Sailing around Australia; Bloody Tuna

25/2/2015 Bloody Tuna!

Anyone who knows Leanne, knows that things can get a bit crazy on board Easy Tiger when a fish is caught. For 99 percent of our sailing around Australia adventure, Leanne has had a fishing line or two trailing behind the boat and in Western Australia, did quite well. She caught at least half a dozen Tuna, a couple of Mackerel and not to be outdone I had reeled in a good sized Pike.

South Australia has been a bit quieter, so we had packed most of the fish “processing” tools like the gaff hook for example, away. Leanne has still trawled right down the west coast and Port Lincoln to Adelaide with no success.

When we left Adelaide a couple of weeks ago, Ian and Sue Sully came with us to Kangaroo Island. Ian brought a para vane trawling line that proved it’s worth once the water got a bit shallower. He caught 2 Snook in about 12 metres of water.

This fired up the fishing manager aboard Easy Tiger. Ian very kindly donated the line to Leanne, and she used it on the way from Kangaroo Island to Robe last week. Again two Snook were caught in pretty much the same spot.

On the way out of American River on Kangaroo Island, sailing conditions became very close to perfect for Easy Tiger and we managed to get along at 8 to 9 knots. The water got quite a lot deeper so the para vane was packed away for another day.

We passed the Penneshaw hotel and then the ferry terminal, then turned southeast at Snapper point. We hurtled past Antechamber bay making excellent time with the wind behind us as predicted.

When we logged on with the American River VMR, Carol connected us with another boat called Sapphire with Richard, Isabelle and their kids Robbie and Rebecca aboard. We could just see their sail on the horizon in front of us. They were also making their way to Robe.

As midday approached the wind softened and it was back to one motor chugging away. This did slow us to about 5.5knots, so Leanne got out the trawling rod, attached a new lure and let a hundred or so metres out.

Everything progressed well as we motored our way southeast towards our destination of Robe.

We did a shift change, with Leanne going off watch and me taking over at around 5.30pm. It was a beautiful warm day, by this time there was no wind to speak of and the sea surface resembled glass. Leanne decided to have a shower and a clean up on the back deck, preparing for sailing overnight.

After Leanne, I did the same, showering and change of clothes into clean, warmer clothes.

I had just taken the helm, when ZZZZ. The trawling line began unreeling at a rapid rate. The rod was bending indication that something quite heavy and strong had taken the lure.

That was when Leanne, who is still recovering from dengue fever, grabbed the rod, stiffened the drag and started winding. All the while urgently shouting, “YES, YES, YES”.

Being as good hearted and natured as I am, I offered to do the heavy lifting for Leanne and bring the fish in. “No way”, she shouted, “I know your rule”. She had a point. My rule is simply that whoever winds the fish in…caught the fish.

To assist the winding in of the fish, I stopped the boat.

After half an hour or so of winding a little, give a little, Leanne had the fish close enough to see that it was a Tuna. A big Tuna.

I did a brief search for the gaff hook without success. I did an even briefer search for the gloves. The only alternative I could manage was wrapping some thick rag around my hand then grabbed the line and hauled the fish aboard.

Leanne has previously used an old shower curtain to “process” the fish she has caught. This keeps the mess contained and off our unsealed cork deck. So the big Tuna was slid on to the shower curtain that was folded in half.

“Now what?” I said. “this may be a bit big for us”. I was looking down on a 750mm long 20kg Tuna. Leanne, had already dashed to get her fillet knife and other “processing” tools. “Gotta bleed it” she said “otherwise we will have wasted it’s life”. Without further ado, she stabbed the big Tuna behind the pectoral fin.

The big Tuna, obviously still alive, objected to being stabbed by flapping violently around. Leanne had severed an artery in the big fish and it did the required trick, meaning it started bleeding. Heavily.

Combine a fish leaking about three litres of blood, have it thrashing around on your cork boat deck and then start sawing it’s head off, result; an unholy mess.

Leanne was now going through her ritual of apologizing to the fish as she was hacking it’s head off. I could now see fish blood now spattered on the roof, on the seat cushions and trickling down into the engine bay. Thinking that we had better get it off before it stained, I got the bucket and filled it with seawater. Then I started dousing the back deck. Unfortunately Leanne was in the way when I flung the fourth bucket of water, splashing cold sea water mixed with fish blood over her.

The fish’s head was now completely off and it’s internal organs had spilled, on to the cork deck. “Oh no”, I said. “We haven’t taken a photo!” This is usually part of Leanne’s fish catching ritual. To achieve a proper photo, I stuffed the organs back inside the fish and pushed the head back in place. I held it there while Leanne snapped a couple of photo’s for her facebook page, then we swapped and I took a photo.

I continued the bucket sloshing of the entire rear of the boat, while Leanne continued to hack away at the big Tuna. We cast the head and internal organs into the sea towards a waiting bird. From nowhere, one bird instantly turned into 100 birds. Their eyesight and ability to spot a feed form several miles away, must be amazing.

Leanne transferred the fish into the galley. Unfortunately it obviously hadn’t been bled out, as witnessed by the trail of mess from the back deck into the galley. The bloody mess now occupied the entire bench on one side of the galley. “Where are we going to put all this?” I asked, remembering that our fridges and freezer were all full. We had restocked and provisioned for four weeks while we were in Adelaide.

Looking at the big pile of bloody fish that was accumulating as Leanne hacked away at it, was quite unappealing to say the least. Finally she agreed that we could keep the less blood filled pieces she was trying to extract, the rest would have to go back where it came from.

The birds were very happy to receive pieces of fish tossed to them. The bigger pieces quickly sank. I hate to think what gobbled them up.

After an hour of cleaning up what we thought was the rest of the mess, we re-showered and changed into another set of clothes, then got under way.

Next morning we arrived in the delightful town of Robe. There was a gaggle of people on the jetty to catch our ropes and welcome us, which was nice.

As we tied on I noticed the the red streaks of dried blood on the back of the boat. I hoped our greeters hadn't seen them. They didn’t say anything, but then you wouldn’t would you? If they did I wonder if they would have accepted our explanation of the bloody tuna fiasco.