19/10/09 - 18.38S 174.00W - Tonga landfall
Flying Cloud
Julian Nichols
Tue 27 Oct 2009 00:48
No sign of our competition (Shelette) during the night, but this morning Jenny hooked a Dorado whilst Matt and I were asleep, only to lose it at the transom!
That wasn't the only "one who got away" story, barely an hour had gone by and Jenny hooked another - only to lose it.
Finally when Matt and I were up and around she hooked a 3rd large Dorado and in it came.
I had the pleasure of filleting this time though.
As we approached Tonga a 4th fish jumped on the line - and snapped it, giving us a 1 in 4 strike rate.
As we arrived in Tonga, at Neiafu, we saw Shelette. They had been there several hours and had annoyingly landed 2 fish - convincingly beating us!
3 facts about Tonga:
1) its where "time begins". This meant on arrival we we went from being 16.30 on Monday 19th, to 16.30 on Tuesday 20th. ie: we crossed the date line (not geographically, but Tonga has elected to be in the same date zone as New Zealand and its other neighbours) and each lost a day of our lives!
2) to the East of Tonga we crossed the "Tonga Trench" - the second deepest part of the ocean at over 10,000 meters! We dropped a couple of goodwill offerings to the seamonsters below of course!
3) Its on a tectonic plate, and one side of the islands are rising and the other side is sinking - giving a surreal look to the archipelago.
By the time we had anchored, Shelette had already flashed up the BBQ for the fish fry, and all that was left for us was to mix a suitable cocktail.....