Once back at our AI hotel, we booked and went on an Airtours trip to Bridgetown and were soon walking around the harbour. A little way down was this superb 42ft gleaming craft owned by an American couple. The deck was beautifully polished wood and one could see your face in it. The boat was for hire for ‘Game Fishing’ and discussions held with the American lady owner lead me to hire the boat for 5 hours with 3 other interested clients at the cost of £80 each.

The boats crew were two Barbadians and were experts in ‘Game Fishing’ and knew the best fishing grounds. It was arranged that I would be picked up from the hotel early the next morning. Mrs Delboy had decided to go on the Airtours ‘All around the island coach trip’.

We had become friends with many people from the cruise and that evening, I told them of fulfilling my dream of catching a Blue Marlin fish and everyone hoped it would come true. One of the pensioners wished me luck and even gave me his sea-sick wrist bands which had kept him in good stead on the cruise (but being a cynic, I could not see how these bands could ever work) I thanked him for his concern and politely put them in my back pocket.

The morning came and all four of us were picked up at various hotels by the American lady and driven down to the harbour. She welcomed us aboard and introduced us to the crew, “Anything you want just asked”, she said. A large fridge was opened at the back of the boat it was loaded with beers and sandwiches. “Help yourselves to anything, the boat is yours for this trip and we will run a video of any fish you catch”, she said and disembarked leaving us in the safe hands of her crew.

At the back of the boat was a chair bolted to the deck and if lucky, we would take in turns to be strapped in and play a big fish, Marlin can weigh 500lbs. We would draw lots to see who would take the order of bites. The boat set off and we each had a beer and some sandwiches, it was a beautiful day and I was enjoying every minute.

It was a fast boat and we were soon a few miles out and the Captain cut the motors to allow the rods to be baited up by the other member of the crew. “These yellow plastic octopuses are going well at the moment”, said the crew member. I looked up and the waves were big, yes really big and I started to feel sick, nobody had told me that sea-legs only last a couple of days. I quickly took a pill which had no time to work at all and quickly made my way to the loo.

It was the strangest feeling as the waves rose, my knees bent and my chin was in the toilet basin, I hung on to a shelf and my contents emptied into the loo. The pill was lost and I suddenly remembered the wrist bands, could they work? I managed to get one on and then found my watch was getting in the way on the other wrist, so I took my watch off and put it on the shelf. The next wave came but I finally got the last band on, only to see my watch bounce along the ledge and into the unflushed loo. Now this was a special watch presented to me and meant a lot.
I was now faced with the decision of whether to put my hand in the loo or flush my watch to the bottom of the ocean forever.

Well I still have the watch to this day and it still keeps the correct time twice a day.

At this point I lay on the highly polished deck inside; until the crew member said, “You don’t want to lay there; you will be better up on top”. I’m sure this was to benefit him and his clean deck because going up and sitting next to the mast multiplied the swaying of the boat more for me. I was given a bag and was sick for the next five hours.

As the boat came back, I was helped on to shore, having not touched a rod for my £80.

“Don’t suppose you want a copy of the video”, said the captain.

“No I’ll give it a miss this time”, I replied. (This time? .............Will I ever learn?)

Yep. that was about my experiance as well Del, I went sea fishing on a similar boat off the Miami coast a few years back, started feeling sick about 100 yards out, it was so bad that I even offered everyone on the boat their money back if the skipper would turn round and come back early, they all laughed at me and opened another beer the gits, we then ran into a school of tuna and all 8 rods on the boat had a bite, there were only 6 of us, so a rod was thrust into my hand and i started reeling in even though i was still gagging over the side every 30 seconds lolol (don't know why i'm laughing i'm totally mad ) I managed to pull in a very decent tuna weighing about 15 - 20 pounds for my troubles.
I then picked up another rod and reeled in a small tuna, the skipper said nah chuck it back and use it as bait lol, the sharks will be along in a minute!! WTF!!!
So I did as I was told (not that I could do much else ) and about 5 mins or so later OMFG it felt like i'd hooked the bottom of the ocean it nearly pulled me straight off the back of the boat and the boat was still moving, that got rid of the sea-sickness the concentration of staying put with sharks swimming around the boat, anyway I started reeling in and about 20 mins later the skipper goes yea! here she comes! and just about then the nose of a black fin shark popped out of the water and straight into the main catchment area of the deck at the back, after all that I felt like crying I thought it was going to be at least the size of a sofa and it was 'only' about four foot long!!!

