CHAPTER 2 - THE YOUNG MAN AND THE SEA

My passion for fishing had its true genesis from when I was given for Christmas by my dear mother, Ernest Hemingway’s book ‘The Old Man and The Sea’. I read this book by candlelight three times as a youngster, because I had no electric lights in my bedroom. After reading this book I so wanted to catch a marlin but I knew that I would never get the chance to even see one of these legendary and mysterious leviathans of the deep!

In 2008, my wife Sarah suggested I take my youngest son Oliver to Madeira, a supposed volcanic island poking its peak above the crystal clear opalescent, blue Atlantic Ocean, off West Africa, to try to catch a giant blue marlin. I think Sarah imagined such a catch was almost guaranteed if you went there and spent a fortune, but although I paid little heed to her words because I knew it would be a real challenge and a great deal of luck having spoken to the legendary marlin man Peter Bristow who told me of many giant marlin he had caught from his boat.

We arrived in Madeira and stupidly hired a car, but after a few minutes I realised that one doesn’t hire a car to drive up a small mountain on primitive roads, so back it went to the hire company.

Oliver and I settled down for a night’s sleep and dreamed about the marlin we might see!

Early in the morning after I had booked a trip I climbed aboard the ‘Margarita’ in the harbour at Funchal and after the boat was set up with four rods and reels as big as buckets we headed out to the deep blue ocean.

Dolphins were jumping, a whale breached and the sea was alive with all kinds of fish and many giant turtles. It felt so lovely to be away and out to sea with my youngest son and to watch his eyes as he saw the previously only read about mysteries of the deep oceans. He was so thrilled that I felt that catching a giant blue marlin might be a let down by comparison to what he saw in that first hour sailing out of the harbour towards this new world. How could anything be more precious than what we saw as we chugged along getting ready to haul plastic squids behind the boat in the hope of catching a marlin!

For four days we scanned the water for baitfish, and only occasionally, often far off, did we see a suspicious boil of what the skipper thought was a bait ball. It was these bait balls that attracted the blue marlin so essentially that was a sign to trawl the bait with the expectation of catching one of the monsters that Hemingway wrote about in his book and described so vividly.

Mesmerised by the beauty of the sea, its deep blue colour and its hidden depths which plunged down to more than two miles, we trawled with great expectation.

The fifth day was the final day of our trip and I had passed over two thousand euros to the skipper for the day trip. Although fishing for such prized fish is not about money, passing that amount of cash to a skipper who only had to drive a marlin boat and drink all day, continually stuff his face with local food and receive a great tan, seemed a bit steep at first, but the reputation of these hardy experts was legendary, and I was sure they absolutely knew exactly what they were doing. Onwards we trawled and my eyes were scanning each trawled squid whilst Oliver was high up on deck holding the newly purchased video camera, ready to film his dad when he hooked and claimed a marlin!

The visage of the four extremely powerful but short carbon fibre marlin rods which adorned the stern, sitting neatly in specific rod holders, and the glittering brass Penn multiplier reels that were trailing the four plastic squid just below the surface as the sports boat planed to its required marlin fishing speed of 8 knots, was like a Hollywood movie. Oliver and I could hardly accept the amazing privilege to be in that scenario on the high seas.

My sharp eyes suddenly spotted a black fin, limp but standing proud on a dark blue shiny back, about forty metres behind the boat, swimming with a confident wiggle, waving its tail from left to right as it was contemplating the squid. The crew were supposed to be watching for a potential strike as well as seeing if a marlin was following the bait and snapping at it hoping it was interested enough to strike.

“I can see a marlin behind the boat” I shouted. There was nothing from the two men, no interest, and no real belief that I, an Englishman on holiday who had never even seen a marlin, could even identify one!

“Look, just behind the last trawled squid, the one furthest away from the stern, on the left side. Can you see that dark shape?”

Silence emanated from the men as they put their beer cans to their mouths and gulped the beer that had been resting in the cool box, totally in disbelief of what I saw.

“In fact, there are two, and one is huge. Can we try to wiggle the bait even more to tempt a strike?”

Still no interest and they both passed it off as a mirage and told me to chill and warned me not to touch the rods.

The adrenalin had begun to flow and as I looked down to my feet, I could see pools of it gushing out of my shorts! I was looking towards the crew expecting them to strike, but how would I go about landing a giant marlin when I had been told not to touch the rod or interfere in any way?

“You are the customer, and we are the experts. We hook the fish and pass you the rod when we think you can handle it.” Do you understand Englishman? We hook the marlin, and you wait for instructions.

That was surely not as it should be and not what I expected for the price I had paid, but it was clear that if a big fish was caught that day, it would ensure many other fishermen wishing to catch a marlin would book their boat throughout the rest of the season.

