17.59S 163.04W Palmerston Island
Mojo 2
Andrew Partington
Thu 15 Sep 2011 23:46
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It is now just past 1.00pm and we are close to
rounding the fringing reef of Palmerston Island. It is exactly one week since we
left Tahiti.
The Island is actually about four smaller
islands but only one of them is inhabited.
The seas are calm, we have just 4 knots of breeze
from the south-east and we are in full sunshine.
Last night just before sunset we hit the big time
with our fishing efforts - Marlin!! We had just finished dinner and Rob
was pouring us a rum to have as we watched the sunset from the balcony [helm
station], when we had another big strike. It was on my dads reel on a small
squid lure. We had changed lures several times during the day and finally
settled on this little one and it sure did the job.
The marlin took the lure and went crazy. It jumped
clear of the water twice on the starboard side of our stern before I even
had a chance to get to the reel. Once I did I tightened the drag and the fish
immediately went even more ballistic. Within the space of seconds it
took off at who knows what speed and all we could do was watch as the reel
nearly melted. It went so fast that bits of the yellow line were flying off the
reel. The fish took about half the line off the reel in just a
few seconds. The next time it appeared was way to the port side of the
stern as it once again took to the air. It was tearing along and still
heading at right angles to us. If I had to guess its speed I would have said
about 60kmh. Thankfully for us it broke the line with this jump and then
launched into another two leaps before it was gone. Rob and I were both stunned
at just how fast all of this had happened. I am sure that if the line had not
broken it would have taken the whole line within 20 seconds and just kept going.
It is hard to guage size in the heat of the moment but this fish had to be at
a least 7 foot long. If the tuna we caught a few days back was a V8
Supercar this thing was pure Formula One!! The trend with these huge fish
appears to be late afternoon strikes and they prefer squid lures. We will have
another go but I am not even sure that Dean's reel would be able to handle a
fish like that unless you could react quickly enough to get the boat around and
run with the fish. Adrenalin rush in a very big way!!
More to report tomorrow.
Andrew.
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