Tuna!
Global Yacht Racing's P42
Global Yacht Racing
Fri 3 Oct 2008 19:09
The policeman kindly returned our passports, complete with a Pantelleria stamp in them, which seemed to cause far too much excitement. We left the harbour at about 1300, in blazing sunshine and a great 10-15 knots of wind on the beam, so the afternoon was pretty much perfect.
After lunch (bread, ham, cheese!), we settled down to some serious sunbathing. All went well until a mad wave broke over the boat and soaked Kate. She pretended to be upset by it, but we know she secretly enjoyed it...
We had a silly, fun afternoon, putting people on the end of the spinnaker pole and taking photos - definitely a party ('nearly-there') atmosphere on board now.
At about 1600, just as I'd got my head down, my fishing reel started buzzing. We quickly stopped the boat, and after a good 10 minute fight, we eventually had a massive Tuna fish at the back of the boat. With surprising little panic (and a cunning idea from Kate), we got him on deck and had him chopped into steaks in no time. We'll get some photos uploaded tomorrow, otherwise nobody will believe us, but this is the biggest fish Paul or I had ever caiught. It made a good 15 steaks (all bigger than my hand), which we served with cous-cous (courtest of Alex!) for dinner. We're all stuffed now, and wondering what to do with the rest of it. Tuna for breakfast I reckon...
As I write, we're only about 80 miles from Valletta, and sailing with a very warm wind still on the beam. We should be going between Gozo and Malta around sunrise, and alongside in Grand Harbour by early morning.