There’s Something in the Line

If you read my last post you might be asking yourself what the hell I have been doing. Of course work was my priority and I had to find time after office to bring my visitors around. Fortunately here we break off earlier as we start one hour earlier than in homeland. Although the sun sets 24 minutes earlier we have ample time to go around.

This island has a different panorama with its wide valleys and hilly features. I won’t go into the details as I wrote about it in a previous post. If you want to enjoy the sun and the sea the best place would be Cotton Bay or St François in the east. We didn’t as much as we would have wished. We couldn’t swim; it was too cold. With a series of anticyclones in the region the sensation of cold was intense. But that didn’t prevent us from trying our hand at fishing.

The youngsters bought fishing lines, hooks and baits (we used shrimps). We set off on three successive evenings at Point L’Herbe, a shore in between Port Mathurin (the capital) and Baie aux Huitres (Oyster Bay). Any guess who was the hero on the first occasion? I’m sure you made the good one – me of course (no boasting). I got the first and only catch with a small “vielle” as soon I threw the line. Everybody was excited. We baited one after the other. “Ni ene” (not even one more) until sunset.

vielle

A small “vielle”

On the second day the luck was with my niece. “Uncle,” she yelled couple of minutes after she threw her line. “Look, there’s something… Quick, I can’t hold it anymore.” I left my line and grabbed hers. “Yeah, it’s a big one… a carangue… probably 3 lbs.” Summa couldn’t believe her eyes. She took out her mobile and had some snapshots before messaging her mom and sister at home.

carangue

Carangue 

The excitement was so great; we tried again yesterday. But we didn’t have any more luck. We came back empty-handed, although we hooked three small eels which we released afterwards. My son’s face was dull; he’s yet to prove himself. Well, that’s part of the game.

We are not giving up yet. I just called a local friend for a fishing party on boat. The weather is OK and Carlo has agreed to take us on board tomorrow morning. We checked the tides and fixed the meeting at 7.00 am at a place called Caverne Provert further away from the English Bay on the eastern side of Port Mathurin.

Carlo is reliable, although somewhat lazy at times. He’s an experienced fisherman. He owns a boat propelled with oars. In May when the sea was smooth he took me off-lagoon one Saturday morning. He was there at 6.00am sharp. The weather was fine in the morning. Later around 10.00 am dark clouds built up and covered the whole sky. We could see the rain coming from the south and in no time we were soaked. The tides were low and we couldn’t make it to the shore in time. We had a good catch though; each of us, we were three, got about 5 kg of different variety.

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