Success!

All of our fishing efforts paid off as we sailed across Ha’apai. We caught two fish—both black skipjack tuna, about two feet long—within ten minutes of each other.

We were trolling behind Helios with a lure that looked like a sparkly blue squid, and in consideration of recent advice from our ultra successful friends on Toccata, we modified our lure by attaching a granola bar wrapper around the hook (shinny mylar side out) to give it a Las Vegas level of appeal. We must have been cruising through a large school, because as soon as Dominic got the first fish into the boat and bludgeoned it to death, I tossed the line back in and it went off almost immediately.

It was exciting, gory, and delicious. The fish provided rich, dark tuna meat that I rolled into sushi with kimchi and toasted sesame seeds. We weren’t the only vessel to catch fish that day, our friends on Arbutus caught a large mahi-mahi, and our friends on Oceanna, after catching a tuna only to have it be eaten by a shark before it could be reeled in, proceeded to dive the adjacent pass and spear a large 40 pound dog tooth tuna. So all seven boats in our new anchorage dinghied ashore to Uonukuhahake island, a small sandy sliver of paradise, to barbecue with the bats beneath the full moon. We enjoyed the bounty of our labor sushi’d, sashimi’d, barbecued, and grilled on the campfire, with sides of popcorn and mango salad. We have found paradise, and it tastes wonderful!