Sailing Holidays | New Zealand and South Pacific Sailing Adventure

The Old Man and the Sea .... sorta

New Zealand, the Hauraki Gulf . A less than auspicious start to the voyage was our first fishing demonstration ...

Ever the optimists the Soren crew had lines and lures out soon after sailing round North Head and this despite having caught less fish in 6 months voyaging across the Pacific than the bloke in the tinnie minding his snapper hole by the Harbour Bridge. (Since we had Eric-the-Fisheman as Mate this was attributed at the time to the pillage of the Chinese long liners ).

Although the blues skies and sunshine was momentarily preventing Jarren from wearing his Cap'n Birdeye souwester he was tickled to be pulling in the line within the hour with a first catch. The unfortunate fish had swallowed the first hook of the 2-hook lure and was being landed amidships ('it was That Big!') . Matt and Jarren decided it looked a bit manky and should be tossed back and were both carrying the inert thing to stern when it stopped playing dead and made that last ditch flap for freedom that dying fish do when they realise things have gone seriously wrong.

It successfully caught the Captain by surprise and embedded the second hook into Matt's left hand. Being stabbed with a 2 inch barbed hook is painful enough without a panicking fish dancing around on the end of it.. The Engineer held it down, the Purser rushed to help, the First Mate was called, the Second Mate ran aft, the voyage crew crowded round the see the fish we'd caught. "Set some more squares" Matt said Maho through gritted teeth as the rest if the afterguard wrestled the fish below to the chartroom.

Its meant to be a simple procedure to cut the hook at its shank and slide the barb round and out through an incision. Out came the first aid box, pliers, wire cutters, scalpel, bolt cutters, spew bucket... Jarren had a few goes stabbing away with the knife before admitting that someone else should try as he hadn't got his glasses. It was a scene reminiscent not so much of Trafalgar as of the time that Dave W. had arrived aboard as deckhand and Nick and Sal Anderson had to use the engine room piers to wrestle out his facial piercings that had just failed type-approval from Tony. Eventually the hook was removed, the fish thrown back and the Engineer claimed two catches in one..

As Ian was delivering Roy to the ship it made sense to take Matt ashore get a lift to the medical clinic for a tetanus top up, as the fishing gear had been kept in the not quite sterile conditions in the battery box for the last two years. "Don't mention being attacked by a fish, they'll put up our ACC rating.." said Ian helpfully at the clinic.

In a that wonderful one degree of separation we have in NZ, the cheerful nurse happened to be married to Colin Brown, one of the lead shipwrights on our Big Wave refit ..

By the time the wounded skipper had returned to his ship, any residual sympathy had been forgotten and dinner was underway.

They didn't catch another fish that trip....

Ian H.