End of Day 3, June 30
Midnight, 06:00 UTC
pos 15deg57.4S, 177deg06.9w
155 miles to Laucala Island, our Fiji landfall.
Today the story goes like this:
Its 5pm, about 10 miles from Zephyr Reef, 4 handlines and a rod, for 5 lines total. One silver spoon, one yellow welsh plug, one pink skirt, one small white and grey rapala and one giant orange marlin teazer (skirt). A motley collection of leftovers. 5 Tuna strike, all at once. The 300 pound mono line with the pink skirt snaps. A big tuna, a 4o pounder on the marlin skirt, is first on board. Both Kahlil and I on the gaff to get it on. A blood bath commences on the aftdeck. The next one, a 20 pounder on the spoon, I release. Then we pull in the one on the welsh plug, a 30 pounder, followed about 20 minutes after it all started, by reeling in another 30 pounder on the rod. That's what they call a full rack or full house strike. The back of shimmi looks like a crime scene. And the evening meal? A mountain of sashimi. The freezer is stacked to the brim with big chunks of yellow fin tuna. What a party! What a way to break a bit of a dry spell in the fishing dept. Moral of the story? Yellow fin eat anything.
We have been motoring, motoring. No wind, calm sea, three quarter moon, beautiful evening. We may stop and scout out the area around Qumea Island and Veitalacagi Point over the weekend, and then go to Savusavu on Monday. If you go to 16deg49.04S, 179deg46.10W on google earth's co-ords, you should be on a narrow sandbank on the inner rim of the outer reef. See if you can find the potential surf spots. Kahlil previously found three potentials on google earth, all within 1 mile of each other. We have heard from no-one else about surf here, so this could be a true bit of "modern" surf exploration.
Cheers
G