Anyway sorry to add my story onto yours as yours is well good, I didn't mean to write quite as much, but just to agree with you... sea fishing? Nah, never again

You write anything you like mate, I enjoyed your story its nice to know there are other fishing addicts on here. I know I'll end up doing it again sometime, when my memory goes

2 great stories those.Very entertaining.

yes I enjoyed them stories also they were brilliant, Ive not been proper fishing since I was a kid, I told my wife lots of times about the stories when we used to go to the end of the pier and go spinning for Mackerel all day in the summer and I really missed it, she bought me a really nice spinning rod for Christmas and Ive been stocking up on spinners and promised to take my daughter spinning ohhhhhhhh the memories will flood back lol. Cant wait, we always have the hand lines and bread in Palma Nova when we staying at the Hotel Hawaii and we watched the clever fish eating the bread around the hook lol, never caught one yet.
I met a couple on our flight once going to Tenerife and he was very keen on fishing ,it just so happened that we were in the same apartment block and there was fishing gear that he was allowed to use. We went to a fishing tackle shop and bought all these fancy things like fake squid etc.We fished all day with all this expensive kit and the only thing we caught was sunburn lol. A Spanish guy came along after our unsuccessful 4 hours with little worms and dropped it over the side and within seconds pulled up a fish we couldnt believe it, then another and there it went on it was taking him no more than a minute, he filled his bucket up and away he went ,we had been casting out as far as we could all day hahahaha. We still talk about it now hehehe

I have been to Spain twice to do cat fishing on the river Ebro along with 14 others we caught a record 22 tonnes of catfish in one week both my feet were firmly on the ground at all times.

PS that's the river Ebro in the background of my avatar

wow delboy you are really into it

Enjoyed your tales DB!
Never been fishing, but I am not a good sea traveller . . . in fact, one of my first memories as a child was travelling on the Fishguard-Rosslare ferry 'The Inisfallen' and being held over a wash basin puking and being sick on my fathers feet

But my pal in Belfast and I went to Malta in our single days and went on a round the island boat trip. Well, as soon as the boat left Valetta harbour, I started feeling sick as the boat rose up and crashed though waves - one minute you could see only sky and the next, it was all water- my pal was enjoying the thrill while I started revisiting the watermelon I'd had for breakfast, but it had increased in volume 10 fold from what I had ingested, or so it seemed! There was one toilet on the boat and it quickly became 'full' but by that stage, there was no more to come up . . . just that horrible empty retching . . .

One of the crew suggested I go downstairs as the centre of gravity was lower and it might help . . . it didn't!!!!!

It seemed like the longest journey to the Blue Lagoon and when we got there and I put my feet on solid ground, I sank onto the sand and said to pal (who was heading over to the barbeque that was included in the ticket that No, I didn't want her to fetch me anything and that I was not going back on the boat . . . I would rather have taken my chances on the beach . . . But I was NOT NOT NOT getting back on the boat. . . and I meant it.

I sat on the sand still feeling sick and to me, the world was still going up and down! About an hour later, my pal returned to say that she had a solution . . . that she had met a guy who was offering to take people back on his speedboat for £20 and that he guaranteed that nobody had been sick on his boat. I didn't believe him, but had no choice as I had forgotten to pack my tent and stove

So, he turned the music up, up, up and we blasted home to the likes of Rod Stewart's Baby Jane. about 5 mins into the journey, he opened a built-in cool box and passed around bottles of 'champagne' (my ar*e) but I actually began to feel ok and we rocked back to Valetta, SO SO SO thrilled!

