WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Quartermoon
Mike Share & Sammy Byron
Mon 26 Apr 2010 19:24
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Well the day has finally come, we
caught a fish! And what a fish it is (was).... A Wahoo which I am guessing, must
have weighed abt 20kg (that's about 44lb my non-metric American friends)
and measured 155cm from it's sharp pointy end to it's amazing tail. That's a bit
longer than Sammy is tall, who couldn't quite lift the beast!
 As you can tell we are pretty excited
abt finally catching something. We just need some friends here to share the huge
amounts of meat! I had a rude awakening - something abt a fish - that I could
have done without at 7:30 this morning and came on deck to find 2
nicely tangled lines with a lot of pressure on them. After abt 20 mins of
un-tangling and hauling we saw the fins and wondered if a shark was having a
feed, thankfully not. Thank God it was pretty well dead on arrival at the boat
(a bit of alcohol in it's gills confirmed that) as it looked pretty pissed off
and had a lot of big pointy teeth! It took a fair bit of hauling to get it on
the rail so we were grateful the wind and sea had calmed a fair bit since
last night so we could actually get it onboard. I held it vertically over
the stern the whilst Sammy got busy with a knife and gutted it, covering
poor Quartermoon in a ton of blood and guts. (I actually thought it was
pregnant, as it had a massive belly full of water but remembered that fish are
in fact fish not mammals, must have been lack of sleep!)
 So after a few "WAHOOO"s and "Jesus
it's so BIG"s we got to filleting it. Took a while, did I mention how big it
is?! We have some marinading as Cerviche, some freezing (hopefully) and some
ready for the Barbee for lunch. Wahoo curry for dinner, Wahoo fishfingers for
breakfast, Wahoo salad Nicoise for tomorrow's lunch.... any more recipe's
welcome pls to QM address!
So fish aside, we have covered a
wacking 1140nm in exactly 1 week. Only 1860 left to go to Hiva Oa... We are
averaging abt 165 miles a day or so which we are quite happy with; this is a big
puddle to cross. That destination only really marks the beginning of all the fun
exploring ahead of us in the South Pacific. When we get to the Marquesas we
still have at least another 4000nm back to Sydney but through fairly
nicely spaced destinations. After this a 5 day sail will seem easy!
Our rough plan is thus for those
looking for a holiday from Sydney's harsh winter or UK's harsher Summer. (Or
even California's not-so-bad Summer):
May/June - Marquesas &
Tuamotu's
July - Society Islands (Tahiti, Bora
Bora etc)
Aug - Sth Cook Islands and
Tonga
Sept/Oct - Fiji/Vanuatu
Oct - New Caledonia and Loyalty Islands
Nov - Lord Howe Island/Sydney (or
maybe Bundaberg tbd....)
If that seems a bit fast and/or vague
then there is a reason - Due to the South Pacific Season Cyclone (hurricane in
Seppo) season, we have a limited window to sail these
islands. Also you spend a LONG time on passages, waiting for
wind, fixing/maintaining/repairing and dealing with different country's
beaurocracy. As if 3 weeks or so at sea isn't enough, the French in their
infinite wisdom will fine us if we head to our desired landfall of Fatu Hiva; so
we have to head to a different island to check in and then beat back
against the wind to see the best that island chain has to offer. I suppose
I could have more to complain about....
I just looked up from the PC (yep mac
died ;-() and this has to be the best day of this crossing yet. The seas
have finally calmed, there are a few clouds in the distance and we are tanking
along at 7 knots. Add to that just had a packet of bacon, scrambled eggs and
homemade toast and marmalade. About ready for the first siesta of the day
to dream of how good that fish is gonna taste!
Will bore you more soon, QM
out.
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