but i am one to cross things off lists. and i love adventures. so i convinced a friend that it would be a fun thing to do. off we went.
the place didn't seem like much when we arrived. it really didn't have an air of intimidation nor fun. we almost didn't go through it, with crab in da bag being conveniently next to the place and me and Jo have been bonding over crabs of late. but there were some folks around so we thought maybe they were catching some. it's rather pricey for 17 bucks an hour especially for a first-timer so we opted for the 90 dollar promotion where you get 10 hours.
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| not a sport for the not so patient |
the first 20 minutes was a dud. we were seriously running out of patience and it didn't help that they weren't selling beer! that would have made it a bit better. but alas, i finally felt some weight on my rod and pulled it up. i caught a giant one! however, i didn't know how to handle it and i was frankly scared/surprised (ok i screamed!) because the thing was wriggling and it had long tiny claws and stuff. its weight made me pull it to the left towards Jo - who screamed with me in unison - and the prawn got off the hook. it was... hilarious! nobody was laughing though, either they were so serious trying to get their own catch or thought we're just bloody stupid. haha.
fortunately that experience made me more confident so i was able to gauge it better when a prawn is nibbling on the bait (chicken liver) and when to pull the rod. i caught 3 prawns in total! could have caught more, but there were some occasions when i doubted myself and thought i had to wait longer. see, patience doesn't always win! note to self - always trust your gut.
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| momma can fish a prawn |
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| hooked! |
i've cleaned and scaled and cut raw prawns all my life. but i never imagined that taking a live one off a hook would make me squeamish. so yeah i have to admit, dona took the role of collecting the prawns :D
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| dona to the rescue! |
the folks next to us was a family and we were kinda jealous that even a kid caught one. i left to buy drinks and when i came back Jo showed me her basket. then she said it was from them. they didn't stay long and apparently gave us their catch.
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| thank you kind strangers |
more than an hour passed already and we're starving. there was no way 7 prawns would make dinner for 3 adults. luckily the folks working there told us earlier that if we don't catch any, they can give us frozen ones. hell, i'll take it!
so after thawing them i started grilling the give-aways together with the fresh ones. i thought that piercing the live ones will do the trick, so i felt completely awful when a few of them (especially the huge blue one) was squirming when i put them on the hot grill :(
some people were admiring our spread - they thought we caught all of them! hahaha. and we also brought rice, salted egg and cherry tomatoes. the place did not provide cutleries (the owner wouldn't even let me borrow a real knife - he gave me a pen blade instead) so we ate with our hands. and why not! we've been roughing it out the whole night anyway.
i'm not sure if i enjoyed the experience more than jo did - simply because i caught some. but what we learned was that we will never survive an island life. LOL. well, we have six hours left in our voucher and who knows, that could be enough time to be prawning experts.
