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I accepted the invitation of my good friend, José Calero, one of the most important tourist promoters in the Canary Islands and creator of the Puerto Calero complex on the island of Lanzarote, which includes the marvellous marina, with more than 400 moorings, shops, restaurants and a beautiful development with apartments, residential El Cortijo. Puerto Calero is located on the east coast of Lanzarote, south of Puerto del Carmen and relatively close to the capital, Arrecife and the international airport. For me It was about fishing at the end of August in the International Tournament of Puerto Calero, one of the best in the Canary Islands but for reasons of work I could not at that time so I decided to change for the days of 21 to 23 September. The invitation was not for me, but for the whole family, so the group was made up of seven people. We flew from Barcelona with Air Europa directly to Lanzarote, two and a half hours flight.

José Calero and another good friend of mine, Manolo Cuenca, were waiting for us at the airport of Lanzarote. He was a big fan of deep-sea fishing and he was also spending a few days of holidays in Puerto Calero. From the airport we were transferred to the residential area El Cortijo, where José had reserved us a beautiful house on the seafront with wonderful views of the Atlantic Ocean and the neighbouring island of Fuerteventura. The setting was incomparable, the house had three bedrooms with bathroom, living room, terrace facing the sea and individual saltwater pool, ideal for spending three days of vacation.

That same day we had dinner in Amura, the best restaurant in the port and the next day we went fishing with José Calero's boat, Pemidajo, a 22 meter boat made in New Zealand, with a very wide stern and two combat chairs. The boat was very well equipped for deep-sea fishing, we had six rods, two 50-pound lines, two 80-pound lines and two 130-pound lines and we fished with artificial bait. The route went north of the island towards the island of La Graciosa.

Around 3 pm we had a strong bite on a line of 80 pounds, I took the rod and fought for three quarters of an hour with a beautiful blue marlin, which in the first race, we saw jumping away 2 or 3 times and then did not jump again. José, as skipper, gave a real lesson in how to handle the boat's controls when fishing the marlin, accelerating, stopping and forcing backwards, etc, and always having the marlin under control, that is to say, having the line under tension. With a skipper of this category it was easier for me to approach the marlin to the stern, photograph it and then release it. It was a specimen that had to weigh between 190 and 200 kilos. As soon as we released it, it quickly disappeared into the blue waters of the Atlantic. The joy on board was immense, as we had already achieved what we had come to look for; Oriol and Jordi, who had never fished before, were amazed, because for them it was a new and exciting experience. Then, both Oriol and Jordi fished dorado and were definitely fond of deep-sea fishing. The next day we had a splendid day with sun and calm waters, but we had no bite, although we had news by radio that several boats had had some contacts with marlin and a couple of them had managed to catch them.

23-01-2020

The 50 kilometre wide Pemba channel is very rich in nutrients and large predators come to it in search of food. The great depths of the channel favor the presence of the large billfish, including swordfish, blue, black, stripped and sailfish. So, with a little luck, a fisherman can make a slam -three different billfishes on the same day-, a Grand Slam -four billfishes- or a Super Grand Slam -five billfishes on the same day-. There are very few places in the world where this can happen, two of them are Piñas Bay (Panama) and La Guaira (Venezuela).

I had to insist little to my friends to choose this fishing destination and on February 14 we left Barcelona for Zurich, where we slept in a hotel next to the airport to leave the next day at first thing in the morning to Dar es-Salam, in a flight of ten hours with a stopover in Nairobi (Kenya). In Dar es Salaam we were met by the representative of Roy Safaris, our friend from other trips, who took us to a beautiful hotel in front of the sea, the Kilimanjaro, of the Kempinski chain.
The next day at 6 a.m., Roy accompanied us to the Yacht Club of Dar es-Salam, where the boat we had rented for six days was waiting for us, the Haraka, a 35-foot Guy Coach with his crew; Richard, a South African national, as skipper and the sailors Aby and Ali, both from Tanzania.
The Haraka is located in the north of the island of Zanzibar, more specifically at Ras Nungwi Beach, a hotel where I fished several years ago. From Haraka and its skipper, we had no reference, but it was the only boat we found available for those days, as both the organization Sea Adventures, Pat and Simon Hemphill, and the Pemba Channel Club, did not have boats available at that time. On board the Haraka we headed to our final destination, the island of Pemba, in Tanzania, and more specifically to a beautiful lodge, Fundu Lagoon. To Pemba we could go by plane but we preferred to arrive by boat and start fishing. The distance between Dar es-Salam and Pemba is about 70 nautical miles, sailing through the Zanzibar Channel was fast at 12 knots until we reached the beginning of the Pemba channel, where we slowed down to 7-8 knots and began fishing with artificial bait. After a short while, we got two strikes and two beautiful rainbow runners of about 8 kilos appeared at the stern of the boat. We ate them for dinner that night and then a specimen of rainbow got hooked and we brought it on board. Finally we spotted the silhouette of the island of Pemba and headed towards our destination, the Fundu Lagoon.

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We left Barcelona in November, bound for Air France and from there we headed for Johannesburg - in South Africa - in a ten-hour flight, and we arrived at this place the next day - which has a time difference of one hour with respect to Spain - then we took a plane and, after two hours and fifteen minutes of travel, following a stop at the Kruger Park, we arrived at Vilánculos. There we took a small plane that took us to our final destination, the island of Benguerra and, more specifically, El Benguerra Lodge. The total trip lasted 24 hours, but the hobby for fishing can handle it all.

The island of Benguerra is the second largest of the archipelago, with a length of 11 kilometres and a width of 5 kilometres and is separated from Bazaruto by a small strait at height of North Point. In Benguerra there are two lodges for deep-sea fishing, the Marlin Lodge and the Benguerra -the one we had chosen-. The Benguerra Lodge is a beautiful hotel consisting of 15 bungalows at the foot of a wonderful beach, well decorated but without doors or windows, a truly wild touch.

The first day we went with two 22 foot boats, one with a South African skipper and the other with two natives, José and Lorenzo. The sea was pretty rough and since we couldn't get any bait, we had to fish with artificial bait and dead natural bait. One of my friends caught a small one, the rest nothing. What really bothered us was the lack of adequate equipment on board, as we only had an 80 pound rod. There was no harness and the combat chair left much to be desired, but at least there was a chair, as one of the boats lacked one. When we arrived we formally complained and, for the next day, we were promised a 10 metre catamaran, with poles and a combat chair.

The second day was much better. We caught eight king-mackerel, between 8 and 15 kilos, and at least we had a fun day. The bad news was given to us when we got back from fishing, as the next few days 40 to 50 knots of wind from the south were expected, which made fishing practically impossible. In other words, out of our five fishing days, two were going down the drain because of bad weather and, as we couldn't do otherwise, we decided to go on an excursion to the Marlin Lodge in order to get to know its facilities. It took us an hour to walk along the beach until we reached the lodge, so we could see that perhaps they were better prepared for fishing, as their equipment was better, but the boats were just like ours. The most surprising thing is that, as the manager told us, there were no people who had gone fishing during this time - just like in our lodge–.

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