Fishing!

We've had a bit of a 'fish drought' of late, fruitlessly towing the line behind us and reeling it back in again before we anchor. It's been getting a bit tedious.

Then I changed the lure. We'd bought a set of six lures, basically colourful bits of plastic hiding a vicious hook, and I've been trying them all out. This was the most brightly coloured one and suddenly hit gold. In four trips, we've hooked four fish. First up was a nice skipjack, a small tuna type fish that made excellent sushi for me and steaks for the others.

Next, I caught what we think is a small bonito, the one I'm holding there as my prize for the day. He was delicious, and the kids now love watching me clean and cut up the fish, they ask to play with the leftover bits which is fine as long as we remember to empty that bucket before nightfall, it's a bit smelly by the morning!

Now the kids have taken to 'helping' us to fish, so the next trip they enjoyed dropping the lure over the side and letting the line run out, securing it well and then wathcing it intently. For about two minutes. After that, it was declared boring and they went below to do whatever they do on passage.

It's not long before I see a splashing at the end of the line - 'fish on the line!' At this, eveyone is on deck and the kids help to pull in the line, with another beautiful bonito on the end. This one is despatched quickly and turns out to be a little bigger than the last, and we still have half of that in the fridge.

Once anchored, we spot a boat we've chatted to before, so we offer them half of our latest catch, which they accept happily so everyone is content.

A few days later we set out again, across from Guadeloupe to Deshaies. Out goes the line and all is quiet for a few hours until the line suddenly jerks, and goes drum tight, dragging the reel hard up against the cleat to which it is secured. I grab the line and feel a terrific pull on it then nothing, it goes slack. We pull in the line to find that the connection between line and lure has pulled apart. Darn. Whatever that was , it was big, probably too big for us to handle let alone eat, and now the poor thing has our best lure, which we'd like back. Sadly, it's gone and we put out the next lure in our pack. No luck with that one yet, but we live in hope. The kids are fairly happy, though, to now have something other than fish for dinner....