They had already forbidden me to tie on the bait, sharpen the hooks, remove the barbs, and check any of the gear. They were so protective that they even told me how much the rod and reel would cost if it broke. I was beginning to realise why it was so important for the crew not to let an English amateur lose a marlin! Not so good for business, so not much money in their pockets.

On we trawled and at about 4pm I was feeling ready for anything and kept seeing giant marlin chasing the squid, but each time the boatman told me it was not a marlin. I knew it was from its waving fin and the brilliant white I could clearly see as it opened its mouth several times. Each time I saw one, and when it was disregarded by the crew, I felt like giving up.

Still excited Oliver and I scanned the beautiful blue sea and hoped for a strike, but the crew were already talking about Ronaldo and watching a football video at the helm, completely writing us off as potential captors of a marlin. It was only an hour before we were due back at the harbour, so perhaps they had eaten enough, drunk enough, and were suffering from too much sun, and wanted to pay the cash into the bank!

Within minutes I saw a huge marlin, mouth wide open like a white circle strike at the squid and making a frothy disturbance on the surface. The main man told me to grab the rod and strike and strike.

The fight was on, and I refused to let the crew touch the gear I had paid so handsomely for, because this was my only chance to catch a marlin unaided. The main man kept insisting that he grab the rod from me and use great force to drive the giant hook into the fish’s mouth, but I pushed him away several times and got very angry with his continual insistence.

Within a couple of minutes, the reel had about half a mile of line drawn from it as the beast charged deep down under the sea. I could see the angle of the line going almost straight down and the spool on the reel was still losing line fast. Another crew member forced me into the fighting chair and strapped me in so tightly that if anything went wrong such as the chair coming away from the deck, I would be in real trouble.

I had connected strongly to the fish after setting the hook and it breached several times about a kilometre away from the boat. It looked so grand, so beautiful, as it danced on the beautiful water and yet I felt so sad that it was struggling and that I was doing something that perhaps I should not be doing to this great and beautiful, innocent creature. I wanted to catch a marlin and be like Hemingway, but I felt for the creature as it struggled and breached, unable to leave the water but the power, even from so far away, was phenomenal.

The boatman, who was now responsible for my safety, had to hold the fighting chair onto the deck with all his wait on it as the bolts were coming loose, such was the power exerted by a sixteen stone Englishman on an as yet undeclared fish’s weight, but it was definitely big and I was sure I would be dragged into the deep, chair attached to me, if the reel jammed.

I had read about a man in 1992 who was strapped into a chair on a marlin boat in Brazil, and when he was playing a marlin his reel jammed, and the fish pulled him with the fighting chair attached to him, overboard. The fish dived ever deeper and took the man with it, perhaps for half a mile down. Apparently, when the fish breached it was pulling the man, still strapped to the fighting chair and his tackle, along the surface for some few hundred yards until the line snapped and set the man and his gear adrift. When he was retrieved there was little left of him as he had been pressed by the huge pressures of the deep, and all his bones were crushed within a limp, leather-like carcass.

I was thinking about that story as I struggled to make sure the seat would stay attached to the deck with the slowly loosening bolts. I continually shouted to the man holding the chair to make sure the chair would hold, and it occurred to me at that point that it must have been loose for years. I felt a lack of preparation and perhaps the catch would be lost, sacrificed by blundering inefficient idiots. I held on!

In the meantime, Oliver was still filming the fight and calling to me to be careful. “Take care daddy. It is a big fish. Look! There are two. One down towards the bottom and the other breaching about half a mile away. Wow!”

I think he could see the danger, not only from the power of the giant fish, but also by the lack of attention from the crew who perhaps thought I would lose the fish as they tried to encourage me to let them take over from me.

“No. I will fight this fish. I will fight it; not you! I will fight it so that it lives after we have removed the hook.”

I had spent some years reading about how to fight such a fish and ensure that it lives another day, provided the angler is prudent about his method of playing it.

“Keep away from me and just hold the fighting chair. I hired this boat. The fish is mine so get away and let me concentrate”. The crew were speaking rapidly in Portuguese and now wanted the fish to be caught. The boat rocked and swayed, two cans of beer and some food flew across the deck as I fought the giant fish. It struck me that the crew couldn’t understand a word I had said, so a few extra expletives dribbled out of my mouth!

At the height of the fight, I could hear an American captain over the ship’s radio asking about the size of the fish.

“Grander. Grander. Grander”. That sent the signal that it was over 1,000lbs and the Americans were keen to have the fish and perhaps claim it was caught by them, on their tackle, from their boat.

The mixed American and Portuguese language was confusing, so I shouted to the captain of ‘Margarita’.

“Concentrate on your job. Leave the fight to me. Let me concentrate on my task. Get rid of the American boat, it is about half a mile away but is too close to my fish. Get the Americans gone. Do it now! I am serious, get that boat away. They are not having the marlin. It is mine. Do you understand? OK!”

