Are we there yet ?

Saturday, March 23rd, 2024, 05: 40 PM

Pfff. Light wind coming from behind. Perfect conditions for our downwind sails. If only we could launch them. And we still can’t for lack of suspension. So, we keep on plodding on with the standard setup. Then suddenly, we catch ourselves a shiny small tuna, only to realize it is nothing but a skipjack. Immediately, I find the smell off-putting, and the meat alarmingly dark. When we search the internet for recipes, this is what we find: “either can it or serve it to your pet. “Neither of these options are within our reach.

Freshly made pancakes for breakfast with eggs we brought with us from Ensenada already 26 days ago and which we kept out of the fridge all this time. We’d read about coating them in Vaseline to keep the tropical air from penetrating the protective shell and turning them every two to three days to prevent the yolk from sticking to the inside shell. So that is what we did, and it has worked amazingly well. After breakfast, My Captain baited the fishhook with some skipjack, yet we doubt that our slow boat to Hiva Oa will attract the attention of the swiftly moving predator fish we aim to catch.

WE THOUGHT WRONG. ZZZZZZZ goes the line, until two thirds of it are gone into the ocean at a speed so high that the reel is too hot to handle, quite literally. When My Captain finally manages to stop it from unwinding, the fishing line quivers under tension like a guitar string that is about to snap. The fishing rod itself bends under the immense strain, not unlike My Captain. This lively reenactment of an episode out of The Old Man and the Sea plays out for an hour and forty minutes to be exact. Then, abruptly, the fish changes direction, the line vanishes beneath our keel and moments later, all tension is gone. When I see the despair in My Captain’s eye, I wisely retreat to my private quarters so to give him some space to process this major setback. Afterwards, he consoles himself with the fact that the fish would have been too big for us anyway. My main frustration is the realization that now we will never know what kind of sea monster got away.