Doris has a bad day

Serendipity
David Caukill
Mon 8 Aug 2011 06:59

Doris had a bad day yesterday.

 

We had already negotiated the menu for dinner which was to be a 'surf n turf' combination of sausages (ex  Hawkley Royal Wedding barbeque, Fete and Hall opening) and fish fingers.  That might sound greedy, but we are now at the “everything must go before we get there” stage of the trip.

 

Now, said " day-glo disco muppet " appeared thus:

 

 

And  had been deployed to howls of derision from those present. In summary, the basis of the objections were: i) not only was its appearance at best unprepossessing , ii) is was skipping along behind a yacht travelling at speeds between 7-9 knots. If anything was going to be caught it was more likely to have been speared  by the muppet coincidentally  in passing  rather than attract find any fish capable of seeing it then swimming fast enough to catch it.

 

So it was with some personal satisfaction that Doris Dorado’s bad day started when she was indeed quick enough to catch up with and take the passing bait – at 17.15 – right on cue for dinner!

 

Now one problem with hooking a fish capable of catching a 8 knot muppet is that the rod continues to travel at 8 knots once the fish is hooked. While we were able to slow down to about 6 knots we had to wind Doris to the boat overcoming that boat speed  …….  and also the fact that Doris did not intend to end her day in our pan!  Fortunately for us, our speed pulled her to the surface to fly through the air in big hops giving an opportunity to reel in large segments of line, but once back in the water,  there was a real risk of the fish hook simply ripping out of the fish. Wouldn’t have done Doris much good but would have got in the way of our supper. Anyway, land it we did leading us to face up to problem number 2:

 

 

By the time Doris had finished flapping around on the deck (assisted by a capful of Liwi’s best Gin in its gills), the deck resembled the Somme Battle field – blood absolutely everywhere -  as ubiquitous as that fish pie (Blog passim). (Liwi’s best gin as a £1.95 per bottle experimental purchase in Gibraltar as a result of which we decided to by Gordons’ export strength at £7.50 a litre – we saved the un drunk portion for just this purpose) .

 

Cognoscenti will know that Dorado is among the best fish you can catch while sailing and it nobly replaced the fish fingers.

 

Another night at sea, during which the skies have cleared. Blues sky this morning – an probably not a lot of wind. Time for the sun block!

 

PS. Only 79 tins of Green King Abbot Ale to go…..