travel in pairs and that he should put his line out for a second one, than the second one bit. AMAZING.
He was in the process of making rock cakes, and was at that CRUCIAL stage of rubbing the butter in with his FINGERTIPS to make it look like breadcrumbs, when the lovely WHIRR noise came from the back deck telling us of a fish on the line. He sprinted to the deck and attempted to reel it in, complete with butter and flour all over the rod. that's justice for you. if you want to catch a fish, you should get stuck into rock cakes.
Due credit to the sailing master who brought 25 tons of boat charging to windward at 7 knts down to 1 knt so the said fish could be landed.
When we were on St. Helena, he managed to pick up some lovely lures, great big pink rubber things which the mai mai seem to like. Can't remember if I mentioned that one of the lures he bought was bigger than some of the fish we were catching, so it'll be a worry when that thing goes over, I may take to the dinghy when he tries it.
Right after the mai mai are caught, they have the most spectacular colouring, all silver and pale yellow with the most vibrant blue fin on their back. Afterwards, they lose a lot of their colour and just look like silver fish. They make for great eating.
Anyway, yours truly had to finish off making the rock cakes, as I am not yet worthy of filleting the fish...This job it seems, is a blue one !!
I managed to have a brief chat with my cousin Michael Ferguson on the SSB radio this morning at 04:30, he and his wife are onboard their boat St. Leger and are about 900 miles south of us. It was difficult to contain the excitement I felt in being able to chat with him, but at the same time, keep quiet so as not to get a telling off for making too much noise on the night watch (which I failed at spectacularly)...They are on their way to St. Helena, where his Paternal Grandmother was born 108 years ago. I don't know if it will be possible to catch up with them en route, we are scheming to try.
take care,
salty sal
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