Saturday 17 November 2012

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs ...


…. go fishing, preferably with a bunch of caustic, piss taking old bastards.  The kind of mates who will spot an open festering wound, stick their fingers in it, wiggle them around a bit and ask you if it hurts.  Nothing like a bit of non-sympathy to get you back on the plane.

So early yesterday morning we pulled out of the Barro de Kwanza at about twenty knots and headed west.   The sea was rough and as leaden as the sky.  A few squalls saw us all wet through and wondering what sort of day it would be.

Well, it turned out bloody fantastic.

It wasn’t just the company, it wasn’t just the fishing; see below, I was not the only one to haul in a few prize specimens (it is a big video file so if you are bored with seeing fish jumping on the end of a line, don’t bother).  It was everything else.



We saw Dolphins running along side the boat.  We saw flying fish.  We saw turtles.  And then for the first time ever in my life, I saw whales.  A mother and her calf.  Whales are big.  If you are in a twenty eight foot plastic tub in the Atlantic ocean they are absolutely bloody massive.  I am sure that there are plenty of Japanese and Norwegian whalers who are quite blasé about such a sight but I was dumb struck.


It was just the sort of break I needed.

7 comments:

  1. Sounds great. Though have visions of Pinocchio and his grandfather sitting inside that whale. Which reminds me, apropos of nothing: Do you you read/tell your son(s) stories in German?

    As mentioned before I used to go angling with my grandfather (lake/river) when barely older than your Alex. Happy times. Taught me all there is to know about early mornings, catching the worm, patience, being happily silent in company, and reeling in the fish.

    It was such paradise that all my adult life (since my grandfather died) I have never been back to that idyll. There were two farms (when you still knew each cow by their name) on one side of the lake, and deep dense damp forest on the other (good for mushrooms in autumn and moss for Easter). What would I find now going back there? I don't know. And I don't want to know. Some things best locked away in memory.

    So, yes, happy for you to find some respite. And lucky you who can still marvel at nature's wonders.

    One could, of course, paint a scenario from the caught fish's point of view. Who am I to bring down the mood? All I know, by way of comfort to fish, freshly caught jumping out of my grandmother's frying pan they found their happy destiny not only in my stomach but all those around the table.

    Tom, as epitaphs go that can't be bad. Mind you, what I never quite understood how carps, being 'Gruendlers', got pride of place at Christmas. All fish will fight once hooked but you have to hand it to carps: They will fight to the death. As to the fisherman: Give a little, real a little, give a bit more. Real. Gently does it.

    U

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  2. Christ - that's one helluva an ugly fish you caught! It would have scared the shit out of any passing mermaids.

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  3. Ursula

    I should read some stories to him in German. I have a load of German children's programmes for him on DVD but that is being a bit lazy, isn't it?

    Sir Pud

    They taste great though!

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  4. Bet your arms and back are sore this morning!

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  5. Wow, if that's the size of the one you caught, i can't imagine the ones that got away!

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  6. Mr Delaney

    You wouldn't chuckle!

    Megan

    In a previous incarnation I was a salesman. Nothing got away!

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