We woke early to pick up our neighbor, Josh, for a fishing trip around the point of southern Tahuata. As we headed to the point a squall with 35 knot winds forced us to stay on the lee of the island. We trolled around seeing an amazing amount of birds and fish jumping out of the water, but no fish would bite. The morale was low but Wade decided to give the point one more try a little closer to the island to protect us from the large squall swell. Josh and Sara were about to dose off when Josh sparked awake after spotting a swarm of birds. Wade headed for them and the excitement started to build. As we made our first pass through the birds both hand lines started to dance. One hand line stopped because the cedar plug lure broke making this our third cedar plug we have lost. The fish on the Black Barts double hook lure stayed on. Josh jumped quickly and put on the leather gloves to pull the fish in, as the fish got close to the boat Wade used a gaff to pull up a 40 lbs yellow-fin tuna. We poured rum in the fish gills and Wade quickly got the lure back out to catch another.
Josh gave us a hand line, that was given to him in Mexico, made from cord and has a two eye budgie allowing for some stretch in the cord. We reloaded the new hand line with another Black Barts double hook lure as we prepared for our second pass through the birds. Sara started the camera and within three minutes the new hand line had another 45 lbs tuna on the line. After getting the tuna onboard we gave the fish a shot in the gills with rum, but this tuna had a lot of fight and flopped rapidly making such a bloody mess you’d think we were on a Dexter set.
Wade filet the fish as Josh steered the boat, and Sara prepared the fish for canning. Josh announced the autopilot was having troubles as we approached his boat. After dropping him off we reset our chart plotter settings and tried reconnecting the autopilot, but we continue to receive the same “No Navigation Data” error. For our friends new to sailing this means that we have basically lost a crew member. We benefit from our autopilot because when we are solo sail at night our autopilot is steering while we change sails. Tomorrow with a clear head we’ll take another look and investigate.
We arrived at Hanamoenoa Bay and anchored in the most northern anchorage. We were preparing our Marquesas Poisson Cru and realized our green papaya had turned bad. Wade jumped in the dinghy and went to shore to talk to the folks fishing on the beach to trade tuna hunks for green papaya. We were very surprised because the locals were extremely not welcoming and did not want us to come to shore at all.
Sara prepared Hawaiian Poke, Marquesas Poisson Cru (minus papaya), and dragon rolls (avocado on top of a tuna roll) for our taste of tuna dinner. We have decided to stay up until all of the tuna is canned.
Cheers,
Wade and Sara
Boat Position At Noon: 09 degrees 54.455 minutes south and 139 degrees 06.318 minutes west.
