Growing up in paradise

In deciding to write a blog I am hoping to share with you some of my experiences from a lifetime of fishing off the East African coast. I vaguely recall catching my first fish, a garfish I think it was when I was only about 3yrs old fishing in the Wasin Channel with David Richards who was working for my father at the time as a skipper. From then on I was hooked and used to spend much of my pocket money on fishing lures, along with super fast dinky cars that I used to race on a long track laid out in the house.

But, as I was not able to go out on the boat as much as I would like I had a toy boat to which I fitted outriggers and towed around the garden in front of our house. A clump of desert rose bushes made for Pemba island and the space between the house and bushes, the Pemba channel. In my fantasy world I explored every part of the channel, even circumnavigating the island, something that we never actually did for real until much later on in the 1990's. The catches were phenomenal of course,  breaking records galore, grand slams and even fantasy slams in that wonderful world of a child's mind.

As any deep sea angler will tell you, your first marlin is always a memorable experience but mine was especially so with an interesting twist. My older brother, Mike and I had gone fishing on our 30-ft catamaran, Pingusi skippered on that day by Noel. I say our 30ft catamaran because our parents had made us three kids directors of the company alongside them. My parents had recently returned from an amazing live=aboard fishing holiday with friends Terry and Jeanne on the Barrier Reef with the "Teddy Too" skippered by the late Charlie Powell, They had regaled us with exciting stories although the most impressionable had to be that of Terry's 800-lb black marlin in only 3 minutes. 

On this particular day, Terry was fishing with my father on White Otter and when a small blue marlin took my outrigger they were no more than 100m away. Mike and Noel had decided that we needed to show the oldies that we could do that, too. There was a blur of activity as the rest of the rods were cleared and I was ordered into the fighting chair and told to wind as fast as I could. Pingusi was put into full reverse, although anybody who knew her will appreciate that that was not particularly fast. Noel took the flying gaff and got ready on the back step whilst Bilali, the deckhand prepared to take the trace. Pingusi had a back step on to which you needed to place your feet usually whilst sitting on the transom. Needless to say you were very exposed and later when I became a full-time skipper I was to receive many a beating out there. Within a couple of minutes the crew had the trace and Noel planted the gaff in the marlin, but from then on things did not go quite according to script.

The blue marlin, small or not suddenly realised that something very serious was amiss and attempted to take off. Noel lost his footing on the slippery step and went 'A over T' overboard landing right next to the marlin in the water. Luckily the gaff held but the marlin was by now at the full extent of the gaff rope as Noel popped back up to the surface and wrapped his arms around the marlin, with cap still on his head. Mike and the crew were hysterical, rolling about on the deck crying with laughter totally incapable of doing anything constructive. After what seemed like an eternity, Mike told Noel to let go of the fish since they couldn't pull them both in to which Noel replied, "No way, you buggers will leave me here!" Finally both marlin and Noel were boated, the former weighing in at only 114-lb but how many of you have such a story by which to remember your first marlin by?

It was little surprise that I should choose to study marine zoology, gaining a BSc (Hons.) degree from the University of North Wales, Bangor. And, some years later on I finally managed to get my PhD, done on yellowfin tuna ecology and fisheries from the same university. Funnily enough my ambition when I left university was not to become a professional charter skipper at all but rather to go into fish farming. But, when I returned to Shimoni in July 1981 the family business was in a bit of a dilemma, the season was starting and we were a skipper short so I decided to give it a go and there I stayed for the next 30 years or so. 

But, although I did become a professional charter skipper my interest in science never left me and it has had a major effect on the way that I have gone about my fishing. I began to keep a diary recording everything that happened out there on the ocean and since Shimoni has maintained a tradition of controlled fleet radio calls, every hour on the hour data was recorded in that manner. My father had also maintained a logbook right from his first charter in 1963 so now I am working through these diaries and logbooks putting all the information into a series of databases, then comes the analysis so certainly not a short-term project.

Please feel free to leave your comments on any of the articles and I hope you enjoy them.