ALL AT SEA!

Graham, Jim, Glyn, Jim P, Tony and Mark

Hello Everyone,  welcome to ANOTHER lovely sunny day!  This entry is all about the fishing trip.  They all had a really great time, well most of them...I`ll get to that in a minute.  As you can see they are all smiling, the weather was gorgeous, the sea was very calm, just a perfect day for sea fishing.

Jim left here early in the morning, first he collected Mark, and then Graham.  The others don`t live locally so they made there own way there. As I said yesterday they were all very exited at the prospect of the day ahead and had a great time on the journey to Hayling Island, Sussex, where the boat was moored. They were all supposed to meet at a cafe near the beach but it wasn`t open so they chatted with other fishermen while they waited.  At 8am the skipper arrived and off they went.  For two of them, Glyn and Tony, it wasn`t long before sea sickness set in for most of the day!  The others were fine and after an hour at sea, they anchored in the Solent, just off the Isle of Wight.

They started catching quite soon and as the day went on the had quite a haul. They caught Sea Bream, Spotted Dogfish, Mackerel and even a shark like creature called a Smooth Hound.

Jim said the thing that struck him the most was the silence. Once the boat turned it`s engines off, you could hear absolutely nothing..it was heaven, he said!

They all decided to put £5 each in a kitty and the one that caught the most took the pot.  Graham won it by a mile and was quite happy to pocket the prize!  By mid afternoon, with the sickness finally having abated, and after sleeping for some time.  Glyn and Tony finally felt much better, but of course it was nearly time to head back to shore.  Though Jim thinks that Glyn is not put off by his experience but he doesn`t feel to sure about Tony!  All in all a great time was by them all.  When they got back to shore they headed for a restaurant where they sat down to a beer and a good meal before packing up and coming home with their bounty.

Jim finally got home at 8.30pm, I stayed upstairs on the computer while he was gutting fish in the kitchen.  I made him shut the kitchen door and leave the outside door open...the smell was terrible!  Mind you, my freezer is now full of sea bream, dogfish steaks ( rock salmon or huss) and lots of mackeral.  I can`t wait to cook some of it!

The boys all deserved the lovely weather bacause last year they booked a weekend in Dorset. They had their hotel  and the boat already for them.  They went down on the Friday night and the weather was lovely.  Come the morning it had all changed.  The skipper of the boat said a Force 10 gale was forecast and they couldn`t go out to sea.  They were so disappointed and had to make do with some Pier fishing instead.  Jim was so worried the same thing would happen again but in the end it all turned out all right. I`m just so glad he enjoyed himself. He works very hard and he deserves it!

I hope you like all the photos Jim took.  There were some others but he had to delete them as they didn`t come out as well as he hoped.  Bye for now and have a lovely day ! :-)