Deep sea fishing

Yesterday morning we woke early and went to the beach to catch a dhow to go fishing. Don, Fred, Erez (from Israel) and I watched the sun rise while we waited. Eventually the boat arrived.

We motored a long way off the north west coast of Zanzibar trolling for dorado, barracuda, blue marlin or the like. Like everything we have experienced in Africa so far, fishing is done very basically.

After no luck with rod and reel (attached to the boat with twine thru cracks in the wood) we tried bottom fishing using a weighted hook with bait on the end of fishing line wrapped around a chunk of wood.

As our illustrious captain neglected to bring bait along, the crew raided a few fish traps. The first two they pulled to the surface were empty, but they scored with the third! Not only two fish, but a tangle of fishing line and hooks.

One of the two small fish from the trap was skinned alive (extremely gross) and the small amount of meat on his tail section used as bait. The second small fish, perhaps a red snapper (see photo) was kept by the crew. I suspect someone had fish for supper - but not the actual fisherman whose trap was robbed!

As we were setting up to bottom fish a couple of dolphin swam by. They are very majestic! A small squirt of air/water thru the blow hole, followed by curving muscle and the back fin. Beautiful!

Finally we were ready to bottom fish.
We could see thru the gorgeous turquoise water to the sandy bottom below. It was very relaxing to bob up and down on the ocean drifting as we bottom fished. (At least I thought it was relaxing, others felt a bit sea-sick.). Needless to say that was the end of our fishless fishing trip!

On our return to shore Deb, Jann (from London) and Lucy (our local tour organizer) all converged on our boat wondering about our catch. (Lucy even carried a pot in which to put her portion of the catch.)

Too bad - no fish for supper! Instead we walked down the beach to have a candle-light dinner for four beside an unusually quiet ocean. (See photo) From there we were able to see fishing boats in the distance using bright lights to lure the fish to their boats. Night-lighting! Somehow that doesn't seem very sportsman like. (oh yah, guess it's not a sport for the locals.)