20 Dec 2011: ILL-fated fishing day...

Everything started brightly and we were so hopeful for the day...
- weather was good with clouds, wind, some sun and passing rain.

Crew: 4 and Capt Anand
AO: Supposed to be Tekong and Johor Shoal

North Star's steering cable gave way after my diesel topup and alas, we had no choice but to secure the boat to the oil tanker off P.Ubin...
Damn Sway man!
Made a call back to marina and asked for rescue boat to tow us back.

Decided to release my Volitan Lionfish, Black Clown and Sweetlips clown here as hopes of fishing were all gone...
Aside to my wifey, here is the hard evidence that I really released them. They looked so happy during the process...

Finally, the rescue boat came and here is my very first towed experience:

Actually, quite shiok...slow and steady cruise and I enjoyed the wind.

As we were chatting away, an idea popped when Kelvin 'volunteered' his boat as the back-up. His 23 footer just did some maintenance over the weekend and yes, I thought I'm going to bring some groupers back today.

(Back at the marina)
Kelvin's boat was cool - very clean, spacious for fishing and I thought we were ready for the kill.
But, DAMN!!! Just as he started the engine ignition, the engine refused to start. Got the mechanic over and managed to got it started.
Then we steered it to the other side to top up petrol and alas, it refused to start again...
Another disappointment!

Even the backed up plan failed! I think we were not fated to fish today and we chose the wrong day...
BUT, my consolation prize - made 2 new and nice friends (John and Kevin who are father and son too). Had a good time chatting away under very very nice weather conditions.
Also, Anand and I had some good fun cheap thrill jigging assam fish off the pontoon while the mechanic was fixing the engine.