So, as you have now all gathered you are stuck with ME as your Offshore Rebel skipper....poor chaps. I think next year will be my 73rd season?
Son Tom is now fully committed to Commercial Diving and is off here and there in different countries, fiddling about with stuff under water in zero visibility.
Mr Steven West will be continuing in the chartering world with renewed energy in response to the dazzling enthusiasm displayed by so many of you wonderful angling customers.
So, nothing's chaged really.....our plans have been altered due to the economic pressures which are affecting us all. I hope next year's going to be all right??????
Major repairs and improvements began on Alderney Harbour's Commercial Quay last May and are expected to last for all of next year. This means that landing our customers on the Commercial Quay will still not be possible. On Spring Tides there's no problem as we can use the Inner Harbour but on Neap Tide trips there WILL be a problem and customers will have to WALK a fair way to the taxi's.
SO...it is in your interest to TRAVEL LIGHT!!!! I know many custmers like to bring a massive overnight suitcase with them full of stacks of clothes and God knows what else...but YOU will have to carry it!!!
You have been warned...TRAVEL LIGHT!!!!!
Current News Update. On neap tides we cannot enter the Inner Harbour in Alderney. Why? Because there's no water in the harbour in the morning and evening....yes; it DRIES OUT! This means we now have to use the Water Taxi to ferry you from the boat to the shore and from the shore back to the boat in the mornings. Unfortunately this will cost you a bit...just as it does for the skipper and crew to come ashore. It is £3.80 for a return trip EACH. On a 5 day trip there will be 4 Return Trips (£15.20) and on a four day trip there will be 3 return trips (£11.40). Sorry about this but there is nothing we can do about the situation!!
Nov 2008. Jai is now in Borneo, skippering a large sailing boat which is wandering about on sight seeing charters. I believe they will be heading to Indonesia in mid December.
For those of you who are interested, Jai is actually more qualified than any of us Weymouth charter skippers and probably more qualified than the majority of charter angling skippers in the UK. She is now a fully fledged Ocean Master and has notched up literally thousands of sea miles in various large sailing boats.
Last winter (2007/2008) saw her skippering a 105' two masted vessel with 6 crew and 12 customers along the Northern Vietnamese/Southern China coastline and around the South China Seas as well as a trip into Taiwan and then the Philippines. Now she can add Borneo and Indonesia to her C.V. It's not always easy to understand what she's saying but if you listen carefully and get her talking about her work (she is modest, so it is hard) she is actually full of sea faring tales and adventures.
I do not know if she will be back next year as she is finally getting properly paid as a Thai skipper....and then, just to be totally different, she told me she's going to buy a mountain in the north of Thailand, plant a load of trees and 'walk about a bit'! Hmmmmm?
My new Thai House renting project is has really taken off. The house is booked from now as I wirtie (Nov) right through until mid April 2009. There's so much exctiting stuff going on that I will devote a section to it later.....
A new project for 2008! Starting November 2008.
This is a photo of the new house I have bought in Phuket, Thailand. It has four bedroom all with large en-suite bathrooms, a fifth bathroom, small swimming pool and parking for four cars. It can therefore sleep up to 8 people.
It backs onto a lagoon behind which is an elephant trail and behind that mountains.
It is five minutes from the main Chalong Pier in south Phuket from where the boats for fishing and diving go. Next year a new golf course will be made close to the house. The quieter beaches are just five minutes away in Rawai where you can also enjoy Thai Food provided by the resturants as you are sitting next to the sea...it's idyllic!
It costs £600 per week for the whole house in peak season (Dec to March); £400 in Nov and April; and £300 per week in May through to October.
The original idea was to rent the whole house but in response to the demand from you chaps, I will be in the house all of Jan, Feb and March to act as guide, taxi driver, trips arranger etc etc etc. As many of you (bless) cannot work out how to use your computers, I have also ended up arranging many of the flights as well!! It's obviously a popular option as the house is now fully booked on a room basis before it reverts to house bookings in mid March.
It's going to be an exciting few months. Customers have asked me to arrange all sorts of courses and activities including language courses, fresh water lake fishing, sea and shore angling trips (one group are off to the Andaman Islands in March on a top of the range liveaboard Game Boat after marlin in barely fished waters....that IS going to be exciting), PADI diving courses, Thai Cooking, sailing....etc! It means I am going to get to know Phuket extremely well as I find out how to fulfil all the deifferent requests...brilliant. And one thing that I am really looking forward to are the 'shore diving safari's' I am going to run! It's gonna be great, guys!
Most of you know where to park now when you come fishing in Weymouth. Skippers are able to issue you with tickets but it is ESSENTIAL that you park in an allocated bay correctly and display your parking ticket (which you would have got from me if you are fishing with me that day) clearly in your front window. It's also important to check that I (or you) have indicated the correct date and relevant details on your ticket. Bear in mind I have a zillion things on my mind first thing in the morning and I make mistakes!! So DOUBLE CHECK YOUR TICKET!!
Also, if you get to the boat early for breakfast etc...don't put your car in the carpark without your ticket...even for half an hour.
