Fishing on Sisters' Island ... without sensei

Date: Dec 20, 2015

Trip #10
Weather: Fair  
Waters: Fairly choppy, calmer on return trip
On board: C, A, J1, J2, and R
New on board: our Phantom drone, which we didn't get down to flying because we set out too late on this trip, and there was cooking, etc to tend to!

First, the good news: We set up the fishing rods all by ourselves, without KH around (see previous post), and caught seven fish from the jetty on Little Sisters' Island (Pulau Subar Darat), each around 10 cm in length. Oh, and of the seven, one was caught without even using bait. We returned all fish to the sea alive.

The bad news: When we landed the catches on the jetty, all of us (ok, maybe except for C) were a bit squeamish about handling the fish and removing the hook without causing the fish more pain and distress. 

We are not the sort of people who are afraid of animals, having had dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters and ... yes, aquarium fish, among us. But the thought of the cold, wet, slippery fish given to sudden flipping and flailing of (possibly) sharp-spined fins ... freaked us out. Maybe we just need to get used to this. 

Or, as J2 said, maybe we shouldn't fish anymore! We are indeed a long way off from Robson Green's practice of waxing lyrical about the beauty of the fish and kissing it!  

We had made our way to Little Sisters Island, drawn there by its two lagoons. The water was choppy and we took longer than we planned getting there. The first lagoon we saw had a No Entry sign, so we entered the other lagoon. It had a lot of feathery green seaweed in the shallows, but was otherwise freer of litter than Pulau Hantu was (see that post here). 

Little Sisters' Island was deserted this Sunday afternoon, and we saw some resident macaques - they look like wizened males, potentially aggressive, so we steered clear of them.

We unloaded our gear and started a BBQ with the Weber grill - marinaded lamb chops,  a butterflied chicken marinaded with lemon and rosemary, some sausages and big prawns (one was used as fish bait). Beer and wine were accompaniments. 

Chef C's rustic kitchen - the Weber grill in the shadows of the buttress roots,
out of the wind so the meats would have steady heat. 

The lemon and rosemary chicken (left) and lamb.

J1, J2 and R made for the island's jetty, across from which was the other Sisters' Island (Big Sisters' Island or Pulau Subar Laut), separated by a channel, which we now know is deep and has dangerous currents. It was on the jetty that the trio landed the seven fish. J1, perhaps making up for not catching any on our last outing, caught four, including one without using any bait. The chopped up prawns we brought along were getting smellier by the minute, so I hardly blamed him for touching the bait as little as possible! 

J1's second catch. Anyone out there who can help us identify this
(or any of the other fish) pictured in this post?

Fishing champ of the day. Four fish, including one without bait.

Removing the bait without the benefit of those pliers that Sensei KH had.
Not an easy task. R provided the background soundtrack of shrieks
each time the fish flipped.

C using his tactical pliers (which weren't bought specifically
for fishing) for the job.

R, absent from our Fishing 101 lesson with KH, lands her first.

R (after washing her hands to get rid of the prawn odour): "Does anyone
have tissue paper?" J2 (sardonic, as always): "What do you think
this is - St Regis?"

After the last piece of food was grilled, we gave the Weber time to cool and then started the journey back to the marina, where we showered and settled down to watch the Liverpool vs Watford game at the marina's Discovery Bar. The guys were disappointed to see their team go down 0-3.