This morning started with the usual squall and down pour of rain. One wonderful thing about these thrice daily rain storms is that our boat and our sails are so clean!! No salt build-up! After coffee, Captain put out his fishing lines. We have been dragging two lines every day from after to coffee to just at sundown. Two nights ago, Lars went to pull in the lines and there was a long skinny barracuda on the handline. Not appetising! We dropped him back in for a bit til he’d let himself off the hook. That made the score fish seven, us zip. Today was different. Just as I put some sandwiches in the big fry pan to toast for lunch, zing zing zing went the rod and reel! When that sound ensues, we rush around in a fire drill mode. After all the drills this trip, we are pretty coordinated and smooth. Lars hooks to the stern life line, I wrap the rod holding belt around him while he dons his gloves and sets the hook. I go back to the cockpit and reef in the sails. Today, because of the light wind conditions, just reefing the Genoa in slows us down to 3 knots. Then I lay out the gear; rum in a squeeze bottle, camera, pliers, knife, cutting board, non skid mat....all the while Lars is playing with the fish and I’m keeping an eye on the auto pilot and the wind vane. As the fish comes near, I take over cranking on the reel. Captain stands on the swim platform, holds on with his right hand and leaning out, grasps the leader on the fish line as it swings near. Then he hauls the fish up, we squirt rum in it’s gasping mouth, the fish calms down, Lars lays it on the cutting board, we give thanks to Neptune and the fish, then the knife goes in. Ah, this fish is a beauty! A little over twenty pounds, gorgeously glowing, yellow fin, bigeye tuna. My absolute favourite gift from the ocean to eat! This lovely tuna evens the score on the Sweet Dream.
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