We were joined today by an old friend of Tommy & Keith, Brian Gent another former member of the Terrapins match team famous just before the last war . He fished with Tommy aboard Damon's boat but sadly, their determination to reach their original destination of Kingfish Hole didn't really bear fruit. They caught a couple of permit and a few little snappers, a poor reward for such a long journey.

Keith and Jim were joined by Ali MacLeod and his young lady Sheryl from the Isle of Man aboard Captain Jack's boat. They started by turning back from their intended destination and fishing a couple of small wrecks in the Marquesas Islands. They caught a selection of snappers and then moved to the harbour entrance where Ali caught his first tarpon and a grouper and a few more snappers were also brought aboard.

Roy and I fished on Chris's boat and we were joined by Radomir and Vladimir who were doing some filming for a promotional DVD for ABU fishing tackle dealers. After aborting the trip to the far off wreck in the Gulf, we motored around trying a few shallow wrecks with absolutely zero results. We then decided to go shark fishing near the Marquesas Islands. Things started well, with Roy catching a acouple of small sharks and then the tide died and the sharks disappeared. There were some small fish swimming around at the back of the boat and Chris, the skipper, put a tiny bait on and caught an African Pompano. He then did a piece to camera explaining that this species had been almost wiped out by the nets and that only now were they slowly returning to local waters. He then happened to glance into the water and saw a big fish swimming near the bottom. Without a second thought, he stuck a damn great hook into the rare, almost extinct fish, lowered it to the bottom and passed me the rod. Within seconds the pompano was eaten by a Goliath Grouper (formerly called a Jewfish in an age before political correctness) . After a tense and exhausting battle the monster was auled aboard the boat. Having no world class weightlifters on the boat, the motley crew had a pathetic attempt at lifting it for the camera before giving up and returning it to it's watery home. The cameramen were ecstatic with the fish and I began thinking in terms of huge royalties to be paid over to the lucky angler (me) !!. No such luck but it's still the biggest fish of the trip and an awesome sight.

He was the greatest dog in the world and at the moment it doesn't seem like life is worth living. I just wanted to say goodbye to him and I couldn't.

Rest In Peace my beautiful friend.

Keith was fishing aboard Jack Kelly's boat together with Radomir with his side-kick Vladimir, who were making films for Tight Lines and Radomir's Serbian TV program Svet Riblova. They ended with a nice mixed bag consisting of a gag grouper, a red grouper, a black grouper, 2 mutton snappers plus 1 tarpon landed and another one lost.

Jim fished with Roy aboard Damon's boat. They too had an assortment of groupers, snappers etc plus 2 tarpon with another 2 lost.

I fished with my old mate Tommy aboard Chris's boat. We spent the first 4 hours shark fishing (2 nurse sharks, one black tip shark and one lost unseen). We then motored over to the harbour and managed 4 tarpon landed from 7 hooked. All in all a really good day.

I'm a bit short of "fishy" photos today, so I'll show you sunrise from our apartment, a turtle swimming happily around in the harbour and a picture of a splash where there was a tarpon in the air just a split second earlier. Don't forget to click on the pictures a couple of times to see a bigger version of the images :

Harry, Keith and Jim were aboard Damon's boat. They started off fishing offshore for sailfish, with Jim catching a kingfish and Harry catching a sailfish. They then moved back nearer to the harbour and Keith caught a tarpon. Not the greatest of days but its still better than a day at work...or even a day fishing in the UK in the pouring rain.

Tommy, Roy and myself went shark fishing on board Chris's boat. We had a slow start but after about 40 minutes I hooked and landed a nurse shark of around 200 lbs. Now the nurse shark doesn't have the teeth or the fighting abilities of some of the other sharks but anything of that size puts up a fair old fight. Shortly afterwards Roy landed a nurse shark, then Tommy lost something after a long struggle which might have been another shark species, it certainly gave him the run around. Another nurse shark each to Roy and I plus another long losing battle for Tommy and we were getting worried. There were hordes of nurse sharks around the boat. We had a couple of dead baracuda and kingfish hanging from a rope on the bow of the boat and the sharks were attacking it continually. We took it in turns to bash them on the head with a broomstick handle but even though you could hear the "thunk" as you hit the shark on it's head it would just turn away only to return a couple of minutes later. It seemed as though there were waves of sharks just waiting to attack our bait, at one time there were 12 sharks milling around the front of the boat. In the end they won, we moved to another spot that was devoid of nurse sharks but sadly it was virtually devoid of all sharks, in about 2 hours fishing we saw one big black shape creeping up behind our baits but it sheered off and that was that. A brilliant day, people would have paid good money to go out and watch those sharks, we got a private showing for free !.

Pictures of lots of sharks follow - Click on the pictures to see a bigger image :

Keith fished with Roy aboard Capt. Pat's boat, complete with Choo Choo, the puppy who snuggled down between the fishing bags and spent most of the day fast asleep. Incidentally, following the poo incident yesterday, she's been re-christened Shit-Shoe . They had one of those "best forgotten" days with only a small cobia plus a kingfish to show for their efforts.

Jim fished with Tommy aboard Damon's boat and both of them caught a nice sailfish. They also had a kingfish, lost a dolphin plus another sailfish. That's a pretty good day, and Jim's first sailfish.

I fished with Harry aboard Chris's boat. We started by fishing for tarpon and Harry had one first cast !. We then moved offshore to search for sailfish. After a kingfish I hooked a sailfish that came adrift. A couple of minutes later I hooked another one and this was landed and returned safely to the water. Next it was Harry's turn and he hooked into a real street fighter of a sail that must have taken the best part of an hour to bring to the boat. Once a few pictures had been taken, this too was returned safely to fight another day.

Talking point of the day was when Roy and Keith decided to jump aboard Damon's boat. Damon was late starting because he had a doctors appointment and had thus arranged to stay out later with Jim & Tommy. At the end of the normal day, Roy & Keith decided to jump aboard Damon's boat and have an extra couple of hours fishing. This didn't particularly please Jim & Tommy who were having a nice days fishing and didn't want to give up their rods to the intruders, nor did it delight myself and Harry who were waiting patiently at the dock with heaps of fishing tackle and no car keys, I guess we shouldn't have expected anything else, Mr Marlow is famous for only looking after one persons interests...his own !!. Anyhow, Roy has long legs and was able to step across the gap between the two boats without too much trouble. Keith is of a "different build" and has shorter legs, plus the gap between the boats had widened. It was a close thing...Tommy had to drag Keith aboard. Tommy told me later that he wouldn't have jumped in to save Keith if he'd fallen between the boats, he'd just have thrown him the anchor to catch hold of !!.

Here's some pictures, as usual click on them to see a bigger image :