A drunk fish in the Pacific
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Fri 22 Aug 2014 08:15
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Close to the vulcano Late and JUST as lunch was
being served our fishing reel sounded like it was releasing the line with the
speed of the sound.
I jumped back from the cockpit and put the brake on
and felt as we had caught a whale. It was solid strong and it was swimming up
midships with a frenzy unseen before. I asked Ellinor to slow down Salsa and she
tokk her upwind while I was holding on as much as I could, letting the fish have
some line and I tried to take back some. Suddenly it jumped right up in the air
in we could see it was a magnificent Mahe Mahe.
I worked and worked and the others finished their
lunch, not much they could do. I was trying to make this strong animal more
tired so we would have one chance to get it.
After 30 minutes it was close, but started to swim
right down, I pulled it up slowly, and it took off right down. Then it seemed to
get tired and I gaver the rod to Ellinor and I took the big mean hook to get it
under his head (yes it was most probably a bull). Well our great quality hook
left me with the handle and the hook itself disappeared to the bottom of the
sea. Thank you very much. Now we had to be creative and the next idea was to try
to get the fish close to the boat and Ellinor would pour alcohol into its
throught and yes we managed and it went totally bananas. It started to swim in
circles and we could see this was a minimum 20 kilo beast, it was huge! Well you
can imagine two adults laying on deck trying to feed a huge fish that is banging
against the hull and two kids that are yelling in the background. Suddenly the
fish was done with us, he jumped right up and the fishook snapped out of his
mouth and off he went. To be honest it was so big and beautyful it felt akward
to have killed it.
But we still want fish so we let the line out and I
was trying to eat my lunch with shaking arms. The 15 minutes later BANG! the
line came right off, the brake never had a chance to say wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! It
just said bang And a huge Mahe Mahe started to jump in the air 30 meters behind
us. Probably he or she was trying to get free from the hook, and it jumped and
jumped! But we could just continue and sail on.
The latest forecast sais that the wind will veere
to ESE so we decided to head to Savu Savu instead. We have no reason to fight
the wind and the seas. WE just have to make a smooth passage and make sure we do
not put extra stress onthe rigg.
We have had a gorgeos day of sailing, magnificent,
one of the best according to Erika. This morning we could swim in absolutely
flat calm water
Now we are making 7 knots downwind reeefed to 2/3,
waves maybe 1 meter.
We know the wind and the waves will pick up nut
that comes with the territory....
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