Trolling

August 24, 2013

Got to spend the day fakatele (trolling) and I actually caught a fish! Our friends/mentors Don and Nori have a small fishing boat here and had invited the Peace Corps out for a day of deep-sea fishing. Harrison, Mandy and I boarded the boat with Nori (Don was sick) at 10 am with high hopes. Unfortunately for us, after Harrison first big catch the rest of the day was a wash in terms of bites. Hours on the water and we didn’t get so much as a bite, although we still had a lot of fun out on the water and seeing the back half of the island.

The real excitement came at the end of the day when we picked up a sign of a whale and went on a whale hunt. We were successful in our venture and where able see whales surfacing- it was super rad. We couldn’t get too close because we were not a registered whale watching boat and but it was pretty spectacular and the rush of chasseing them down was pretty great as well. And because when you’re on a roll good things happen, as we were headed back we picked up some diving birds and I got to actually reel in a fish! It was surprisingly hard but so fun- the adrenalin rush when you get the bite and the anxiousness you feel until the fish is successfully in the boat is awesome. I reeled my fish in and Nori gave it the final blow with the mallet. She also was able to clean and fillet the 3 fish that we had caught throughout the day all on the way back into the harbor.

When I got back to my village I started proudly marinating my catch. As the fish was marinating I went for a walk around my village, eager to brag about my day. I ended up being able to brag and get the fish cooked for me as I spent the night a family’s house after the mother offered to cook the fish and make me fried breadfruit (-: let’s just say it was a pretty solid day here in Tonga.

beautiful Vava'u Lahi

Me being a boss on a boat

Nori