What a lovely adventurous weekend! While NZ mum’s snuggled in front of the fire, I went to sea in a tiny boat, soaked by rain squalls, rocked by 5m swells and harassed by sharks. Ah, such a flair for the dramatic, but not a word of exaggeration!
The first fishing competition of the Aitutaki Game Fishing Club since February’s hurricane was held on Saturday, delayed by a week due to the island running out of fuel again… The weather has been typical for April & May with 4 out of 7 days of heavy rain. Enough rain that the children and I have started building dams on the driveway to divert water runoff from the road and hillside from our front yard. However we paddled with our vaka crews on the lagoon in a beautiful sunset on Friday evening and the stars were bright that night – all good signs for a fine Saturday.
I had made arrangements with Willie Bond (brother-in-law of our head housekeeper) to join his crew Tautu wharf at 6am. The stars were still bright when I left home but there were silent lightening flashes far to the north. I met Joe and Etu with the boat (a solid aluminum open boat, 2m wide and 7m long) at the jetty and we took off with the first hint of daylight across the lagoon around the coral heads to the very small passage at Papau motu. As the tide receded there was quite a current at the passage, which incidentally is small enough not to feature as a passage on any maps I have seen. Having convinced myself that these guys had used the passage many times before, I held on tight and we gunned it though. Well, so far, so exciting! We had a good head-start on the fishing grounds of the Eastern side.
We had lines in straight away and trolled to the FAD (fish aggregation device) that Etu explained would usually have flags to mark it, but that pesky lack of petrol had prevented boats from going out. Nothing was biting at the FAD but the flying fish were incredible to watch as the skated then flew across the glassy surface of the swells. The water surface was turned pink by the sun rising in a small patch of clear sky, surrounded by dark bands of cloud (absent the previous lightening flashes, I was relieved to see). We trolled south along the reef without a strike for half and hour before the rain started to fall. The surf was huge against the reef and it was quite beautiful to watch the smooth backs of the swells as they rose steeply revealing turquoise at the crest before collapsing into boiling mess of white. At this point we heard a single loud clap of thunder over the island, which we later found out, struck the sea directly off the resort where some of the other fishing boats were. We motored 10km down to the South-Eastern corner of the reef, off Motukitiu, also known as Shark Alley. 
At last we had a triple strike, and in the now pouring rain, and rolling around in steep 4-5 meter swells from 3 directions, the guys hauled in while I kept the boat straight. It was too rough for me to hold my footing with a rod in hand so I was happy for the guys to go at it. From that strike we landed one 6kg yellow fin tuna and lost two more to the sharks, evidenced by a clean cut in the line and all sign of fish and trace gone. We patrolled the southern corner and again had a triple strike. By this time the rain was torrential and as we turned to the rods the reef and the motu (island) slipped from view. The squall got heavier and as my line was immediately severed by a shark I was able to wind it in while Willie peered through the gloom for the surf and Joe & Etu hauled in only to loose their fish too. There followed an anxious 5-10 minutes in the driving wind and rain motoring slowly along what we thought was the position of the reef, rolling over the heaving swells. Eight eyes strained to see either reef or land and eight ears were open for the sound of surf crashing. Because of the mixed up seas it was very disorienting (for me anyway), but low and behold eventually the motu appeared like a shadow safely off the port bow and we could set the rods again.
The rain let up a little for the next hour to a heavy drizzle. We got a single strike that Etu started to bring in. It was soon apparent that we would be there for a while as the line had gone straight to the bottom – at least 800m away. After 5 minutes on the rod, Joe took over and a harness came out. After 5 minutes of that Etu put on some gloves and started pulling the line in hand over hand while Joe reeled in. As I stood in the bow out of the way Willie jockeyed the boat forward and backward and even in a circle around the line. He looked to me. “Either a big tuna or a big shark” he commented. “Better to be a big tuna” he followed up with his ever present grin. After nearly 30 minutes of tossing and toil, there was a flash of big white belly. “Big shark” said Willie in disappointment.
It came to the surface thrashing about and revealed itself to be nearly 2.5m long. Etu took the long spike and delivered a stab between the eyes and the shark bashed the side of the boat with its tail. After several more blows they were able to put a rope around its tail, haul it a little over the side of the boat, and they proceeded to cut the tail off. Still hooked up, the shark bled out in the water and I waited for the rest of his friends to arrive in numbers. They didn’t, and it looked like it was a good way to make sure the shark was dead enough to bring on board. I have to say that I was in two minds at this point as to whether that was a good idea or not. My ego was pretty keen on rolling up to the weigh-in with such a prize winning beast in the truck (around 100kg), but the mechanics of getting the shark to the wharf were a bit more problematic. Even if we were strong enough to get the thing into the boat, in these seas it would be a dangerous proposition. That is assuming that it was dead enough not to want to take bite out of a leg while sharing our small amount of deck space.
So after retrieving the lure, the shark was set adrift, hopefully to feed his friends so they wouldn’t be so hungry for our fish.
The rain had become a relentless nuisance, and it was getting cold, so the skipper decided to start for home. On the troll back we landed a 7kg barracuda. We gunned it back through the passage and to the wharf. Sopping wet, we drove to town and weighed our two fish in. Most boats were still out and the day was finally clearing. Willie decided to go back out but I declined his invitation to join them in favour of a hot shower, lunch and a nap!
When we met that night for prize-giving, I was amazed to hear that they had gone out 7km from the island in the afternoon and caught another 55kg of fish, including the biggest tuna at 15kg. In the end we lost out by half a kilo on the aggregate catch weight, but everyone was impressed by the shark photos that I had printed out and taken with me. We should have bought the shark tail in – it might have been the extra 500gm we needed!
Mothers Day was lovely, with breakfast in bed and dinner and a movie with the family. Nice.
