chopstick goes for a sail
11-20-2017
, 10:12 PM
11-20-2017
, 10:42 PM
11-21-2017
, 06:09 AM
p4b - don't have a youtube channel, sorry. I have definitely touched a shark's skin before. If we go allllll the way back to post #17 itt, we find:
Hard to believe that was over 4 years ago lol
lapka - as a USA#1er, lots of places are available to me without the headache of a visa. Some via visa-free travel, others via visa-on-arrival or evisas that take about 5 minutes to apply for and receive. I use the wikipedia Visa Requirements For US(A#1) Citizens page quite a bit. South Africa / Namibia / Botswana visits all don't require a visa for me. Zambia / Zimbabwe will give a VOA or evisa, etc. The only places I'm likely to go that will need a visa ahead of time are Eritrea and Sudan/South Sudan. Some places may require a bit more finesse - much like in Ethiopia, Djibouti issues their visa at the airport, so I will need to put some extra effort in to get into Djibouti, but that's pretty standard ime. While most countries I've been to have been fairly easy to just slide right into with little effort, Djibouti will absolutely be tighter. Should make for a nice bit of variety. I've found that while there are lots of good and decent countries that want you to come there, there are also lots of meh countries that want you to come there instead. It's certainly safer to come in Djibouti than in many of those sketchy places as far as potential long term complications go. No desire to find out 9 months after you left a country that there's some fine or something that you didn't know about that now you'll be paying off for the next 18 years or whatever. Definitely looking forward to slipping into Djibouti, and am totally fine with entry being tighter than the usual, as it will make for a memorable experience. If Djibouti were wide open like many other countries, it would actually be kinda disappointing. Hopefully it's a nice clean entry with just enough friction to make things interesting. Also hoping for a clean exit, which is rarely an issue in most places, but could be there. Adequate prep work beforehand should help with both. I've wanted to hit Djibouti pretty much ever since I first learned about it as a young teen. Used to make lots of jokes about the name as a kid, but luckily I've matured a great deal since then.
golddog - yeah, Chobe is absolutely on the list. Going to likely do a Windhoek -> Caprivi -> Chobe -> Maun -> ODelta -> Windhoek loop over about 18-21 days from 20-DEC to 10-JAN or something like that. Might do the loop from Kasane if the price is right, as that way I end right near (well, 80km near) Vic Falls, which is the next stop.
DOGS - pretty tough to defend USA#1 from most of the critiques as they are usually dead-on accurate. I have a university degree in what is effectively an economics-based offshoot of International Relations so it's not like I can plead ignorance either.
billdacat - sadly they do a lot of metered internet pricing over here, so yeah.
Quote:
So far we caught a small tuna using a yellow/green squid lure, immediately ate much of it raw, made tuna steaks out of the rest for dinner a few hours later, and used the scraps for bait. That tuna bait resulted in catching a barracuda, which we used solely for bait. That barracuda bait resulted in catching a shark, which we ate. You can see us lassoing the shark below.
The tuna. He is minus his tail for a quick bleed because we were hoping to immediately land another as we were right over a baitball. Only ended up with him, though. Normally would just bleed from the blood lines on each side. I made that cut later anyway, you can see it as a vertical cut right behind the pectoral fin on his side.
He was enough for some immediate sashimi and four small steaks. If you haven't had sashimi from a tuna that was swimming around in the ocean 10 minutes earlier, I recommend it. I have a photo of the filleted carcass on another crew member's phone, I'll post it when we eventually exchange photos. De captain, you will be proud of me. I got every last bit of meat.
Here's the the head of the barracuda. Chopped off the head because we put the line right back out after we landed him with some of his guts and a shark hit it within a few minutes, while I was still deciding what to do with the barracuda meat. He was about three feet long.
The shark gave a good fight, but eventually we brought him in. In order to bring him in the boat, we made a little lasso and lassoed him around the tail so we could bring him on tail-first. Less sharp parts on that end.
He was a little over four feet long I'd guess. Cut off the fin and hung it from the bow as an offering to Neptune. Same thing with the tail of the tuna. I cut out his entire jaw and dried it on the deck in order to get as many teeth as possible, but the seas got rough at one point and they weren't well secured, so over the side they went. Bummer. I did manage to dry out a little skin for some sweet shark rawhide. If you aren't familiar with shark skin, it's smooth if you rub it in one direction and like sandpaper if you rub it in the other. Pretty cool stuff. Nothing interesting in his stomach to report.
