Deshaies, Guadeloupe to Charlestown, Nevis

Well I manage to get into bed but during the night my knee is so painful that every time I roll over onto my side, I wake up as my knee hits the mattress.  Great.

We leave around 5.30am with quite a long journey ahead of us – 72 miles to Charlestown, Nevis.  As usual it pours down with rain as the anchor comes up but unusually, it is Mike doing it, as, hearing the rain, I malinger downstairs until I can hear him doing it.  There is no wind so we head out under motor, attempting to dodge the fishing markers in the semi darkness.  As we leave the bay, the sun starts to rise.  Now I know I am big on sunsets, but this was a lovely sunrise over Guadeloupe, so obviously it gets photographed!

Photos:  Beautiful sunrise - once it stops raining!

There is enough wind to sail but it is not in the right direction – about 10 degrees off the course we need – and we pass to the north  east of Montserrat, almost towards Antigua at times (which is unusually very clear).  Montserrat is still smoking away.  Today, the volcano is covered with cloud but there is steam visible from just below the peak.

Photo:  Montserrat’s huge volcano clearly visible under the clouds

  Photo:  Steam hangs just below the peaks of the volcano

As we are passing the island, the reel suddenly shoots out – a fish at last – obviously the new lure is working.  Mike reels it in and he takes a good look at it before going anywhere near it because at first glance (before he lands it on the step) it looks horribly barracuda-shaped!  Once he has it on the step we can see that it doesn’t have the horrible teeth the barracuda has so he bludgeons it to death, removes the hook and we get the book out.  It is a Kingfish.  Very good to eat!

Photo:  Captain Mike and the Kingfish

Mike guts it and cuts it into steaks and it’s in the freezer before it had even got rigor mortis!  We have only just finished cleaning the blood off everywhere when the line goes out again.  This one is heavier it seems although as Mike reels it in it actually looks smaller.  Examining this one closely, we decide it is some kind of tuna, possibly a small black fin tuna.  It is so pretty with huge eyes which look reproachfully at me (before we cut it’s head off).  This one I fillet, but not before weighing it – 7.5 lbs.

Photo:  Isn’t he beautiful?

As I am still learning the techniques of filleting, there are lots of little bits left over which I immediately fry with garlic and wasabi and pop it in a sandwich with some mayonnaise.  Yum yum.  We decide to leave scrubbing the cockpit until later in case we catch another one.  Half an hour later we decide we can’t be bothered to deal with another one and we can’t afford the time slowing the boat down enough to catch one anyway, so we pull the line in.

We arrive at Nevis just before 6pm, have a cup of tea, establish internet connection and scrub the massacre evidence from the boat.  In the failing light, we probably don’t make a very good job of it and the evidence will, I’m sure, be there for me to see tomorrow.  But tomorrow’s another day!