Sea Safari in the Ocean of Thousand Reefs

[TarponCraz]

RING RING RING OF REEFS/ISLAND IN THE INDIAN OCEAN

I went on a sea safari trip with a group of kakis who like bottom fishing together with their families to the Maldives recently. Being my first trip there, I didn't know what to expect. Although I like battling with those biggies at the bottom of the sea, my aim for this trip was to flyfish the illusive bonefish on the flats. So before I went, I tied some crab flies and several crazy charlies in anticipation of some actions on the flat. Here are the flies:





I brought my wading boot which I bought a year ago, a long sleeve flyfishing shirt and a chest pack acquired recently along. I even borrowed a stripping basket from Q for the trip. Q was kind to passed me some of his flies as well. I was all ready for the battle with all those critters on the flat in battle fatique



But missed my only opportunity to land and wadded on a small island that has flat around!

Not giving up, I arranged the dingy to take me to another reef the following day for fly fishing. I was expecting to land on the reef and walk the flat but there was no beach to land the dingy. It was rocks all over! After trying to communicate with the boatman for a while of my intention, it appeared that the idea has either not understood or he was not prepared to risk smashing the bottom of the dingy on those rocks. I decided to compromise and fish from the dingy to as close to the shoreline as possible.

Since I cannot specifically target bonefish, I tied on the alltime favorite charlie and landed several each of the following species:


Blue fin travelly






Six strips wrase




Unidentifed species

On three occasions, strong pull at the other end of the line peeling lines off my Abel Super 8 with pretty heavey drag setting, only to lose them while reeling line onto the reel. I was not reeling fast enough to keep the tension on their lips and they broke off the hooks. Judging from the strong pull, I suspect it could be the bonefish I was targeting for! Alas! To have and not to have!

Dispite not catching any bonefish, other forms of fishing were producing decent result.

Popping








Trawling


Wahoo

Dogtooth Tuna

Dogtooth Tuna

Jigging


Dogtooth Tuna


Dogtooth Tunas, GT, Skip jack Tunas

Bottom fishing


Red Bass


Yellow spots Emperor

At the end of our journey, the North East monsoon wind pick up force. The boat we were on was rolling pretty badly when we crossed the channel making our way back to habour. In the habour, we saw this boat ran aground on its stern showing the bottom. It must have been blown by the strong wind off its anchor and ended up on a reef!



Then further in the habour, we saw this majestic boat with "in-deck" cargo hold holding two small boats. What a dream boat we wish to have!

[alberto]

Hi Uncle Wong,
Its looks like you had a ball over there ;D ;D ;D

regards
Alberto

[snakeriver]

Hi Uncle Wong,

nice photos of the doggies and the GTs. I can see that you were flyfishing in a nice outboard boat rather than the traditional doony which enable you to cover more water. Which charter did you use?? There is a few "bonefish" island which Henry and gang has explored before and if you are going to maldives again, it is good to check with Henry so that your chances of getting a bonefish will be higher.

nevertheless, it is good to wet a line in those water whether is flyfishing, popping or jigging. I can that you have a very nice charter boat which I am interested to know more.

thanks again for the wonderful pics esp. the underwater shot of the bluefin. it made our day ;D

[TarponCraz]

Alberto,

Yes, I not only had a ball over there. To begin with, I have bald and shining ball on my shoulder and a bigger but hidden one on my waist beside hack of a ball with fishes! ;D ;D ;D ;D

To make you drool, I show you these:


Beautiful sunset on the horizon.

Then


Super dooper fresh tuna sashimi

and


Mouth watering lobster for dinner.


Snakeriver,

Indeed, I was fly fishing onboard a flat bottom dingy that covered more and shallower water than the doony. I had many tugs on the charlie but did not hooked up properly. Sometimes, the dingy was moving too fast before the criters have chance to sink their teeth onto the charlie. On three occasion, the boatman and I spotted pairs of big long greyish green shadow swam past but did not have chance to whipped the charlie to the front of them.

I was tagging along this group of people who do a yearly trip to Maldives and I am the only one that fly fish. They never pay much attention to fly fishing. I would have to go with group that focus on fly fishing in order to spend more time chasing the bonefish. Alternatively, I may have to go Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean to have a ball of time with numerous bonefishes there. Anyone care to join?

The boat we were on was not the dream boat I showed you earlier. We were on The Blue Sharke Two in the following photo


It is a diving boat with a diving master and relevant diving gears onboard and the doony that goes along with it is equipment with diving tanks all around. One of the member in the group is a season diver and he had a ball of a time underwater seeing all the fishes swimming around him! Infact, I asked him to take my camera encased in a waterproof case (spec 40M depth) with him to shoot photos in the deep but he was afraid the waterproof case has not been proven. Otherwise I would have shared with you guys photos of fishes in their natural habitat!

Sorry I do not have the name of the operator but I can get it from others if you are interested in chartering the boat.

[snakeriver]

Hi Uncle Wong,

Thanks for the information and more mouth watering pics. Looking at the boat, it is a luxury by Maldives standard and those food, fresh sashimi and lobster, certainly first class. Something that caught my eye is wine, a rarity since we are not able to bring into the country ourselves and they do not sell them. Keep the pics coming ;D

[TarponCraz]

Snakeriver,

If I am not mistaken, the boat has a hotel licence and we actually registed as live-in guests. That's why it has a bar stocked with Hennesy brandy, Shiva Regal/Johnny Walker/Jim Beam whiskey, Votka, wines and bears etc. You can see the bar behind me in the photo taken in the dinning room.


The group I went with has a standing rule. Anyone fish out shark, trigger fish and batfish there will have to buy others a bottle of wine. Thats why you see wine in the photo.

As for the tuna sashimi, it was prepared by one of our member from the dogtooth tuna we caught. We had it almost every day! . The lobsters were another story. One day we moored at Felidhoo island and a local fishing boat came by sold us his catch of lobsters. Big and small, altogather 11 pieces. We had it on that night only, not on daily menu. However, we did have properly served meals (western & oriental) every day. My only complaint was that the timing of the meals were all out of wack with my biological clock!!

I also took a walk on the Felidhoo Island and found out some local living as shown in the following photos.


This house was built right by the beach. It has colourful walls and its glass window has reflection of the scenery of the beach. It will be a pleasant thing to look through the window from inside the house every day.

Further in the village, this house's wall was built with small stone piling up to the roof. The owner either run out of money to put on glass in the window opening or the glass might have been broken during the tsunami. What a contrast to the beach front house!


Many houses have simple setting but nonetheless, they have satellite TV!


AND they will lie in their leisure chair chitchatting if they are not watching TV


In the habour on Male Island where the capital is, I saw this local fishing boat. The rudder is made of wood and the pilot steers it with his leg.


In the fish market by the habour, customers pay a fish cleaner a small sum of money after buying them from the fishermen, to have them filetted. This guy did it so fluidly like slicing papaya. We timed him to finish one skip jack tuna in less than 30 second!! How amazing!!!