The tuna. He is minus his tail for a quick bleed because we were hoping to immediately land another as we were right over a baitball. Only ended up with him, though. Normally would just bleed from the blood lines on each side. I made that cut later anyway, you can see it as a vertical cut right behind the pectoral fin on his side.
He was enough for some immediate sashimi and four small steaks. If you haven't had sashimi from a tuna that was swimming around in the ocean 10 minutes earlier, I recommend it. I have a photo of the filleted carcass on another crew member's phone, I'll post it when we eventually exchange photos. De captain, you will be proud of me. I got every last bit of meat.
Here's the the head of the barracuda. Chopped off the head because we put the line right back out after we landed him with some of his guts and a shark hit it within a few minutes, while I was still deciding what to do with the barracuda meat. He was about three feet long.
The shark gave a good fight, but eventually we brought him in. In order to bring him in the boat, we made a little lasso and lassoed him around the tail so we could bring him on tail-first. Less sharp parts on that end.
He was a little over four feet long I'd guess. Cut off the fin and hung it from the bow as an offering to Neptune. Same thing with the tail of the tuna. I cut out his entire jaw and dried it on the deck in order to get as many teeth as possible, but the seas got rough at one point and they weren't well secured, so over the side they went. Bummer. I did manage to dry out a little skin for some sweet shark rawhide. If you aren't familiar with shark skin, it's smooth if you rub it in one direction and like sandpaper if you rub it in the other. Pretty cool stuff. Nothing interesting in his stomach to report.
Hard to believe that was over 4 years ago lol
lapka - as a USA#1er, lots of places are available to me without the headache of a visa. Some via visa-free travel, others via visa-on-arrival or evisas that take about 5 minutes to apply for and receive. I use the wikipedia Visa Requirements For US(A#1) Citizens page quite a bit. South Africa / Namibia / Botswana visits all don't require a visa for me. Zambia / Zimbabwe will give a VOA or evisa, etc. The only places I'm likely to go that will need a visa ahead of time are Eritrea and Sudan/South Sudan. Some places may require a bit more finesse - much like in Ethiopia, Djibouti issues their visa at the airport, so I will need to put some extra effort in to get into Djibouti, but that's pretty standard ime. While most countries I've been to have been fairly easy to just slide right into with little effort, Djibouti will absolutely be tighter. Should make for a nice bit of variety. I've found that while there are lots of good and decent countries that want you to come there, there are also lots of meh countries that want you to come there instead. It's certainly safer to come in Djibouti than in many of those sketchy places as far as potential long term complications go. No desire to find out 9 months after you left a country that there's some fine or something that you didn't know about that now you'll be paying off for the next 18 years or whatever. Definitely looking forward to slipping into Djibouti, and am totally fine with entry being tighter than the usual, as it will make for a memorable experience. If Djibouti were wide open like many other countries, it would actually be kinda disappointing. Hopefully it's a nice clean entry with just enough friction to make things interesting. Also hoping for a clean exit, which is rarely an issue in most places, but could be there. Adequate prep work beforehand should help with both. I've wanted to hit Djibouti pretty much ever since I first learned about it as a young teen. Used to make lots of jokes about the name as a kid, but luckily I've matured a great deal since then.
golddog - yeah, Chobe is absolutely on the list. Going to likely do a Windhoek -> Caprivi -> Chobe -> Maun -> ODelta -> Windhoek loop over about 18-21 days from 20-DEC to 10-JAN or something like that. Might do the loop from Kasane if the price is right, as that way I end right near (well, 80km near) Vic Falls, which is the next stop.
DOGS - pretty tough to defend USA#1 from most of the critiques as they are usually dead-on accurate. I have a university degree in what is effectively an economics-based offshoot of International Relations so it's not like I can plead ignorance either.
billdacat - sadly they do a lot of metered internet pricing over here, so yeah.
11-22-2017
, 02:14 PM
11-23-2017
, 12:31 PM
11-27-2017
, 01:46 PM
