An Indian war dance on deck!
A FEW days ago, February 22 to be exact, I was stood on the beach on the southwest corner of Mauritius in front of the boathouse at Les Pavilions Hotel anxiously looking up the coast and to the seaward side of the reef, looking for the sparkling white hull of one of the most famous Deep Sea Big Game Fishing boats on the face of the oceans, the Mouna 11.
And there she was, too big to come in through the gap in the reef as the other boats can so it was up to Jeremy (a great guy in charge of the boathouse and watersports, also a very keen deep sea angler) to zip me off by speedboat, out into the swell of the Indian Ocean and to transfer me on to the Mouna 11.
This was it, the end of three years' patient wait. Welcoming me on board was the captain, Berty and his crew, Christian, two of the most respected guys in the sport and famed across the world.
Berty was quick to tell me that he had been at the helm for thirteen years and that it had been seven days a week for all these years and not a single day off and that he and Christian lived for every morning and casting off for another adventure.
In the first week they had had three Marlin, two Sailfish and several Dorado and Tuna.
Trailing seven big lures behind we set off in a northerly direction, quite the opposite to all the other boats in the area and we soon lost them from view.
We were cruising around six miles off the west coast and sailing in the direction of the capital, Port Louis, and for the first hour we cruised on a near flat calm, weaving right to left at a steady seven knots and then on the stroke of ten o'clock a reel sang and line was being stripped at incredible speed.
Berty grabbed the rod, I dived for the fighting seat and Christian started to tie me in. Berty screamed " Did you see that? " No I said. The fish had jumped and he said it was over two hundred pounds. He moved towards me and handed the but of the rod into my right hand… I am assured his next word was very bad language, but the fish was off and that was that.
Off we set again and we did not have to wait long, the big rod in the middle of the boat bent and its giant Penn International reel screamed at amazing rate, the fish was running straight away from us over the stern and Berty was having great problems with the speed and the distance between boat and fish.
Meantime, I was going through the procedure again but before I was strapped in this fish also was gone.
What followed was as near to an Indian war dance as I have ever witnessed the two guys jumping around the deck.
Swearing in Creole I am assured, I would have joined in but I was buckled to the seat and had just to sit there and watch and swear in broad Scots.
More in two weeks.
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Weather for Brechin
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 25 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 3 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South west
