Tuesday 4  June, South Pacific Ocean  17:36.5S  172 01.0E 

Today’s Blog by David (Time zone BST +11.00; UTC +12.00)

By anyone’s standards, yesterday was a slow day. The Iron Tops’l had been set at around 22.00 on Sunday and its continuous, monotonous chugging, chugged and chugged and chugged with every prospect of it continuing to chug and chug for a at least another day.  And, the crew having variously Suduko’d themselves into oblivion, cross-worded themselves into a coma or read novels until their eyes crossed  they were now, officially, clinically “Bored”.

And it was hot – too hot to stay outside in the sun.  I tried to cheer them up with an offer of an afternoon’s Travel Scrabble but the off watch crew, the vital fourth rack in that complex game remained stubbornly in his bunk – allegedly asleep.   It was agreed though that as soon as Ted woke up……..

Dinner was being defrosted, a rather good Tuna with onion and ginger in coconut milk that Richard had prepared. At the time he prepared it,  we were then defrosting some Tuna  when – as is Sod’s Law -  the Exide Bunny hooked a fine Yellow Fin Tuna.  Faced with a surfeit Richard, had cooked the whole lot and froze the excess which we were now waiting for anticipation of a gourmet experience.

Desdemona was having a normal day hunting in the ocean – sadly though her day was about to be ruined.

All was quiet and the crew quietly comatose when there was a whizzing noise. This was a high pitched, continuous “Whhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzz!” the like of which we found hard to place.

Terry and Lenie were on deck and were first to realise that this was the reel on the fishing tackle – the line was paying out – far quicker than I have seen before. We have about 300 metres on the reel and at the speed it was going out it was unlikely to remain on the reel much longer.  Terry improvised an unconventional method of stopping the line by using his thumbs directly on the reel. Quite how he did it I don’t know; any normal mortal would have experienced serious skin burns but not good old,  err …. thick skinned,  Terry!  

We then used conventional means to try to land the fish.  The first thing that was evident was that this was a BIG FISH.  It took probably 30 minutes to get it to the side of the boat but then we had to get it on board. That should not have been a problem because Bob had purchased a Gaff (as I recall at enormous expense) in Tenerife. The only problem was that none of us had used one before – nor had we watched anyone else. 

When the Exide Bunny had landed that Yellowfin, he had told me to try to hook the fish behind the gills – which at the time proved easier for him to say than for me to do.   I passed that advice to Terry who by now was standing on the sugar scoop waving the gaff at the fish.   Quite what then ensued is unclear but suddenly I saw Ted holding one end of the gaff, Terry the other with the Gaff though the fish’s Gill, (Oh, and also out through its mouth!!), and the fish landed on the afterdeck in a pool of blood, where the three of us tried to subdue it:

Note the delicate strategic positioning of the Gaff.

We have probably hooked bigger, but this was by far the biggest fish we have actually landed on Serendipity. 

Desdemona was a Dorado, Mahi, Mahi or Dolphin Fish;  a pelagic warm water fish with lovely white flesh – very versatile and ideal for that Kolkoda I have talked about before.  Which is a good job really because – thanks to Simone having sent me on a fish filleting course at Billingsgate Market as an Xmas present – I managed to salvage a little more than  three kilos of meat from it:

Sod’s Law having provided us with Richard’s gourmet extravaganze, we have frozen Desdemona and, provided the Biosecurity Police in Vanuatu let us keep it in the freezer when we arrive, we are not going to be fishing again for some time!

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As a foot note,  the wind filled in this morning, a little earlier than forecast. So after about 32 hours under the Iron Tops’l  we are now reaching at 7+ knots  in the right direction with the  - you guessed it – Code Zero!  What a versatile sail!

David Caukill

Yacht Serendipity