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The allure of a lure, on a tripple word score

Posted: Mon 24th March 2008 in Blog
Position: 7° 47.5' S, 129° 55' W

The allure of a lure, well I hope that's how you spell it. There are a few minor problems on board, and 2 major ones. The Minor one I’m alluding to is we've run out of fishing lures. The last one went a few days ago and was replaced by Al and My home made contraption. All yachties seem to use the fake plastic squid to catch fish, since we ran out of them we've been making our own out of a weight a hook with a bit of a blue and white striped plastic bag shredded into tentacles all held together with gaffer tape. Given we haven't actually caught a fish in a week on a proper one we weren't entirely hopeful. Al and Christian then modified the mark one lure with some tinfoil.

mk2.jpg
The Mk 2 in action

The mark 2 proved is worth immediately, catching a Dorado within the hour. Fresh fish tastes so good at this point. We wanted more so it went straight back out. Within 5 minutes the line was streaking off the reel again. This time it was big. Seriously big. It jumped out of the water behind us, about 5 or 6 foot long Blue Marlin the kind you see hanging next to photos of Americans by sports fishing boats with moustaches andd cheese grins. Huge fish.

The bird we caught
The Bird we caught

Unfortunately we only have a bit of 50lb line, the rest is 20lb. You've not got a snowballs chance in hell of landing a fish that size on a 20ld line on a boat doing 5 knots + with the sails rigged for downwind. Its very hard to stop with the Genoa Poled out one side and the boom preventered out the other.
It got away, but we built another mark 2 lure and a little later caught a bird. Their bloomin good these plastic bags.
The bird was hauled in (pecking viciously) and left to its own devices on the cabin roof. After a break it flew off apparently none the worse for wear.

Yesterday was therefore pretty eventful, additionally there was a bad smell in my cabin. I thought the cans of food on the boat had all been reorganised a week ago. I didn’t realise there were any left under my floor. The joy of finding food we didn’t know we had was seriously tempered by the rotting maggot infested remains of a tin of Vienna chicken sausages that had burst. The smell was dreadful and the clear up operation seriously unpleasant. So much so we had to wash the experience down with a bottle of wine and some olives. The olives we’re an unexpected bonus. We thought we didn’t have any, they had to be de-maggoted. Don’t think they’ll let me have that in scrabble. Yes I’ve been forced to play scrabble this crossing is that dull. I’ve even one twice now. I’ve never won a game of scrabble before. Even with the maggots it was a good day, we made good progress and ate better than we expected (chicken noodle soup and my home made bread for lunch, fresh breaded dorado with garlic mayo and lime juice for a snack, followed by fried spam, mash potatoes and gravy for dinner. With tinned fruit (de-magotted) to finish off.

The last bottle
The last bottle is drunk

The bottle of wine and to a lesser extent scrabble are synonymous with the two major problems we have that I mentioned before. It was the last bottle of wine.

Problem 1: We’ve no more booze on board.
Problem 2: We’ve no more booze on board.

I know technically these are the same thing, but its so important I thought I’d mention it twice.
Stone cold sober, after three weeks at sea, even I will play scrabble. On that bombshell its time to end.

[Printable]
Share

The allure of a lure, on a tripple word score

Posted: Mon 24th March 2008 in Blog
Position: 7° 47.5' S, 129° 55' W

The allure of a lure, on a tripple word score

The allure of a lure, well I hope that's how you spell it. There are a few minor problems on board, and 2 major ones. The Minor one I’m alluding to is we've run out of fishing lures. The last one went a few days ago and was replaced by Al and My home made contraption. All yachties seem to use the fake plastic squid to catch fish, since we ran out of them we've been making our own out of a weight a hook with a bit of a blue and white striped plastic bag shredded into tentacles all held together with gaffer tape. Given we haven't actually caught a fish in a week on a proper one we weren't entirely hopeful. Al and Christian then modified the mark one lure with some tinfoil.

mk2.jpg
The Mk 2 in action

The mark 2 proved is worth immediately, catching a Dorado within the hour. Fresh fish tastes so good at this point. We wanted more so it went straight back out. Within 5 minutes the line was streaking off the reel again. This time it was big. Seriously big. It jumped out of the water behind us, about 5 or 6 foot long Blue Marlin the kind you see hanging next to photos of Americans by sports fishing boats with moustaches andd cheese grins. Huge fish.

The bird we caught
The Bird we caught

Unfortunately we only have a bit of 50lb line, the rest is 20lb. You've not got a snowballs chance in hell of landing a fish that size on a 20ld line on a boat doing 5 knots + with the sails rigged for downwind. Its very hard to stop with the Genoa Poled out one side and the boom preventered out the other.
It got away, but we built another mark 2 lure and a little later caught a bird. Their bloomin good these plastic bags.
The bird was hauled in (pecking viciously) and left to its own devices on the cabin roof. After a break it flew off apparently none the worse for wear.

Yesterday was therefore pretty eventful, additionally there was a bad smell in my cabin. I thought the cans of food on the boat had all been reorganised a week ago. I didn’t realise there were any left under my floor. The joy of finding food we didn’t know we had was seriously tempered by the rotting maggot infested remains of a tin of Vienna chicken sausages that had burst. The smell was dreadful and the clear up operation seriously unpleasant. So much so we had to wash the experience down with a bottle of wine and some olives. The olives we’re an unexpected bonus. We thought we didn’t have any, they had to be de-maggoted. Don’t think they’ll let me have that in scrabble. Yes I’ve been forced to play scrabble this crossing is that dull. I’ve even one twice now. I’ve never won a game of scrabble before. Even with the maggots it was a good day, we made good progress and ate better than we expected (chicken noodle soup and my home made bread for lunch, fresh breaded dorado with garlic mayo and lime juice for a snack, followed by fried spam, mash potatoes and gravy for dinner. With tinned fruit (de-magotted) to finish off.

The last bottle
The last bottle is drunk

The bottle of wine and to a lesser extent scrabble are synonymous with the two major problems we have that I mentioned before. It was the last bottle of wine.

Problem 1: We’ve no more booze on board.
Problem 2: We’ve no more booze on board.

I know technically these are the same thing, but its so important I thought I’d mention it twice.
Stone cold sober, after three weeks at sea, even I will play scrabble. On that bombshell its time to end.