Friday 22 October Fish galore

Jackster changded from a yacht into a fishing boat today. On the 20 mile trip between Ha'afeva and Nomuka Iki we caught 7 fish. We landed four; a big eye tuna, a 4' dorado and two Spanish mackerel. We threw back another mackerel which was small and had a tuna and a dorado spit the hook. The other thing we had was a 5' marlin tail walk just off the back of the boat. An incredible sight. David was reeling in the dorado on line one, line two was still out and he called me to come see the marlin. For a moment we thought we'd hooked it on the hand line (the handle of the reel on rod 2 has broken off) so I wound the line around one of the winches. However, it seems it wasn't on a line. It might have been chasing the dorado David was pulling in. Sadly Mr Marlin made too brief an appearance for the camera to catch his action but what a tall fish story we have!

Delicious sashimi

There hadn't been time to fillet any of the fish on passage so we pulled into the anchorage with our decks load with our booty. Our new method for filleting is to not gut the fish, but to remove the skin whole and then trim each side off the bone and throw the remaining carcass back in to the sea. This was there is significantly less blood on the aft deck to be washed off.
We shared our good fortune with Jack (Anthem) and Stuart (Imagine). The big eye tuna is sweet white meat which I sliced thinly for delicious sushi with soy, ginger and wasabi. I'd already made ceviche with dorado I before we left this morning. And then we barbecued some of the tuna and the Spanish mackerel. A delicious fish feast for four and another 10 packs of prime fish for the freezer.