Blimey Boss, you must have found this in the bowels of the forum, yes nothing worse that seasickness leaves you helpless but enjoyed your story I have never been on a speedboat, always assumed I would be sick

It's the way to go DB! I assumed I'd be sick too . . . a bit pricey though £20 a head about26-27 yrs ago . . . it must have been a regular occurrance as there were about 10 people opted for the speed boat home - very exhilarating too . . . I felt like a rock star!

Great story Boss, apart from speed boats, ships are not your bag then?

Reminds me of my first ever trip on a boat. I was nine years old at the time and travelling to the Orkney Islands for our summer holiday. We had lived there until I was 8 years old so was excited about going back. Like all things when you are young they seem like an adventure and this was no different. Me and my brothers spent the half hour before sailing exploring the boat. We watched on with excitement as the cars were loaded onboard by a crane and once they were on we were all set to go.

The sail out of the sheltered harbour was great, waving at the people standing on the quayside and watching the town of Scrabster begin to recede into the distance. Once we hit the open seas of the notorious Pentland Firth things changed dramatically for the worse. For the first few minutes trying to walk along the decks while the boat was pitching and rolling was fun but before long the total abject misery that is seasickness set in. The pitching and rolling got much worse and when the boat is at the bottom of its pitch the wall of water all around you is quite alarming, but once the stomach heaving begins you forget all else. Due to the number of similarly effected passengers finding a vacant toilet was impossible and your only option was to feed the fish. Now all those novel smells onboard ship that you didn’t notice at first, the frying smells from the galley, the beer and whisky smells from the bar and the diesel smells from the engine room all helped to turn your stomach and have you heading back outside to hang your head overboard.

The journey was 2-1/2 hours of total purgatory, and seemed to go on for ever. Once we arrived in the sheltered waters of the Orkney Islands the last 15 minutes didn’t seem quite so bad and once on terra firma again the seasickness magically disappeared. Now over the years I have had a few rough crossings of the Pentland Firth but none as bad as my “Maiden Voyage”. To this day I am not great when it comes to sailing but it is a long time since I have been seasick.

This years cycling trip to Stornoway included a 2-3/4 hour boat trip and on the way out it was very windy with a side wind causing the boat to list about 5 degrees all the way across as well as the usual pitching and rolling. Trying to walk around in these conditions didn’t seem so much fun these days but luckily none of us had to excuse ourselves for a “comfort break”. We all felt a bit off colour but that was probably the fact we set sail at 7am and had been in the pub until 12.30 am that morning.




The MV St Ola II which plied the Pentland Firth crossing to Orkney form 1951 until 1974

I enjoyed that H, just reading it I felt like throwing up with you and reminds me why I still hate boats

Yes H - the DIESAL smells . . . . uuuhhhhh! I'm off . . .

Great story H, really enjoyed that mate.

I travelled across the Irish sea on the Princess Maud in the 60's the worse voyage I ever had (fishing again)

http://www.photoship.co.uk/JAlbum%20Ships/Old%20Ships%20P/slides/Princess%20Maud-04.html

She wasn't exactly eco-friendly, was she??? THAT SMOKE!!!!!

When I was a kid, I used to love the Boat train from London, as we would get on it at Rugby to Holyhead, then the ferry over to Dublin, then the train to Mullingar to see my Nan. Happy Days, from long ago. :-bd:

Yes Mick - the first year I went to Greece was at the end of 1st year at uni. We did it the cheap way - outward . . . Belfast, Larne, Stranraer, London and homeward London, Holy head, Dublin, BUT . . .
It was the weekend of the All Ireland Final and all the men who had emigrated to London were returning for the match. The Boat train was packed to the rafters, full of old men dressed like Humphrey Bogart, drinking whiskey and starting sing-songs . . .

Long story short, it was a very rough crossing and the lasting memory I have is the smell of vomit everywhere! . . . the ship ran out of water and trying to walk on floors that were covered in vomit, while the ship was rolling . . . awful!

That sounds absolutely dreadful Boss.

Yes - the famous clip of Tod Carthy on Dancing on Ice comes to mind . . . except, at least he was skating on a horizontal surface!