God ….. I Hate Fish
Rich's 2025 World ARC PatBon Blog
Richard Hurd
Thu 20 Mar 2025 10:23
“TAKE COVER - incoming squadron of fish”. With that, Val hits the deck or cowers under the spray hood. Or it’s Nathan wearing his new fish slippers - a new fashion trend, although the trail of fish guts and fishy body parts isn’t pleasant, especially after a day in the tropical sun! It’s a nightly and coordinated attack on Pat Bon by our fishy friends - there we are, quietly on watch, minding own business when the unmistakable slap and splatter of a flying fish bouncing around the cockpit. A mad dash trying to catch and return it to its fishy kingdom, but it’s so slippery and almost impossible to catch with your hands - and boy, do they smell, even when alive! Sometimes they’re in stealth mode and they simply hop out of the water and onto the deck, there to remain until becoming Nathan’s new fashion apparel.
This silliness is all about the nightly flying fish that come aboard, but we’ve also had times when it’s not flying fish, but squids across the foredeck. How the heck do they get there! All across the Pacific (& the Atlantic too) flying fish accompany us. They are amazing creatures - half fish and half bird. They’re agile when airborne, with their large extended pectoral fins allowing them to glide over the waves - I guess to avoid predators hunting below. Anyway, what do you call a collective of flying fish - a school, a shoal, a flock, a murmeration, a murder - I have no idea??
Finally the fishing department (Rich & Nathan) have struck gold by landing a magnificent yellow fin tuna. Without scales, the guess was 18 to 20kgs in weight. We caught it using our simple yo-yo reel which worked a treat. We were also using our last Billy Baits Turbo Slammer lure, after the Pacific fish have systematically robbed us of all our other good lures. This time we got our own back and bought this beastie aboard - a quick shot of my favourite Tarquins Gin and it was in fishy heaven. Tuna steaks for supper that night courtesy of Nathan and a tuna and olive pasta dish last night, with Peter’s Asian tuna wraps for lunch! And we’re still only half way through. The rest is in the freezer, but it’s bloody delicious …. so at last we’ve found a fish we love ❤️
We’ve been at sea now for two weeks solid and as you can tell from the first part of this blog, the author is gradually loosing his marbles! We are a little ahead of schedule which is great news and a degree of competitiveness is creeping in between us and the other yachts in the World ARC fleet. The Yellow Brick GPS tracker (YB Races App) is updated every 4 hours (from midnight GMT, so 0000, 0400, 0800, 1200, 1600, 2000) and we all eagerly await the new update, so we can see how we’re doing against the others. Val has become the most competitive of us all, demanding the skippers explanation as to why we’ve lost out against Mageia or Pure Joy or grinning from ear to ear when we’ve taken another mile off our friends on One Distraction. There are 3 yachts way ahead, Misfit a large cat, Fruition an 80’ monohull and Entre Nous, which isn’t a yacht at all, but a huge motor cat that has sneaked into the ARC, as it has a large kite like sail that they can rig for downwind sailing.
We’ve got 534 miles to go and we’re hoping to get into Hiva Oa by Sunday during the daylight, perhaps a total of 18 days. We just hope that the wind holds, but sadly it is forecast to become lighter. We do have fuel should we need to use the engine if it dies altogether, but hopefully we can sail a large chunk of this distance. I think we’re all dreaming of a sundowner on dry land that doesn’t slop out of our glass, as we roll around out here.
We’re starting to plan some activities while we’re in the Marquesas Islands. The diving and snorkelling is meant to be amazing and Rich is busy organising a traditional Marquesan Fire Pit Feast for our close group of yachts (1D, Amelia, Mageia, AquaLuna) and he also had a daft idea of organising a ‘bring your own’ beach BBQ gathering for the members of the OCC (Ocean Cruising Club). Assuming there might be 6 to 10 yachts, he opened it up to the whole fleet, many of whom have expressed an interest in joining the club. So far 24 yachts want to join the beach BBQ, so that is over 100 people. It’s proved tricky to find a beach venue, get local permissions, find a bloody BBQ big enough that people can cook their own food, but Kevin, the OCC port officer in Nuku Hiva has been great and we’re all set to go on Wednesday 2nd April. We’re going to organise a beach litter sweep and a charity collection, so we can give something back to the local community too.
So Val is now on watch and I await a squeak from her as her fishy friends get airborne to start their nightly assault on Pat Bon.
A nice yellow fin posing with Rich. It’s good news for Val that these don’t fly🤣🤣
A fish large enough for 2 pairs of Nathan sized slippers🤣
Just a nice sunset photo - that’s all😊