Nude Fishing on Pandion, by Malachy

(You'll notice there's a recurring theme since we reached the tropics, and it ain't fishing - Liss)

Today we started from Butterfly Bay, Whitsundays, and began our longest passage yet. It was really rocky! We took turns doing watch. Mum was helming, we were lounging round in the cockpit and dad was sleeping (nude) and we had all our sails out. It was almost dark.  That’s when the fish decided to bite.  “NNnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!” went the reel.  “Fiiiiiiiiiiiissssh!” went Mum, and “Aarrgggghh!” went Dad (nude). Dad raced up the steps (nude) and grabbed the rod (nude). We started furling the sails.  Dad, reeling in the fish (nude) yelled, “It’s a tuna!” Dad for some reason brought the fish into the cockpit; it flopped around and hit the floor. “Eeeeeeekk!” went everybody, leaping out of the way.

Tuna = sea chicken.

Yum.

Hot tip for Dad: sleep in boardies.

 

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?

Fishing

Fishing

Today I woke up at 6.20am to go fishing.  I woke up Dad and he linked three hooks together because that’s what I saw other fishermen doing yesterday.  Then I got some white pilchards I had used yesterday (and got nothing) then I went to the jetty.  As soon as I got there I rigged my line with a whiting sinker, a rolling swivel, my linked hooks.  Then I put my pilchard on; I put one hook through the tail and one hook through middle, and one hook through the eye. Then I cast.  As soon as I dropped my bait into the water, I got a bite and I waited.  Then I felt a tug and a jerk.  I had a fish.  I reeled it in and it was a yellow tailed pike.  I waited some more as I could see other pike stealing my bait.  Then they were gone and I caught nothing, so I filleted it and it put its skeleton in the crab net.  Then I fried the fillets in butter and ate them with lime juice.