Month: July 2020

13/07/2020

In the morning, I caught one yellow-tail scad. I was so happy that I planned to catch another one for dinner. I was looking at the scenery while dropping the line until  it might be too deep. When I was pulling it up, suddenly it felt heavy. Quickly took the line and lifted the rod, and I saw a long fish coming out of the water. I carried it directly into the bucket with rod, but the fish jumped out and went under the bench beside the helm, so much energy even the line was broken! Later, I found the hook was not in its mouth, but beside its gill, did it crash into the hook again? My fishing skill is a bit unusual. The fish is not very pretty looking and has a flat head and a long body. The wide mouth is covered with velcro-like small teeth, body is covered with round scales, and has a tiny adipose fin near the tail. About 40cm, this might be the longest fish I have caught so far.

Later, I looked it up on the Internet. It should be a species of Saurida a genus of fish in the family of Synodontidae. There are 23 recognized species in this genus: I need an ichthyologist to identify this fish. It is also called lizardfish. They are voracious carnivores and usually live on sandy or muddy bottoms preying small fish and shrimp. Once the prey is caught, it is difficult to escape, thanks to the dense teeth. Its Chinese names are more than one: Xiang Suo, fairy Suo, Sha Leng, dog sticks, nine sticks, dog belly, nine belly (upset belly, in the past due to improper storage, this fish is easy to deteriorate, causing diarrhoea), snake branch, Ding Fish, Lai (Na) ge fish (sounds like ‘that fish’), tofu fish… so you know how common the fish is. Canton people are good at cooking, they use this fish to make refreshing and springy fish balls, which can also be cooked with Puning bean paste. But I chose a simple and conservative way: braised. The result is quite satisfying. The meat is white, soft, tender and juicy. It really has the texture of tofu. It has one major bone with a few soft bones, not too hard to eat. We enjoyed the fish Very much and blended the sauce into rice. Superb! We thanked the fish after the meal, also praised my cooking for not wasting this excellent ingredient.

12/07/2020

Got up this morning and start working on fishing again. After catching one, there’s no luck for another one. Because it is Sunday, there are so many fishing boats around the island, so are the annoying noise maker jet skis. Since living onboard, whenever the weekend comes, we look forward Monday, because weekdays are a lot quieter.

While preparing for lunch inside, I heard J yelled ‘Peggy and Anne!’ I immediately came up to have a look and it was indeed the boat that gave us a helping hand before. On 28th January this year, we went to the Gold Coast to do antifoul, the engine was stopped working halfway, we could only sail by wind. When we are close to shipyard, wind stopped completely, we put out a sign asking for help. It was that boat who went pass and gave us a tow to shipyard, so we didn’t miss the appointment. It was a small world that they met again here. They approached us and said hello. They planned to stay here for two weeks.

In the afternoon, the owners of the neighbour boat invited us to their boat for sundowners, also invited a couple from another boat. Six people had a drink in the sunset and chat about sailing experience and boat life, complained about annoying JetSkis and Donal Trump. These two couples all have lived onboard for years and have visited many places. The Polish lady and her partner have travelled to many countries in Asia. She mentioned many places and cities. It was getting late so we went back to our boats and I’m sure we’ll meet again somewhere.

Since we only have one fish tonight, I cooked it with tofu and cabbage, added some Korean hot Chilli sauce. Not bad at all.

11/07/2020

We started the beautiful day by listening to PBS radio program ‘Jazz on Saturday’ in the morning. Breakfast is toast with scrambled eggs.

I asked J if he still want some fish tonight. He nodded hard, so I started working again. Since I am more skilful at catching yellowtail scads, two fish were caught in five minutes. Now that dinner is solved, today’s work is done! This kind of fish likes to stay near boats, probably because seabirds wouldn’t come closer. Most people catch this kind of fish for bait to get bigger fish. We are not that greedy (in fact, we can’t catch big ones), we just cook them for meals.

After that J taught me how to make brummel splice. It is to make a loop at the end of a rope, and then hide the excess rope back. This splice gets stronger when get pulled hard. It is very useful. After learning, I took another step closer to the Nawashi(rope master).

When the tide began to go out the afternoon, we took a motor dinghy to go ashore. We summited ‘Mount’ Wyndham – only 175m. On the way, we saw a non-venomous little yellow tree snake basking in the sun. If I didn’t stop J in time, he might step on it. According to some boat mates, there are no snakes on the island. You can’t never be too careful

We had fish curry laksa again for tea, because it was so good last night. And we had two fish instead of one. After the big meal, I felt up to pussy’s bow.