Believe me the traffic wardens will do everything they can to book you and it's useless trying to talk to them. I really am very sad at their negative and destructive attitude towards us all. I just don't get it! We do everything we can to conform to what they want but the slightest step outside the bounderies and you are clobbered.
In this past year (2008) I have been amazed at how many customers are getting booked....look lads, the car parking ticket you get from the skippers is for the COUSINS QUAY CARPARK (was called The Loop carpark)!!!! You MUST put it in there...not in some carpark that looks pretty or on the harbourside where f****** great signs say 'Permit Holders Only' etc. You ARE NOT PERMIT HOLDERS!! You have a ticket to park in the designated carpark!! It now costs £6 for the day....so why many of you go into the Council Carpark and pay £8 for the day baffles me! And, with ever rising costs, you CAN still park for free. Yes, it requires a 5 minute walk from the back of Asda where there are spaces or up on the Chaplay Estate overlooking the harbour.
I hear many people complaining about the cost of everything...but you CAN reduce costs. For goodness sake though DON'T go and park somewhere stupid and get a fine!!!!
BEWARE!!! If in doubt........PLEASE ASK THE SKIPPERS!!!!!!
Fuel prices are rocketing. We are now on 75p a litre (£3.40 per gall) for red diesel and it's still rising. Before you all leap about and say that is cheap....bear in mind that most 'fast' boats average between 1 and 2 miles per gall. I am able to extract 1.2 mpg if I go easy on the throttle. Thus an 80 to 100 mile round wrecking trip = £225 up to £270 in fuel alone!
It may be that wrecking becomes a special treat or that clubs have to mix inshore fishing and wrecking trips throughout the year because of the cost. Because of this massive fuel charge increase, Wrecking is now £550 per day. It no longer matters to us skippers if we stay inshore or go wrecking as we end up with the same 'net' result from a business pint of view...indeed inshore fishing is to our advantage as there is much less wear and tear on the vessels.
Weymouth/Portland offers fantastic inshore fishing....so maybe it's time now to return to the 'old days' and get the anchor down and look at angling as a sport and not as a means to sometimes fill the freezer....there's a lot on offer inshore!!! Discuss it with me.
Also, Weymouth is a brilliant place to have a holiday. I know for the past 20 years I have concentrated on Alderney for the 'angling holidays' but Weymouth has a lot to offer. Plenty of restaurants, lots to do at night, good inshore and offshore fishing....and it will be much cheaper. Everything in Alderney is going up as well as the fuel....maybe it's time to make changes??
The blonde ray fishing was excellent this year.......with the best rays touching 30lb. Just to put a reality check on it...here's another kind of ray that happened to be swimming by when son Tom and I were diving...it's as big as a garage door...don't ask me how much it weighed....but it was BIG.
If you'd like to get in amongst these monsters....you can! Check out the link to the new business in the opening items in this section... www.paulsthaihouse.co.uk
Blonde Rays!
Yes, I know this is not a blonde ray. Yes, it's a blonde. Well, I got so sick of listening to you lot whining about poor Colin with his nice turbot! Honestly; what are you lot like? So, just to keep you all calm, here is a photo of a different blonde. Allow me to introduce 23 year old Trina from Denmark. Now, as you all know, when an attractive lady diver goes for their 100th dive it's tradition for them to take all their kit off underwater...which Trina did. As this is a family paper, this is as far as the photography will go! Enjoy!
The blonde ray fishing has been terrific in the past month. On the final day of the EFSA Festival (14th September) we went all out for the blonde rays. It's a bit of a risk in a competition but within the first 2 hours we had won the day with the top three anglers coming from my boat and thus going home with their pockets full of dosh.
In two hours we had landed 7 rays over 20lb (best 26lb) and 8 rays in the 15lb range. Amazing fishing! Following that we have have fished for rays on 3 occasions with each day being extremely successful. Apart from bonus turbot, we've also seen double figure bass and cod come to the net.
Another great thing about the ray fishing is that you return the majority of the rays are returned to the sea and in competitions all fish go back.
I'm always banging on about the ray fishing. It used to be extremely popular but these days most of you prefer to fish very light for bass and bream etc etc. BUT don't forget that Weymouth offers some superb inshore ray fishing. Yes, you have to fish in the tide from the anchor so that means 2lb leads...and, if you are serious and want to maximise the fishing time, go up to 3lb leads.
Before I hear the grizzling beginning, let me remind you that a twin speed reel makes light work of such weights and fish...the tackle is out there; the fish are available...try it!!
There are a few dates set aside next October 2008 aimed at ray fishing...try it!
Bream fishing in 2007 is again outstanding with catches starting in April and going on even later this year right through until mid November!. Weymouth has enjoyed a real revival of this species; so don't miss out in 2008.
Bream trips from August to November combine well with bass trips (or even blonde ray trips if you fancy fishing two extremes in one day with heavy tackle for the blondes and light for the bream).
(Look out for the Bream Trips on the INDIVIDUALS TRIP PAGE for 2008)
If the opportunity arises to try for bream on any of the group bookings for other species, then let's have a go!!
Last Updated: Sun Nov 23 2008