Two nice black marlin caught on Broadbill in one day by husband and wife team of Jòrg and Karin Arend from Germany was the highlight of the week and White Otter had a quadruple hook-up. Mostly the sea has been very calm with light easterly winds with the rips sometimes showing better than they have all season.

Saturday 26th February - only White Otter out whilst we had a very pleasant lie in for once. They saw one striped marlin finning but it wouldn’t show any interest and they also had a couple of knock downs from sail but nothing caught apart from a few dorado.

Sunday 27th February - just two boats out, Kamara II and White Otter with the latter picking up a sailfish. We saw a couple of marlin and sails but were unable to get a hook in to any of them. It was flat calm with the wind only picking up in the afternoon but loads of skipjack on the Pemba plateau. There are now also lots of dorado to keep everyone on their toes.

Monday 28th February - all three boats out fishing three sets of German couples through Pemba Channel FC. Most of them had fished around the world and one man, Franz Torsten had already recorded the Royal Slam, which involves catching all 9 species of billfish in the world. It was a rather quiet day with no marlin seen but quite a few sails that were intent on knocking down the big lures. Kamara II was the only boat to record a billfish, a nice big sailfish of around 33-kg for Jòrg Arend.

Tuesday 1st March - the teams decided to keep to their boats with Jòrg and Karin again coming out on top on Kamara II with a sailfish for each of them. Franz also caught a sailfish on Broadbill but yet again no marlin were raised.

Wednesday 2nd March - today was a day of rest for the German teams but White Otter was out with a 6-hr trip. They had a double header from striped marlin and succeeded in tagging one of these. They also reported seeing lots of sailfish, which if they did come in to the spread were very half-hearted about taking.

Thursday 3rd March - all three boats out but Broadbill was only fishing a shorter day with some clients from the FC. Kamara II started off well early raising a stripey in to the spread, which took a small lure on 30 but never jumped. Jòrg fought it for 10 min with the fish going straight down and we were just starting to regain some line when the hook pulled. We saw no more marlin after that but raised a lot of sails, which just would not take properly mostly just billing the lures down. In the afternoon White Otter again had a double strike and managed to tag one of them, the other never hooked up.

Friday 4th March - Just the two boats, Broadbill fished by Jòrg and Karin and White Otter were out. Today was not a good day to be stranded on shore! Broadbill first raised a striped marlin on a big lure, it took nicely jumped and threw the hook and then raised a nice black marlin on the same lure. It then saw a smaller lure on a 50 and decided to have that. Jòrg fought it for 1hr 20 min before finally bringing the trace within reach of Sulemani. Pat and Usama estimated it at around 320-lb, a very nice fish on 50-lb line. Then on the way home Karin was to catch another nice black on the same rod, this time estimated at 200-lb. In the meantime White Otter had a quadruple hook-up from 3 striped marlin and a sailfish managing to tag 2 of the marlin and the sail.

There is a lot of food out there to keep the fish happy and fat! There are loads of dolphin and they must know something!