Day 317 - Ahe 'Tuamotu's'

Silk Sheets
Ben Shute & Fiona Kennelly
Wed 10 Jun 2009 20:48

6th June

 

Some how I managed to sleep through the entire night with out even a stir, I was obviously tired from the passage even though I felt fine. After going to bed at 9PM I was up at the crack of dawn, 5:30AM feeling great and ready to fish. The bait I had caught back near Hiva Oa came in handy. I thawed out a few little fishes and walla I was ready. It did not take long until they were biting, infact I could hardly manage a few of them. Initially I pulled up a few littelens which went in the bucket just in case however it was not lone until they made it back to the sea. I got slammed by a couple of Sweet Lip that fight like Tyson and then a Cod ‘Coral’ that could near take you hand off. Then to top it all off I caught a Bone Fish, The Bone fish is the Silver fish in the pictures that looks like a massive mullet. It nearly bent the rod in half, well to be honest it did bend the rod in half. It was great as I made my way to amid ships (the centre of the boat if you did not know) to fight the legend. It took me all of a good 20 minutes to land this sucker on my light tackle, and was I proud. Afterwards I needed a rest as I think I may of held my breath the entire episode, seemingly light headed I had to sit for a while to get my breath. 

Bone fish are named rightfully so after the amount of bones they have, I mean they have a shit load of the suckers so many that it is just to difficult to eat. I tried everything to be honest, baking, steaming and frying but it was like a plate full of bone with fish around it. I felt bad that I had killed such a marvelous fighter and not had the decency to eat him up. I did however have other plans for him.

Bone fish are such renown fighters that many people now are paying good money to fly fish them in salt water as they often will wallow in the shallows, in fact so much so that many islands and other habitats for them such as the USA have banned gill netting and other activities that harm their habitat. Again this saddens me to find out such information after I put a knife through the pore things skull and drove it in until I shattered most its skull.

 

Well, this left me with a heap of fish and it was still only 8AM so I got stuck into the inevitable the good old dishes, not before frying up my little friend the cod for breakfast, he was very delicious to be exact allot nicer than any other fish I have every eaten which is a big statement but these coral dwellers have the whitest and sweetest meat you could ever imagine. But If you did try and imagine you would have to think of using one whole tub of Vanish on you whites to make them glow like this fishes flesh does, and then you would need to include it with a big spoon of sugar to give it a hit of sweet flesh. Or something like that.

 

After Breaky I set about doing nothing at all for the whole day which I find incredibly difficult however I am working on it, I managed to get into the dingy buy 3PM to collect some groceries when I met my mates, Mano and Roger. What legends they were or became after I explained I was not American which every one seems to think an English speaking White person happens to be around here. Rodger rolled a massive joint and smoked the lot while Mano the dreadlocked guy sheared with me his bottle of ‘Who knows what’ which tasted really good. It was some sort of locally home made stuff, As I could not speak a word of French and they English it made for a longer lasting friendship as we swigged back the worrying yellow liquor. In typical fashion I drank with these guys until it was dark and buy the end of it Mano throw up on the jetty then the police came and moved us on and I strategically left my friends for the safety of my home however it was only minutes until the men by this stage about 7 of them came knocking on the side of silky wanting to continue the party. After kindly asking them to go I made it back down for a much needed bed.

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