Hooked

So, there we were, peacefully sailing in between Whitsunday Island and Hook Island with the rods trolling and kitted out with Poppy's super-dooper new lures, when one of reels started screaming, precipitating a call for All Hands On Deck. Milo, dressed fetchingly in a sarong, started to wind in what appeared to be a Very Large Fish, while the kids and I pulled in sails and shortened the painter on the tender. As usual, in moments of high excitement and crisis, we sounded like a family of hysterical chipmunks, but we took it up to DEFCON 10 when the fish jumped out of the water and displayed an impressive sail and a long pointy snout. All of Malachy's dreams of hooking a marlin had come true and he nearly died of happiness on the spot. Miles was too busy threading the rod in and out of the rigging, scaling the davits, and climbing down into the inflatable to be excited. At some point he lost the sarong, so now we had a Naked Man, in an Inflatable Boat, and an approaching Large and Cross Fish with a Very Sharp Nose. What could possibly go wrong?
Nothing, as it turned out. To my lasting relief the fish broke the line, but not before we'd seen it alongside the hull. Five and a half foot? Minus 20% Exaggeration Factor, four and a half foot?