The Marlin

It was 0200 when Kelly woke me (just as I had finally fallen asleep). The engine had overheated, and the alarm was going off. We had been motor sailing through the night as there was no wind.

We had to shut the motor off, and because a ship was bearing down on us, I decided to stay up and communicate with the vessel until it had safely passed. So I sat pondering the engine problem and how to fix it. Our speed had dropped to 1.5-2 knots as we sailed against the East Australian Current.

When Kelly got up at 0400, I had worked out we had an air block in the raw water inlet. I fixed it and started the engine. We were underway again, doing 6 knots, so I went back to bed.

I got up at 0630, and Kelly went back for another sleep (one of us got enough shut-eye that night!) I put the trolling lines out and enjoyed the beautiful sunny morning.

At 0930, I got a hit. The rod started screaming as the fish started running my line out. I grabbed the rod and realised I had snagged a pretty big fish. I screamed out for Kelly to wake up.

Kelly came staggering out of the cabin, all groggy from sleep, and I started yelling instructions to her. The poor thing did bloody brilliant! She had to pull in the head sail, turn the boat around and head back to the fish, which we could see jumping out of the water at least 200 metres away. She had to get this done asap before my line was spooled entirely off.

I continue to fire instructions at her, “get me the gimbal belt”, “motor the boat forward”, “get a photo”, “go to the port”, “go to the starboard!”, “are you getting photos?”, “reverse!”, “go to the starboard”, “get my gloves”, “forward, to the port”, “take a photo”, “get the gaff”, “starboard! starboard!”, “tie a rope to the gaff”, “reverse”, “here it comes, get a photo”, “I need a drink, get me water”, “reverse, to the starboard”. The fish continued to fight me for two hours until we finally had it alongside our yacht Thorfinn.

Then I realised it was so big I could not simply gaff him and pull him aboard. After a moment of consideration, we decided to get a slip knot around its tail and winch it aboard using the staysail halyard. Once it was safely aboard and strapped to the mast, we put the boat back on course and had a celebratory rum & coke with lunch.

As we were finishing our lunch, the wind picked up (we knew the change was happening). The fish had put us two hours behind, which we decided was a small price to pay! However, as I went to reef the main, the boom broke away from the mast. With our main sail disabled, the next four hours were spent smashing into 25knots of wind and big seas using our motor, which thankfully did not have any further problems.

We finally entered Coffs Harbour with no more than an hour of sunlight left. Unfortunately, as we dropped the anchor, bone weary and ready for a rest, we had to set to work cleaning and bagging the marlin. Again we thought it a small price to pay.

Check out the variety of meals we made with the marlin – marlin pies, pickled marlin, marlin dumpling soup, and marlin skewers on green pea mash, just to name a few…

Marlin Recipes