We came to Lembongan
for the last three weeks to relax and chill out before we head home, back to
work for the summer. This has meant plenty of panic tanning and fruit shakes.
But the other day miss Alex suggested maybe we could do a fishing trip. The
hunter-gatherer inside me got the better and I agreed.
The plan was to catch
a fish each and let Reggie our guesthouse owner, cook them on the barbeque that
night. I said to miss Alex that we could sell any extra fish we catch. So we
turned up eager as punch, even setting a challenge with miss Alex to see who
caught the most fish. On arrival the skipper told us that he didn’t have
fishing rods, and handed us a small wheel about the size of the original Wagon
Wheels (remember them?) with a line wound around it, and a dead weight and a
hook on the end. I was still
optimistic at this point, besides how hard could t be to catch a fish?? Then
next to were we sat he put a bag of bait. The bait was “fresh” slimy Tuna.
Miss Alex’s face was a
picture as she was a bit squeamish to the rotten bait next to us. So we headed
out to round the island to find a perfect spot to drop our lines and catch some
fish. We had virtually gone round ¾ of the island when the skipper decided he’d
found us the perfect spot. About a mile off the coast he told us to drop our
lines. No other instructions just drop our lines. So we unwound our lines held
in one hand through the middle of the wheel, and we unwound and unwound until
there was only a couple of turns line left on the wheel. In the clear water we
could see the tide was catching the weight and bait and carrying it off into
the distance. We must have let over a 100 metres of line go. The skipper also
had a line, and as he kindly gave no instructions on what to do, miss Alex and
I watched him closely to see what the next step was. He seemed to be sat there
pulling on his line backwards and forwards, so we both starting copying.
Pulling backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards for a good while,
half expecting my arm to snap at any time then a wrestle would break out to
retrieve the fish. NOTHING!! Then I remembered the amount of line I’d let go
and I didn’t fancy fighting to pull a fish over 100 metres so slowly I started
to pull the line back in then every so often stopping to pull forwards and
backwards to feel for any snag that would tell me I’d caught a fish. Eventually
or it seemed like an eternity my line was at the surface of the water and I
could see that my bait had been eaten. I couldn’t believe it. The fish were
teasing me!! Miss Alex had pulled her line in and some how managed to lose her
weight.
This was not going
well, but we didn’t give up hope. The skipper set us up in a new spot a little
bit more round the island, again about a mile off the coast. He put a new
weight on for miss Alex and “fresh” bait for me. So this time I decided to
count the amount of turns on the wheel to help me, when the moment came for me
to battle with a fish and pull it in. Another 30 minutes of pulling forwards
and backwards on the line and nothing. My battle with a fish never came. I was
starting to get bored now and felt a little sea sick, the long deep swell in
the sea didn’t help. The skipper
took us to 2 more spots, each time a little closer to our beach resort. By the
end of the 4th attempt I couldn’t wait to finish and get back to
panic tanning on our sun loungers. I’d decided fishing wasn’t for me. So much
for selling our extra fish. Upon arrival back at the guesthouse Reggie asked us
were our fish was. We had to ask Reggie to go and buy some fish for our
barbeque that night.
Sat here in our room,
in the guesthouse no more than 4 metres from the crashing waves, the
realisation that this will be my last blog on this trip is finally setting in.
After 10 Air flights and 3 more til we reach home next week, we have stayed in
29 different cities and towns, some of these we’ve passed through more than
once like Bangkok. We endured long bus rides. Miss Alex and I have clocked up
more miles than Judith Chalmers. Miss Alex or Mellman as I now call her, you
know ……. the hypochondriac Giraffe
from the film Madagascar has been to the chemist more times in the last 6
months than I’ve been in the last 29 years of my life. We’ve had tablets and
cream for all sorts of infections. The funniest time being when she sent me to
buy some Imodium in Laos for an upset stomach, 4 days later I was sent to get
fybergel as the Imodium built up barriers much better than the Hoover Dam. Eye
irritations, infected mosquito bites, migraines and food poisoning strange
rashes, have all gripped miss Alex over the last 6 months. I on the other hand
have escaped with only a cold that was kindly brought over from the UK by miss
Alex’s dad, when they came to meet us for 2 weeks in Bali.
We’ve both clocked a
few miles running, one of the more memorable times was in Laos when we ran
through a wedding reception in the middle of the street. We’ve ran in the
middle of the mad rush that is Ho Chi Minh City, along the beautiful beaches,
bare foot in Koh Lanta. My running trainers will not be coming home with me as
there is a huge hole along the full side of my left shoe.
Now we can look back
and laugh at some of the accommodation we’ve stayed in, and can only thank the
lord we didn’t once get bed bugs. Although for every Ying there must be a Yang
and every bad guesthouse we’ve had good. It’s hard to believe we have done over
6 months away from home. That’s
196 days, all of them have felt like a Sunday.
To finish off I would
like to thank every body for making this happen. Our friends for sticking by us,
and the support from both our parents and the encouragement to go out and see a
bit of the world. The friends we’ve made along the way, some of them we’ve
travelled with, and some we only shared a single night. Lastly I would like to
thank Miss Alex for being the best travel partner I could ask for. We have done
it brilliantly and I would not change a thing. If I could go back 6 months to
do it again I would and I wouldn’t change any part of it. (Even that night in
the slums of Bangkok) I love you xxx
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