A Waqa named Saqa

I caught a fish. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I built a small boat with the help of some people from the village. The boat is made out of a single 12-ft piece of corrugated roofing tin and is called a bavelo. By itself the thing is extremely tippy. A few days ago one of the guys from the village helped me make an outrigger for the boat out of a thick piece of bamboo. With the outrigger attached, I was able to paddle the boat on the ocean and easily handle moderately sized waves. For any Peace Corps people reading this blog, I always wear a lifejacket when paddling my bavelo and I stay very close to shore. Well, I took my waqa (Fijian word for boat- pronounced wanga) out on it's maiden voyage a few days ago and trolled a hook baited with some fish behind it just for the heck of it. I didn't have a paddle at that time so I just paddled with two plastic plates. It was very hard work. As I was returning to shore I noticed that the boat was handling very strangely. It was difficult to paddle and would not follow a straight path. I pulled on the fishing line that was stretched out behind the boat. It was tight. I assumed that I had snagged a rock. I gave it a tug, and it tugged back very hard. I fought the fish over the next half hour. The line I was using was only 10 pound test and was wrapped around a Fiji water bottle, so I had to play the fish very slowly. Several times I had the fish close to the boat when it decided to run and I had to let it take the line out. Finally I played the thing to exhaustion and pulled the fish up to the boat. It was a big, 24in saqa (pronounced sanga- bigeye trevally). I plopped it into the bavelo and headed back to the village. I received quite a welcome when the villagers saw my fish. The guy who helped me build the outrigger announced that the name of my little boat would be "Saqa".