Story: Tuna-Fishing in the Tuamotus

We’d decided to have a look at the remote Tuamotus Group of islands in French Polynesia. We booked a deal with Air Tahiti – 4 nights, half-pension (accom., breakfast & dinner) and airfare – to Takapoto (“Take-a-photo”) - a “remote palm-fringed atoll with lagoon”.

We went Air Tahiti via Takarowboat or Takadump...Tacky something anyway. Takaroa, I think. The propjet touched down and picked up some fat bastard then took off again (by the skin of its teeth) for the five minute flight to Take-a-photo.

It was the usual tropical island airport setup – a basic departure/arrivals hut, a clapped-out firetruck, a welcoming posse of beer-gutted locals with dollar-signs in their eyes and a half-baked crooner in a straw-hat strumming a ukelele and singing some island dirge. We cleared Customs in about five minutes flat and the Pension owner loaded us into the back of his vintage Peugeot 504 pickup (I’m being kind with the word vintage) for the five minute drive to the accomodation.

Like the rest of Tahiti the pension had dogs. Several of them. Hard-arsed battle-scarred sons-of-bitches. And these bastards were doing the Tahitian Love Dance outside our hut day and night too. Locked together. Attacked mercilessly by the other dogs. Crashing into the rattan walls. Tear-arsing through the gardens. Frightening the bejesus out of the Missus in the middle of the night. She thought we were on safari in Kenya or some-bloody-where and the Lions were about to make us proud.

The Air Tahiti brochure had described the facilities as "quaint native-style accommodation." Read that as an tired rattan and bamboo hut with a mouldy foam mattress, dim solar-powered lighting, separate ablutions block with broken door, hordes of mosquitos and randy mutts prowling the campus day and night.

"On a working pearl-farm" they said. Well yeah. Sort of. In a tourist trap kind of way. The farm was in reality a rude hut on stilts in the lagoon surrounded by a few miserable racks of pearl oysters. "Home-cooked meals" meant shit he got out of a can or a packet with the occasional bit of overcooked tuna or rubbery pearl-oyster . Although the coconut bread for breakfast was very good.

"Facilities include windsurfers" - knackered, "pushbikes" - clapped out, "outrigger canoe" - buggered, "table-tennis" - no balls, "trampoline" - actually worked but I can think of a million more interesting ways of cracking my scone open, "fishing in the lagoon". The last one rang my bells. But alas no boat available.

Fair play to the man though. When he saw how disappointed I was at not being able to fish for tiddlers in the lagoon he offered to take me outside. No, not to thump me. To take me out into the open sea. Bewdy, I thought. This could be good.

I wasn’t wrong. It was good alright. I’m just lucky I’m still here to tell the tale. We set off at sparrows fart one morning after a rattle on the door to wake us up. Actually we’d been awake half the night. Couldn’t sleep. Nothing worked. Not even counting dogs.

We got in the back of the vintage Pug pickup and bounced down the crushed coral road under a fantastic display of stars. We pulled up at the breakwater and unloaded the gear and an ancient outboard that I swear the skipper had nicked from the Evinrude Museum.

The boat was even ruder. "I built it myself" he proudly told us. It was nothing much more than a hard-chined Fifties-style 5 metre runaboat made from packing-crate ply. Like something out of “Popular Mechanics”. Something meant for the Great Lakes. You could still make out This Side Up stamped on the sheets of plywood.

Now I know my boats. In fact I have a Master Mariner Class V. And this vessel was a definite worry. No way was it suitable for the open sea. And apart from that we had a dodgy outboard with no chain securing it to the transom. No life jackets. No flares. No radio. No lights. No mobile phone. No bailer. No “V” sheet – in short, no safety equipment whatsoever. And did he have Third Party Insurance you ask? Don’t make me laugh. It was still dark and we were preparing to shoot out through the boatharbour into a swell we couldn’t see (but could hear).

