THE SOLOMONS ESKY AND SHARKS AT THE BAR..
So that
became the routine, early
starts every morning with a belly full of food before heading out to sea, they rotated skippers and crew
everyday which was great as we got to know everybody better and got to
experience different locations and styles of fishing. The scenery never stopped blowing our
mind and the heat and humidity never stopped kicking our ass, especially
when you were pulling a fish up from 300 meters down!
The
heat really was oppressive out in the boats everydays but I wouldn’t hesitate
to do it all again. There
is no ice to chill the fish (or take a few cold beers) and so we learnt about
the ‘Solomon’s Esky’. Basically, when you caught a fish, you just threw it under the wooden
bench seat! Haha we had never seen anything like that
either and all exchanged funny looks for the first day every time it happened.
We didn’t even know it was possible to
eat them after such treatment, they weren’t bled, weren’t put on ice…. Yet were delicious every night and you
would never know the difference?! I
guess it shows what great cooks they are! It became another of the many sayings
and jokes that the three of us still share about that trip. Just chuck it in the ‘Solomon’s esky!
Probably
our favourite skipper was Raymond, a
funny little bugger with a quick and twisted sense of humour and a look about
him that just told you, you
would never want to mess with him! Not
an angry bloke in the slightest, always the first to crack a joke, but you could tell there was a side to
him that would not be wise to cross.
Not
that he was a big guy, Raymond was probably under 5 foot tall, actually a lot
of the guys there were quite small which surprised us. Well, small in height, but as I said
earlier, all of them had the kind of physique you would have to spend years at
the gym to achieve. His
favourite joke, every time somebody would have a pee out the boat, ‘Oh, no! The boat is leaking!’
By
about the third day they were starting to warm up to us and so began the ritual
of getting on the piss at what could possibly be one of the greatest bars on
the planet. It was a
simple, yet beautifully crafted, wooden hut on stilts, and it was made to look
so nice and inviting, it would be bad form not to stop and have a cold beer!
This
camp had obviously had a few Aussie’s through the place as they really did a
great job of keeping enough drinks cold. The bar then had this big deck off the
front and you were about 10 feet above the sand once you were out there. The waves and high tide would come up
right underneath it and the view was just spectacular, reef just in front,
ocean as far as you could see, palm tree lined white sandy beaches to the left
and right and the camp and jungle behind you. There are not many places I would
rather sit in the afternoon with a cold beer (or Johnny arrow) and let the
night roll on with good company.
Lucas
even managed to hook a shark from up there one arvo! We could see em’ swimming around in
the crystal clear water off the front of the balcony, so he grabbed a rod and
started throwing a popper out (a type of lure that splashes along the surface,
for you non fishos’). It
took a while but he eventually got the hook up, what a commotion that caused! Everyone came down to the beach to
watch as he fought this thing from the bar balcony, beer still in hand!
A
little 4-5 foot reef shark was finally landed and I won’t go into details as to
how the locals got the lure back, let’s
just say there isn’t a lot of respect for the shark over there, and funnily
enough it’s one of the very few things these guys don’t eat.
Seventh Day Adventist is the religion
of choice over there now and they won’t eat sharks because they don’t have
scales. They mostly
don’t eat shellfish either, probably the only reason there are still lobster
and crabs around I guess. The
shark was ok and lived to fight another day, though I doubt he’ll be going back to that
bar for a while though, get’s a rough
crowd in there some days!
Raymond
The infamous bar!
