Blackened, Boozed, and Raw

So at some point during all of this fishing, we got hungry. Actually, I was having so much fun that if our guide didn't ask to stop for lunch, I probably wouldn't have missed it. While we had lunches packed every day, we didn't necessarily eat it each day. Just because we were some 6,000 miles away from home in the middle of the Pacific ocean, it doesn't mean we didn't have some of our familiar comfort foods with us. Take for example this can of Coke. Is it really "the real thing" or not - you be the judge.

So one might ask what one does with all of this fresh Yellowfin tuna swimming around you and nobody else but you in sight to catch them. Well, the simplest thing to do is drag one on board, lay it on its side, cut a nice juicy loin out of its flank, and prepare some fine Sashimi - old school style. We had fresh Sashimi for lunch and/or brunch several days, and boy was it good. I eat Sushi about once a week at Ooka in Doylestown and have tried Sushi and Sashimi at some fine Japanese restaurants in downtown Philadelphia, but I've never tasted Ahi this good in all my years of eating it. It actually had a very clean citrus-like flavor to it, with little or no odor or strong taste to the palate. It was more like "soft" as I would describe it. It also didn't leave any aftertaste. It was really interesting watching Michael prepare the Sashimi dish. Michael had brought some of his own personal Wasabi and Soy sauce on the boat. With lack of containers for the sauces, Michael would take a coconut and proceed to strike it evenly all the way around with a large thick stick (this was the billy we used to put the lights out on the tuna), and then break it in half, making two primitive bowls for use.



This video is my first attempt at video from my Olympus digicam, so I accidentally shot it at low resolution - it's still OK though. This shows the entire process of turning a Yellowfin into Sashimi and also shows Ken and I chowing down on some.

Coconuts, being the predominant vegetation on the island, also made for a natural high-energy drink. Michael would prepare them for us and then stick them in the cooler. There's actually like a more than a pint of milk in these things - I was surprised. If you don't finish the whole thing at one sitting, Michael cuts the cone-shaped stalk protruding from the bottom of the nut and it makes a natural cork for the hole on top of the nut. The cork works surprisingly well - I turned my nut over and the milk didn't leak out.


One afternoon, we set about to find some Giant Trevally after a day of Bonefishing the flats. Michael took us to a deep channel that connected two large areas of flats. This channel had a very strong current and was very deep. Apparently, the most effective technique to fish this channel was to chum it, so Ken and I were commissioned with our Bonefish rods and flies to catch enough small saltwater Perch to make a chum slick with. As we were catching them, Michael brought them over to Russ, who apparently started a fire in the scrub brush. It turned out that he was cooking the Perch that we were going to chum with. We thought that was rather odd, so Ken asked and why. Apparently they do it because it releases a lot more odor into the water, or more precisely, a stronger odor. So I get this one Perch on the end of my line - and just to put some perspective on this, they're about the size of a very small Bluegill; the next thing you know it runs under the coral shelf overhang that we were standing on top of and all of the sudden my 8wt starts to bend in half. I yell out to Ken - "yo man, these things fight like hell". I don't think Ken was looking at my rod when I said that and he said - "yeah, I was surprised too". I was like "no man, this is crazy - there's no way this fish is fighting like this". That's when Michael comes jogging back from delivering more Perch to Russ and yells - "Grouper!". It was then that I realized that I dropped the hook from the Perch and a Grouper that was hiding under the shelf picked it up - all within a very short period of time. So what turns up is a nice size Grouper. Michael takes it and gives it to Russ. I thought - maybe they're going to make more chum with it. That was not the case and they actually cooked it for us to eat, by wrapping it in broad leaves found on the small island we pulled off on and blackening it over the fire. The following video is of Michael preparing the Grouper after it had been blackened and serving it to us for a late afternoon snack. It was quite tasty I must say.



Long story short, we didn't find any GT there, but there were so many birds that I kept lining them or hooking them with the fly rod on both back and forward casts. Most of the birds at this spot were Frigate birds, and there are tons of them there. It was like a scene out of a Hitchcock movie. I found that normally when I would line one on the forward cast; the line would drop over the bird's shoulders and would start to drop from the weight of the fly line, so I tried using the same technique you would use to throw a loop through a garden hose and flip it over something - it worked like a charm. At one point, and as you can see from the photo, I began to think the birds were attacking Ken. I turned to see him ducking right and left like a boxer. It looked like the birds were working Ken ;-)

Back at the ranch, there were some other interesting foods, or should I say beverages. The beer isn't bad, but definitely different than anything I've ever tasted. The choice in beer was limited - they only had one on the island. It's an Aussie bitter called XXXX, and yes, as I can attest, that does imply its alcohol content. These were not cheap, and we had to pay our host for them - it was an honor system. These go down dangerously smooth in this type of environment. There was no liquor on the island, period. If you wanted it, you had to bring it, so Ken and I smuggled a fifth of good Rum. Unfortunately, fresh juices are tough to come by on the island, so we ended up mixing the Rum with this orange drink stuff that kinda tasted like Tang. It was quite good.

One funny thing that happened on the island was finding out what made the thumping noises we heard all night long. One morning really early and before sunrise, we were both standing in the room and heard the thump again. Ken looks at me and says - "I know what that is now, follow me". So I follow him outside and he starts walking around all the coconut trees in the dim light, then he walk behind one and picks a coconut off of the sand and says - "this is what is making that noise". I said "no way man", and just as I said that, one landed right next to us - thump!