So throwing caution to the wind we skull-dragged the Do-It-Yourself dinghy down the concrete launching ramp and jumped in before the swell could crush the thing against the concrete wall. And putting our faith in Bozo we shot out past the breakwater to go tuna-fishing Island-Style. Shot out blind. We could hear the surf and relied on some drunk standing on the rocks to give us the nod and Wahoo! We were off! Gun it brother!

We made it out. And I’ve gotta hand it to the skipper, he had some cojones. We felt the swell pick us up, heard the prop cavitating like crazy, then the blades dug in and away we went, spray flying over the unprotected bows and water already beginning to pond in the bilge.

We chugged down the weather side of the island, pretty much hugging the coastline until we came to the Secret Spot (third coconut tree down from the old fish cannery – but don’t tell no bastard or I won’t be invited back.) By this time the sun was up and the sea wasn’t too bad at all. I began to feel a bit better about it all. Figured if the motor did cark it (which was a distinct possibility) we would at least be able to swim ashore, nonwithstanding any shark activity, of course.

The skipper killed the motor and we went on the drift while he rigged up the gear. He had half-a-dozen large plastic "boo-ees" (as Americans call them) with fishing line and steel trace attached to one end and the other rigged up to the buoy with a clothes peg arrangement. The idea being that when the fish took the bait, the clothes peg would be dislodged allowing the buoy to invert itself and you could tell by the shape whether you had a catch or not.

Skip (half American half Tahitian) started the ancient outboard again and we chugged off to a distance to wait for the booees to do their thing. It took about half an hour for the first bite. And then they went off one after the other over the next ten minutes. We motored back over and Skipper hauled in the first line hand over hand. There was a sizable yellowfin tuna at the end of it. About 15 kilos he reckoned. He hauled in another line and there was another tuna. Then it was my turn. He'd made it look easy but it was quite hard. There seemed to be six million miles of line and it cut into my soft city whiteboy hands until they bled. But I didn't want Kahuna to think me a wimp so I continued. Then for good measure I hauled in another.

All up we got four tuna off six lines. The biggest being 20+ kilos. Not a bad mornings work. As the fish came aboard the skipper cut a nick of flesh from its head and drove a length of sharpened stainless steel rod into the brain, killing it instantly. Well I say "instantly" but they did a death rattle - a bloody gruesome thing to watch, as the rod shorted out their hard drive and they went still. Who said fishing's not cruel?

He killed them this way to give the meat a better taste - before the fish has the chance to release fear and distress hormones (I think - correct me if I'm wrong. I did ask but Mine Host was a taciturn bloke at the best of times. One grunt "Yes" - two grunts "No"). But he didn't bleed the fish like I've seen before. Tahitians, apparently, prefer their tuna red, like steak.

By this time the sun was well and truly up and we were all in good spirits as we motored back to the boatharbour. We trailed a couple of lines with lures behind as we went and managed to hook something but it got off.
In the light of day we could see how dodgey the boat was. Already there was gallons of water in the bilges. Most of it had come over the sides.

Skip pointed to some dogs standing in the shallows on shore. "They're fishing!" he yelled over the rattle of the ancient Evinrude. We watched as the little island dogs put their whole heads into the water and emerged with fish between their jaws. Amazing. "When they're hungry they go fishing" laughed Skip.

Approaching the boatharbour we saw there was a good four foot surf breaking at the entrance. "This is going to be good" I thought. The Skip had a quick look around and then gunned us on to a wave and we surfed it in. If the motor had died we would have broached and ended up smashed on the rocks. That really would have been a photo opportunity.

Skip's French girlfriend was waiting dockside with the Peugeot. We dropped one fish off with an island "Maman" and the rest went into his deep-freeze, save for the one we were to eat that night. The offal went to the randy dogs.

I was really looking forward to a fresh tuna meal but was sadly disappointed by the overcooked, dry steaks he served up. What was better was the "Poisson Cru" (raw fish) Sushi-style that we had as an entree. I would have liked some "Wasabi" paste to go with it but c'est la vie.

Takapoto in the Tuamotus, Tahiti - a rough and ready destination but at least I can say I've been tuna-fishing island-style.