Deep sea fishing

On Saturday a group of eight of us hired a launch to go deep sea fishing and it was one of my greatest days on the Island so far. We were up at the crack of dawn and headed south for about an hour until we were off the reef - the skipper told us on one side of the boat it was 200 feet deep and on the other 1,000 feet, so apparently the perfect spot for fishing. On the way out we were escorted by a pod of dolphins which was just brilliant (and reminded me of home). The edge of the reef was out of sight of land and for the geography buffs, in the Bermuda Triangle. Fine in the launch but I don't think we'll take our boat out that far!

We were pretty successful for our 6 hours fishing time - catching a tuna, a wahoo, a 6 ft shark, a barracuda, several bonito, a few rainbow runners and countless small fish that were unlucky enough to be live bait for the day.

Highlight for me was clearly this 65 pound bonito - took about half an hour to reel him in and even though I was wearing a harness, my back was aching for the rest of the day and for cricket the next. Worth it for the snap though (note I had no strength left to lift it off the ground!).

The near miss of the day went to Dave who fought a 50 pound yellowfin tuna for about 45 minutes to get it alongside the boat, only for it to snap the line - here he is looking pretty dejected and pretty buggered.

Also, Rich with his barracuda:

Heather with her wahoo:

The shark:

And Rich with his little bonito:

At the end of the day we had a good couple of kilos of fresh fish each (the skipper kept my bonito damnit) and went straight to Dave's for a bbq and a few celebratory drinks. I have the feeling I'll be eating fish for some time now...