Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure
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Got to the Islands, which was epic. Took 3 hours to averaged about 30kph, topping out at about 55kph. Took one very large wave, which slammed the 3 of our back in our seats, the volume of water that came onto the boat was unreal. But the boat took it in its stead.
Yesterday we had Mahi Mahi, Giant Trevally, Black Tip Trevally, Bonito and Queenfish. Szymon got best fish honours with this nice GT of about 30-40kg...
"OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011
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@Giles oh my !
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@Giles Ho Lee Scheiße
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@jordanscollected said in Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure:
@Giles Great catch Szymon! Does your fishing trip support locals like trips past, or is this just sport fishing?
Have you gotten to/had to fish off shore too or has the weather allowed you to use the boat?
Not in the same way as Morocco, but Omanis don't really work, at least not in menial jobs (which includes hospitality, guiding etc etc), but we are helping give lots of people from Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Tunisia etc paiod employment.
Not fished from the shore yet, out on the boat. The wind gets up as the week progresses, so may get some shore time in.
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Today. Too many Mahi Mahi and Bonito to count (I had a 12 pound Bonito), and a few Queenies, all on light tackle. Mahi Mahi for dinner.
Raised 12 GT's on one drift, but they were coming up short, so made contact with none
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@Giles do you guys drift socks to slow down or is it better to just roll with the waves?
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So, it has been tough fishing. The GT’s (primary target species), were just not playing ball. We had a few hits between us (probably about 30), but the fish were very nervous and coming up short, the only one of us to land a few was Szymon.
We had amazing sport on light tackle and caught lots and lots of lots of different species.
Have booked for next year, a month earlier when the weather will be more settled.
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Saw a lot of Halanyat, it’s a brutal place. Hot, arid and barren. Lots of civil engineering going on, it’s mainly government and military as they try and get on top of people, gun and drug smuggling, Yemen and Somalia being the active in all 3.
Most peoples idea of a desert island will not be this
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I thought I may be able to get away without antifouling UKIYO, just dive her a couple of times a year and get the growth of with an abrasive sponge.
WRONG
The weed growth is ridiculous.
So I pulled her out today and started the ultra-shit job of wet and drying the hull, then applying primer and antfoul.
I managed one coat of primer today before my body said - fuck that.
As I said to @goosehd earlier, funny that today, I suddenly had no friends
I also got the "2 MESSY" logo off, so I can apply the UKIYO one.
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Up at Sparrow's and got a 2nd coat of primer on early doors. Then managed do 2 coats of antifoul, weather was complicit. Will lift her off the blocks tomorrow morning and touch up the bits that I could not get to (where the blocks and jacks are holding her upright), then back into the water in time to catch a flight to Hamburg (for Bremen) on Thursday.
I am very pleased, but ache like crap from groveling around in gravel for 2 days
And the 2Messy decal has been removed, will try and get UKIYO decal applied before she gets put back in the water.
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I may have mentioned. UKIYO has a rubbish manual windscreen wiper. To drive, I need one hand on the steering wheel and one on the throttle, that leaves me with nothing spare to dick around with a wiper blade. And of course, the more spray on the windscreen, the worse the conditions, the more I need 2 hands to drive the boat...
So I'm fitting an electric wiper. I've never fitted one before and there are a lot of unknowns and variables. So, I rigged up a ply windscreen and did a test install in the garden, I had a 12volt lawnmower battery lying around, so that provided me with the DC. I'm glad I did, there were a number of issues to resolve, which would have been another level of pain, doing it on the boat.
Not least of which is that I installed the motor upside down, took me ages, and a lot of cursing (of the Dutch), to work out why the blade was parking on the left when it should have been parking on the right
