It’s true – this weekend I hooked FIVE salmon and only got one in the boat, and that one was tiny so I just lifted it in. That makes 6 salmon in total hooked and 1 boated, meaning I’m batting at a 18% average. If this was a baseball team I’d be fired (note: I don’t really know anything about baseball so that statement may not make sense)
But before that, I spent the week doing a couple of boat tasks, now my ankle has healed enough for me to move around relatively pain free (with a brace) it was time to try to catch up on stuff.
Firstly, I reattached the teak handrails to the deck. Yes, the same ones I took off 9 months ago. Yes, I am a terrible procrastinator. They are getting a bit knarly so I think I need to replace them with SS ones, that could double as jack lines. Also need to through-bolt them instead of just screwing them into the deck (as they currently are)
Next, I filled up my outboard tank with a view to taking a crack at getting it working. Sadly, I came home the next day and found that it had expanded in the sun and forced a small crack in the container – spilling petrol everywhere. Ugh. I got another smaller container, and siphoned the petrol into it, and gave the excess to my neighbour.
The new gas tank had a different connector on it, so I had to swap out the end
What’s interesting is how much I dislike the smell of petrol compared to diesel. Maybe it’s just fear of everything going up in a huge fireball!
Other thing I did was adjust the rudder stuffing box downwards in an attempt to FINALLY stop the leak underway.
Then came the weekend, and salmon fishing!
Saturday I went out with my friend Josh and it was a scorcher, almost 30c and bright sunshine. I had a hit literally 10 seconds after putting line in, got it to surface, where it escaped. Then we caught a tiny one which went back, although not before taking a picture of my first ever boat catch
My beard is bigger than that fish to be honest :/.
Anyway, then we hooked (and lost) a third one. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG!
At least the sunset that evening was lovely
The next day I went out with Emma, and we hooked two more fish, both which got away. Again, I got one to the surface where it sat for a while before flailing around and vanishing.
UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
We got some sailing done which was nice and I also played around with the MARPA function on my radar a bit – very cool!
That evening at the dock I saw an otter eating a crab on a neighbours boat, some small salmon smashing a shoal of herring and these guys
Which marks the first time I’ve ever found Canadian Geese cute.
And my rudder stock fix worked, so no more water ingress! Yeah!!
