Fresh tuna anyone?? The lost blog entry
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sat 17 Nov 2007 19:32
28:23.590N
66:56.765W
This blog entry never made it....but here it is, the long awaited fish
story.
We continued our downwind sail all through Friday
night (11/16) as the temperature and barometric pressure both continued to
increase dramatically - more signs that the bad weather is now behind us.
Nice. At 8am this morning (Saturday) we broke down and turned on the
engine and started motorsailing to maintain speed in the decreasing winds.
This is the first time the engine has been on since Wednesday, and even
then we only ran it for 12 hours.
As we motorsailed along on this beautiful
day, Don and Bill decided it was a good time to fish. And by beautiful
day, I mean beautiful day. Sunny, not too hot, not too cold, puffy clouds
in the sky, and the water. Have I mentioned the color of the water?
I always thought that this kind of sailboat cruising was called blue water
cruising just because it sounded good. Wrong. The water is an
intense, deep, sapphire blue. We noticed the color change as soon as we
got a good distance away from land. The water is positively
enchanting. At first it was a little freaky being out here with only water
on the horizon in every direction, but the view grows on you after a while and
it doesn't seem desolate or scary at all. The 360 view of sapphire water
makes us feel like we are in our own little world - a moving dome of water
and sky.
After the decision was made to fish, out came Don's
new fancy ocean fishing pole and associated paraphernalia. Don trailed a
line behind the boat off the fishing pole and Bill trailed a 'hand line' behind
the boat. With the fishing apparatus all set, we sat down to a marvelous
lunch of burritos, Guinness (Bill) and Sam Adams (Don). We were halfway
through eating when Don noticed that we had a strike on both lines. Two
fish! At the same time and only an hour after the lines had been
set! The flurry of activity that followed was very entertaining and went
on for almost two hours. Don dashed to the fishing pole and Bill did the
same to the hand line. Both started pulling in their fish, anxious to see
what it was. In the meantime, Don is yelling instructions at Anne.
'Slow the boat down!', 'Get the gin!' (Don had read that spraying some type of
alcohol into the fish's gills will cause it to become more docile and easier to
'land'.), 'Get the gaff!', 'Get the fishing book!' (the one with instructions on
how to gut and cut up the fish), 'Get the other fishing book!' (the one with
pictures so we know what we caught), 'Get the bucket!', 'No! The cloth bucket,
not the plastic one!', 'Get the scrub brush!', 'Yes! The one with the
handle and the other one too!', 'Get the fish knife!'. In between the
instructions, the two boys (oops, I mean men) were yelling to each other. 'It's
a yellow fin tuna!', 'I think it's a yellow fin tuna!', 'Yup! It's a yellow fin
tuna!', 'Wow! Look at that!' , 'It's at least 25 pounds!'. And so
on. It was decided that we would let the smaller tuna go (which was Don's
- too bad for him), and keep the larger tuna. I'm not exactly sure how
this happened as I was trying not to watch the gutting and cutting part, but it
ended up that Don read from the fish book while Bill, a.k.a. the fishmonger,
gutted and cut up the fish. I was hoping to avoid all contact with the
fish in this state, but was left with the job of washing all the tuna steaks off
and preparing them for the freezer. I finished freezing the pile of tuna
they sent my way (piled in my favorite giant pasta salad Tupperware container,
by the way) when they showed up with another bucket full. Oh my God - we
have enough tuna to feed the entire island of St. Thomas. They are really
going to like us when we get there.
To make a long fish story short, we saved out
enough tuna to grill for dinner, and put the rest in our very large freezer,
which is now very full. Dinner was excellent - the tuna prepared by Bill
the fishmonger and grilled by Don. Because no fish story is complete without
proof, attached is a picture of the two proud fisherman and
their catch (note that Don is posed in such a way that it appears he is
taking credit for what was actually Bill the fishmonger's catch). Also
attached is a picture of Don reading the yellow fin tuna cleaning instructions
to Bill the fishmonger.
The only problem now is that fishing has been
banned on the good ship Harmonie until its very full freezer becomes
less than very full.
More adventures tomorrow, I'm sure.
Anne |