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Spirit of Lusitania - Log Day 14



03 December

The "Maltese kitty" - Part One

On all our sailing trips, we usually tend to trawl one or two fishing lines in our wake. But as we tend to sailing, cooking and other onboard activities, we seldom watch the lines. So the question was always how to attach some sort of "alarm" to alert us that we had a strike. I have experimented with a number of solutions - bunji cords, laundry pins, etc - but none seemed to work.

On a recent sailing delivery to Malta, I visited my favorite fishing gear shop to re-stock the traditional lures, so I enquired about this with them. I have always found it wise to ask the local people what they normally use. Earlier while walking past the fishing piers, it sounded like there were Maltese kitties - a breed peculiar to Malta - with collar bells on them everywhere. Well, as it turns out the local fishermen place these little bells on the tips of their rods, and when they get a strike the bells jingle! The little shop carried the bells, so we purchased several for Spirit of Lusitania and we named them "Maltese Kitties".

Now, we can go about our activities onboard, knowing our Maltese Kitties are watching our fishing lines carefully! But we have found a strange side-effect of having them onboard - stay tuned for part II.



The "Maltese Kitty" - Part Two

On this ARC we have been fortunate to catch several nice sized Mahi-Mahi for our dinner feasts. That is because an important early-morning crew task for our Master Fisherman of the day is to set the fishing gear and ensure the Maltese Kitty is on duty. The curious side-effect of having the Kitty on duty is, at the slightest sound of jingling the entire crew scurry to their "battle stations"; one to the helm, another furling sails to reduce speed, another to the fishing line, another to pull in the second fishing line, and the last to prepare what we call "The Fish Square" - our stern step area. This is a deadly team! BUT, one evening a crewman started playing a video of a previous catch, including sounds, and at the sound of the bells on the video the entire crew went into action! Puzzled faces all around as the crew came back below decks - it was only a recording. Pavlov was right.

Last evening at sunset, just as we were preparing dinner, the "Maltese Kitty" sounded off with such a frenzy that we dropped everything and the team went into action. The crew all jumped to our stations, as if we had springs under our feet. We had a BIG fish on. This one was landed by the owner of Spirit of Lusitania, but only after a strenuous half-hour battle on a pitching and yawing deck. We had a nice 1.3 meter, 20kg Wahoo on board! What a beauty. It was quite late when we finally had dinner, and obviously the theme of our conversation was the fish. But to be fair, we owe it all to our Maltese Kitty!

So finally, some advice; if you happen to be walking your bell-collared poodle near one of the terraces at Rodney Bay Marina, don't be alarmed by the reaction of a certain crew having a "Piton" thereā€¦the "deadly" team in action is actually harmless. It is definitely true that Pavlov was right!

"Seas the day"
Augusto






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