Off the hook

It's not everyday you have to collect a fishing lure from the spinning wind generator while underway. A large barracuda made sure to get released by jumping around and desperately pulling the line several times. His last jump was so powerful that the whole line snapped off and got tangled in the AeroGen. That fish was just not meant to get caught.. /T

Last nights catch

And indeed also last nights dinner.. Sunset and sunrise are the best times of the day to get fish, as I've learnt from my fisherman. Yesterday Alex caught three barracudas in the short period of 40 minutes. The two first ones were too big and I asked him to let them go (greater risk of having to encounter ciguatera, remember?), while the last one was this tiny little baby barracuda, perfect in size for a dinner for us two. Was delicious with garlic and coriander gravy served with oven roasted potatoes. Sorry no picture taken of the meal as the light went out of this place. Here's instead one barracuda meal I made one summer in Sardinia, Italy, if you remember? /T

By the way, we have just edited "our route" post, check it out here.

Fish of the day

We let him swim back into the sea though. Not too interested in eating too big predators from these waters. It's a big tuna we want! Long time since we had some proper home made sushi now. I know that many have asked about how I prepare sushi on the boat and I promise to show it to you next time my man catch a tunny. We'll have plenty of time to fish now in the next couple of weeks when cruising between these lovely islands.

Ginger and wasabi are purchased, now it's only a tuna that's missing! /T

Fish of the day

Since there are a lot of fish contaminated by ciguatoxin in these waters, I feel relieved when it is a tuna Alex picks up from the sea and not a meter long Barracuda. Tunas are not suspected to carry the toxin which originally comes from smaller reef fish who eats from certain corals, algae and seaweed who in turn are eaten by larger fish and the larger a predator, the greater are the chance for humans to encounter the deadly illness, ciguatera. We got one large Barracuda the other day and that one had to go straight back into the ocean, while this little black-fin tuna was perfect for one sushi dinner and grilled on the next day. I had almost forgot how good it tastes with fresh home made sushi - haven't had it since we left the waters of Morocco.

P.S: Thank you all for your emails and comments regarding my last post. What would I do without you guys?? /T

Fish of the day

What do we got here today guys? Look at his pouty little mouth, very characteristic. /T

Colorful catch

We went out fishing the other day. First we had an about 2 meter long Sailfish biting off the line, then Alex picked up this exceptionally large Dorado or Dolphin fish or Mahi Mahi or whatever you prefer to call this beauty of the ocean. It measured 135 cm (4.4 feet) and he was a great fighter, took about 30 minutes to work it up on deck. /T

Hello gorgeous

Alex have caught so much fish during our life aboard that tuna, barracuda, dolphin fish (Mahi Mahi) and amberjack starts to feel a bit boring. More interesting it is when he pulls up random fishes with a new type of look, like this little bastard. But what is this? I know we have quite a few bird experts reading our blog who've helped us identify a couple of flying creatures in the past, might be we have some fish specialists here as well. So. What do we got here today? /T

28 kilos (60 pounds)

Sorry for the bad photo quality.. This was the greatest tuna we caught, so far. Almost 30 freaking kilos it weight and filled up our fridge in a second. The funny thing was that Alex reeled this thing up with our thinnest rod and the smallest Rapala on 7 cm (2,7 inch) and he worked on it for around 40 minutes. Still I don't understand how the hell he got it up.. Nice one. /T

My hunter

Alex got a new toy the other day. He declared to me that he will get us some BIG, big fishes, just by shooting them and grabbing them by hand. So I took my seat on the deck, I excitingly watched him swim around our boat, dreamed of what gorgeous dinner I could prepare with his harpoon caught fish. Maybe another Barracuda?! After some thirty minutes he showed up from the water, he seemed excited and made me understand he caught something! He pulled up the arrow and... the fish he pulled up was .. this one! Ha! Oh my wonderful baby love, that was the greatest fish I've ever seen. Not perfectly enough for dinner though, but big enough to give us a good laugh. And big enough to use for catching other ones. Lets try this out in other waters where the big fish hang around, very soon. /Taru

This is how we do it

This one is for Baydog. He's been asking for more tuna:

Choosing Rapala.. (we picked the red one)

There's something BIG on the hook... reeling in.