About thirty minutes into the fight, as I was fighting the fish I tried to put a lot of power through my body to stop the fish’s run, but I felt my left shoulder dislocate, followed in a few minutes by the other. I was effectively fighting one of the lords of the undersea world with serious, incapacitating injuries, but I held on determined to save this creature at all costs.

I increased the pressure on the fish and ironically felt click after click as each shoulder slipped back into its rightful place, as though Hemingway was behind my fight helping me to win the battle as a tribute for me reading his book. The pain was now more bearable, but I held tight and for what seemed like hours I fought this magnificent creature to within a quarter of a mile of the boat. The crew member who was now alert, told me that the fish was pulling the boat backwards, and it was filling with water.

I looked down and saw that the water was surging into the boat through the trapdoor for hauling smaller fish into the boat as the giant fish pulled the boat backwards for about half a mile. It was now time for worry, and I knew I had to do the job and overpower the marlin as I shouted to the skipper to steer the boat towards the fish. It was a task to do that, given the power of the giant fish and the relaxed and confused nature of the crew, so I shouted. “Turn the bloody steering wheel to the left. Do it now!” No response from my words.

Suddenly the line went slack as the marlin was swimming towards the boat and the water drained out of the back. I was told to wind, and wind I did, so fast I felt the heat of the reel. I had to retrieve hundreds of yards of 150lbs. line. The deck crew prepared the equipment with which to end the fight as I played the fish towards the boat.

“I can see the marlin” said the third crewman who spoke English having resurrected himself from his cabin.

“It’s huge. Grander, grander! Hold tight and don’t loosen the line on the reel. Are your shoulders alright?”

I could now see the beautiful head of the giant fish, and its eye, so shiny and beautiful but rather sad, its fin flapping gently like a giant black sail, waving as if to salute me and encourage sympathy from me, his captor. What a moment that was and how guilty I felt promising never ever to stir such an amazing creature from its watery home again. This would be my only marlin.

My eyes welled up with tears and I knew I had to take control of my fish, delighted in the power it still emanated, so I knew it would survive. I so understood the whole thing, the plan, the gear, the fight, the everything that it took to come to the very second, I knew I had brought the marlin near to the boat.

I gazed into the beautiful creature’s eye. My fish. My responsibility for tricking it. My fault if it dies! I think I fell in love with that fish as I saw my reflection in its giant, dark eye! I wanted to turn the clock back two hours but couldn’t. It was too late now.

We who strive to catch such monsters need to feel the power of the creature to bring us back to our senses and take responsibility for catching such fish. How would I like it if I was tricked and hauled along by a rope against my will?

When the white string was touched by the crew member, a sign that the catch was ‘officially’ mine, it meant that the fish could rest. It was now my marlin to claim. I had fought it. I had overcome it and it was now wallowing alongside the boat as the man slipped a noose of rope along its bill so as to hold it tight against the side of the boat for unhooking, but the giant leviathan flicked its head and broke the wooden shaft, very nearly seriously injuring the man who was shaken by the power.

“No time to waste I said, just approximate its size and free it to live again and return to the depths from whence it came.

They clicked a tag in the dorsal fin, took out the hook, told me to look at my catch and measured it with its bill a metre long, which he said was 4 metres, so the scale they used made it 450 kgs.

The captain estimated the giant fish to weigh nearly half a ton as it was about four metres long. I had a pamphlet showing the weight compared to its length and the length of its bill. I thought it must have recently fed on a large fish, perhaps a wahoo or two, because its belly was very fat.

Its white belly and blue back armed with a bill, ancient from fights during its life overcame me as I turned away and saw the giant fish swim very slowly away from the boat.

From where I was now standing, still clipped into my rod, I saw again its eye, only this time it seemed to be shaking its head and looking directly at me, slowly diving back to its home in the deep blue Atlantic Ocean, happy to be free to live again the solitary life of an ocean feeder. It was huge. It was beautiful. My son had been with me. He had filmed it all, every charge of the giant fish. He was enthralled and I vowed never ever to catch such a creature again. It would have been impossible to get the fish onto the boat as it was so heavy, unless it was dragged over the stern by a crane, and I was told it would take fifteen strong men to lift it onto the boat over the side!

On the journey back to Funchal, the crew raged on the ship’s radio in Portuguese, and I could hear the word “grander, grander” repeatedly over the loudspeaker.

They so wanted it to be an official one-thousand-pound catch. The final weight was declared as 900 lbs. although two of the crew members insisted that as it had such a long bill it was grander. There were many differences of opinion and the crew argued on the way back into Funchal harbour.

Did I care? Did I hell. I had caught a marlin and I was on a boat with my youngest son, who perhaps will reflect later in his life what he had filmed.

What happened to the giant fish?

The marlin lived and was caught again in Brazil five years later, at a greater weight, thanks to the tag that was clipped onto its dorsal fin when it was unhooked after I caught it.