Morning, Hope everyone is well!
After many hot months with temperatures up to 52 degreesC and loads of hours spent refurbing the boat and villa we managed to get the boat back into the water in the Musandam to start the season. We had the boat redone at Hareb Marine which is our boat partner and good friends. They totally gutted the boat and re-did all systems, wiring, seats, electronics and the most important part added a few more rod holders! The boat looks better than when she was new!
We towed the boat back over to the east coast which is always good fun with a 40ft trailer with no brakes. We launched the boat into the Dibba port. This is a small local Omani fishing Port that we operate out of, but it is not a place for the faint hearted! The slip way is tiny to start with and then on top of this you have a lot of the local fisherman storing their boats on the slipway, so it is always fun and games to get the boat into the water. After a few close calls we managed to launch the boat in one piece! We filled the boats fuel, water and the boat was finally ready to start the season!
After a good night of arranging tackle, the excitement in the group was through the roof. A lot of stories were told of fish caught and ones that got away and what would happen the following day. We got down to the boat early and headed off into the Musandam. There was quite a bit of cloud around and the sea was upside down from the Khareef (Monsoon) that blows in this region during summer. But we pushed up slowly testing all the boats systems.
We arrived at our first fishing spot and after a few casts we raised a whole lot of queenies and I went tight on the first fish of the season, then Jon went tight on a nice GT that smoked his lure close to the boat. We both fought the fish and got them to the boat fairly quickly. Jons GT was a decent size fish on light tackle. Then AJs son Louis got the next queenie and the season had finally began!
We fished a couple more places with not to much success and decided to head back to base as the sea was turning nasty and we were about 60 miles from base. On the way home we managed a few longtail tuna for some sashimi around the fire! In all it is fantastic to be able to get back out on the water and we are really looking forward to the season in Musandam and then the Southern Oman trips starting in October. Hopefully there will be some big fish around like last year!
Cheers,
Nick
