Gone fishin', again...

Sharks!

No, not really... but even though you know the yell is a joke, you head quickly for the boat. Swimming on the surface in the middle of the Pacific with no land in sight you tend to be respectful of sharks. There are large pelagic ones around, and you do realize that you probably look a lot like a pod of injured sea lions...

The reason that we where swimming in the middle of the ocean yesterday was another fishing trip to Hunter's Bank sea mount. This time the weather was perfect - calm seas all day.

After all three of the cats had greeted us farewell and good fishing, the journey started with a stunning starfilled night sky. The kind that you only see in places lacking air pollution. Half an hour later, the sun began it's ascent over the Pacific. This was probably only the third sunrise I have seen in Yap, and it was the best one so far.

Soon after sunrise, the fish started biting. We caught quite a few medium sized yellowfin tunas and lots of small skipjacks during the following hours.


After cruising the west side of Hunter's until noon we shut down the engines and had a traditional yapese treat - taro and spam. The taro tastes like many other roots - not much at all, that is. So it is understandable how salty meat has caught on to complement it. Personally I preferred it with the corned beef that was also served though.

And, after lunch, we took a swim in the ocean. It was actually really nice. The seamount is between 50 and a 100 meters below, making the water look azure blue. But, yes - I do personally like to be real careful when swimming on the surface in the open sea. It is a completely different thing from diving with reef sharks, which I love to do. I have met pelagic sharks in similar situations before and while those ones worked out fine, they did instill a lot of respect in me.

During the afternoon, the rest of the crew kept catching yellowfins and skipjacks, as well as a few barracuda, rainbow runners and wahoos. Me - as I don't really fish, just tag along to get out on the sea - I had time to read John Scalzi's first novel Old Mans War.

I had really looked forward to this novel. I had heard so many good things about it, from people I usually agree with. And yes - it was good, if you are into the Robert Heinlein vein of science fiction. Which I am. It was just not THAT good. A case of too high expectations, I guess. If mine had been a bit lower, I would have loved it. Now... I still liked it and will probably read the next two installments in the trilogy, but not before having read quite a few other books on my wish list.

Eventually, books had been read, fish had been caught, beer had been drunk. So we headed back home.

Back in Yap, we where welcomed by the three cats, blessed with a sunset to rival the sunrise, had a delicious wahoo sashimi and then eventually called it a (good) day.

Today I am having a bit of a cold though... probably the flue that has been going around lately.

And yes - more photos over on Flickr, as well as a Google Earth log of the trip.