A 16 kilo's tuna!

Tada! Lunch, anyone? Fresh sushi and a sesam seared tuna steak. Oh madre mia, how delicious it was.

Barracuda fishing in Sardinia

So we arrived safely. It was a harch night, the first one underway towards this Italian island, let me tell you. We were well prepared for the strong North wind with gusts to 30 knots but we we're not expecting to get stuck in the middle of a thunder storm and the most intensive lightning show we've ever seen. It is kind of magical to see the lightning strick around you on every and each side and just having to sit there and wait for them to hit your mast, but they didn't, obviously.

We got a peaceful sleep in Porto Conte and headed up North this morning. This is the beautiful Barracuda we got today, just before arriving to Porto Mannu where we just anchored up for the night. Can't wait to have it cooked on the barbecue tonight.

Ibiza

Hi there, we've just arrived in the land of madness! Late after the original plan, but right in time for a friends birthday celebration on Cocoon later tonight. And this is the catch of today. This beast woke us up seven in the morning and right now we're just about to prepare a tuna feast for our friends on the boat in the harbor of Ibiza. Talk to you later.

Big fishing

This is a part of the big tuna we cought on our last passage between Mallorca and Barcelona. Weight around 12 kilos (26 pounds). The Shimano Tiagra 50W LRSA 2-Speed Reel works perfectly with fish in this size and bigger and it's a real pleasure to work with./A

Costa Brava some weeks ago

It's a pretty small area of the coast we're hanging around in at the moment. From Sitges a bit South West of Barcelona and along the Costa Brava coast up North. That's the area you see in the box around Barcelona.

Some weeks ago, we left our marina again for some quiet sailing up North along the coast. We decided to find an even better creek to set anchor, for a peaceful weekend in the nature. As you can see we had a really smooth and comfortable ride up, but on the way back we had to face conditions which made the regular ten hour trip to more than the double and forced us to a couple of stops along the way.

Anyway, the sail up was smooth and wonderful. At some points, the wind died out completely and we had a perfectly sunny day and plenty of time to fish.

We were hoping to get some of those big tunas we told you about but none of them in sight.

Only a couple of small mackerel's and bonito's which were good enough of course. Here one with coriander, lemon, garlic and spring onion, served with grilled potatoes.

In action.

We found a nice creek after Tossa, just in time for the sunset. We were totally left alone in this beauty of the nature, no other boats in sight for the whole stay.

So we anchored the boat, pumped up the dinghy and went out to explore the surroundings.

Beautiful rocks.

I can not in any way tell you how the sunset looked like, as these pictures doesn't give a fair expression, but it appeared like a dream... the last beams of sun covered parts of the mountains in a theatrical way before they disappeared behind the hills. Breathtaking. And the simple moment was so quiet and peaceful. Like a dream.

We paddled further in our small creek to the other side where we discovered some caves..

Inside. Beautiful colors.

Then back to Caos..

Where we ended the night with a cheap but nice bottle of wine.

Early morning and time to go home. This is what we got on the hook just before we left.

When we checked the forecast that morning, they announced wind south-east, wind force: 1-2, but the reality was more like south west 5-6. Crazy ride back and forth. We got seriously exhausted by the 20-23 knots of wind in our face for twelve hours, the 1,5 meter high waves and all that tacking back and forth so we decided to stay over night in Arenys de Mar. Which was pretty nice as well but made us miss one day of work at home. Thank God we're both self employed and able to schedule our days pretty much like we want.

If someone wonders how our home looks like from the inside, in conditions like that. Everything-up-side-down, would maybe be a fair description.

The wind was pretty humble the day after so I took the opportunity to work an hour or so on the way back home from Arenys de Mar... Thank God for the wireless dongle.. Over all it was a very beautiful and peaceful weekend, exactly what is needed after a stressful week of work. /T