Beach Opening Ceremony, Part Three

The first of the afternoon games has the kids line up in their teams of ~20.  At one end is an empty metal bucket. At the other end is an empty trash can.  The kids pass the empty bucket along their line as each kid throws in one armful of sand.  At the end of the line the last kid dumps the bucket into the trash can and then sends the empty bucket back down the line to repeat the process.  The team with the most sand in their trash can at the end of five minutes wins.

Marlin #5, 6, 7

It's days like today when I come home from work and get a phone call telling me Yukibo (marlin captain) went out fishing today and caught three marlin (alone) that I think 'Why am I working?'  I am firmly opposed to working my life away in a career job, mostly because there are things like marlin fishing that I would choose over almost any day of any job.  So I work with the ultimate goal of maximizing those earnings in days off later down the road.

Yukibo?  He was just born into the right family with perfect real estate on Zamami that houses money-making businesses.  I know I'm lucky to have been placed here and to be able to go along with Yukibo for free on any non-working day, but today I would rather sulk about missing out on these marlin (and just getting the pleasure of cleaning them).

[~85kg, ?, 134kg]

Beach Opening Ceremony, Part Two

These are all around 30 seconds or less and you can change the pixels from 360 up to HD (see lower right corner of video interface).




The parents all want their kids to get the big squid, hence the fights in the next two videos:







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2011 Beach Opening Ceremony, Part One

Videos to come on this soon.

[getting the fish from waist level up into the bag or basket is at least as hard as catching them, so every advantage helps] 

[waiting for the gun] 

[pool shark] 

[refilling for the next round]

Marlin #3 and #4

Unfortunately I wasn't on the boat for these, which the captain (left) caught (and got into the boat) all by himself!  The smaller one is a striped marlin, which made really good sashimi.  The larger is a blue marlin - 130kg.  The captain told me he wants to break his single-season record this year, which currently stands at 16 marlin.  At four before May - when it usually begins to get good - we're on a great pace.
He had six hits today including a double.  Doubles happen a couple times/year, but we've never been able to land both fish.  Same today as he lost them both.  But I can only imagine how crazy it must have been for him trying to manage two marlin and the boat by himself.

Seahorse

I was watering my garden on my balcony when some guys who were fishing below yelled that they had a seahorse.  I am unclear on the exact method of capture (hands in the mud, I think), but from what I know of seahorses, they're pretty rare.  I also thought they were tiny (like the size of the end of your finger), but this guy was about 12cm (~4"?) long .  It was released after we all got some pictures.

No More Exercise

I went running this morning and stepped off the main road and onto a side road, which had metal grates over the flood ditches.  But I misjudged it and stepped on the metal grate with less than half of my right foot, which flipped that foot and ankle outward somewhere close to 90 degrees.  I still had forward momentum and went down reasonably hard on my left side, creating bloody rashes in at least four places, including my left palm.  I writhed in gravel while managing the hot and cold flashes for a minute until I could stand up and limp the 1.5km home.

These pictures are from 12 hours after the incident, so the swelling was even bigger earlier.  It's been a rough day, except when I got an x-ray and the doctor told me nothing is fractured.