We woke up early and got ready to go fishing. We raced down to the harbor to meet the friend I made back in Auckland, Eddie, and somehow we beat him and the others down there. It was really sunny and warm out but quite windy. We all loaded up on the boat and introductions ensued. One of the other guys was Otto, Eddie's friend who owns a backpackers/hostel in town, and the other was Otto's long time guest from France, named Yaan. We stuck our snacks and adult beverages in the fridge and then we slowly cruised out of the harbor, passing a lot of pretty boats. Just out of the harbor was the longest boulder spit in the world and they've made a break in it for boats to be able to get beyond it.
We didn't go very far out before we began trolling for kahawai. We had about three rods in the water and Otto caught a medium sized one pretty quickly. I was happy they were easy to catch and was confident I'd get one on my line soon. Otto caught another one and it was bigger. Shortly after, I got one and was relieved I broke my curse of getting skunked every time I've gone fishing. It was easy to get in and was about the size of Otto's first one. A little while later, Yaan's line and my line got tangled and in the process, I caught a fish on my hook. I got the knots untangled and was ready to fish again. I got two more on my line but they both popped off I think because we were trolling too quick and the current yanked them off. We kept fishing a bit longer and then switched the riggings over to fish for snapper. Nothing was taking our bait except for annoying little feeder fish but we kept at it.
As we were trolling around, the engine started to have trouble. It was sputtering and jarring pretty bad so Eddie jumped into the water to check out the prop under the boat. He said fishing line was caught around it but once he cut it off, the boat was still having issues. We drifted around some and we all continued drinking since there wasn't much else we could do. We were closer to shore now and became stuck on a sand bar so we had to wait for the tide to come in some more. Issue after issue but we had fish in the boat, drinks in our hands, and the sun above us. We finally drifted off of the sand and shortly after, Eddie waved someone down to help tow us back to the harbor. It took a little bit but we made it. We helped spray off and clean the boat before heading to out car.
Otto invited us to stay at his hostel for the night so we headed over to his place. He gave us a tour of the house and grounds that he fixed up. We put our tent up on a small ledge that overlooked the hostel as well as part of the town. Back down at the building, I cooked up vegetables in the kitchen to go with the fish we caught. We hung out until the fish finished cooking in the smoker. It turned out quite good, a mild smoky taste and lemon on it made it yummy. Everyone at the hostel was hanging out listening to music, making food, and chatting then began to play a dice game called Myah. Everyone was from all over, New Zealand, the U.K., France, and parts of Asia. The night went on and after a bit I got ready for bed and went up to the tent to relax.
