We are in the middle of a lean period at the moment but we start to get busy again around the 12th January.

The weather is very fair with no rain to speak of, for a long while now and the wind is blowing constantly from the north. Although it isn't flat calm we have not had any serious blows yet.

On the security side, things are calm with no incidents at all around here. Last week a boat, which crossed the border into Kenya from Somalia, was confronted by our security forces and stopped in its tracks!! That just shows that a no nonsense attitude is being taken up there which is good. Within the last few days the British Government has issued a travel advisory for Kenya in response to terrorist alerts. Obviously we don't know what is going on behind the scenes but what I can say is that Malindi is still peaceful and bustling. Lets hope that the alerts blow over soon and all resumes to normal.

Now to the serious matter of fishing! Apart from the odd bad day here and there, the sailfish run which had kicked off in my last update has continued to date. Tina had 11 sailfish on a short day on the 19th December whilst Snowgoose had 9 on a long day fishing with the Oleksii Kharkov party from the Ukraine Eclare fishing out on the "rips" with Bernd and Marc Neufeldt had three sailfish and a mako shark. It has been Marc's dream to catch a mako so what a way to end their trip on their last day out. Ivan and Andre from South Africa had two sailfish on fly and four conventionally fishing from Neptune on the 20th. There were a lot of sailfish everywhere around the Christmas period and boats were coming back with at least four flags most days. Tina had 8 on the 24th and 6 on the 25th. Neptune won the kids Christmas competition fished out of Watamu on the 26th. Fishing with Alister, Tiva, Eric and Joey they had nine sailfish by lines out at twelve o'clock! Tiva tagged and released one of the biggest sailfish of the season which was estimated at 45 kgs.

Tina continued her impressive run of form on the 27th December finding 11 sailfish for Francois Hattingh. On the 28th Francois was on Tina again and this time they opted to to try and look for a marlin out on the rips. The gamble paid off as they tagged and released a good size black marlin and a sailfish. The 28th was the first day of the Christmas Competition fished out of Ocean Sports. Sadly Neptune was our only boat taking part in what is a very popular and well run tournament. After a good opening day with a striped marlin and four sailfish Neptune couldn't keep it up on the second day and they ended up fourth overall. Seahorse was the overall winner followed by Magoo.

Snark fishing with Manfred Gieply had 8 sailfish on the 31st December while Tina had 5. We don't normally have boats out on the 1st January but this year we had 3 fishing. Snowgoose was the top boat with 5 sailfish.

The fishing got tougher from the 2nd January with less fish showing all round. Snowgoose still managed to get two sailfish on fly for Kiki Fernandez.

At the beginning of January last year there were a lot of marlin showing, especially stripies. So far this year has seen a slight decline in marlin numbers but hopefully that is just because they are running later than usual. Snowgoose caught a black marlin on the 4th fishing with Klaus-Dieter Jung and there have been a few stripies caught out of Watamu since the beginning of the year but otherwise it has been quiet on that front.

Snark had 8 sailfish on the 6th while fishing off Malindi and yesterday Snowgoose had 8, Eclare 5 and Snark 4.

Unfortunately I must end on a sad note. Many of you will remember Mohammed Athman who worked for us on Tina as crew and skipper for many years. Sadly Mohammed or "Asidi"ashe was known by his friends passed away on 24th December after a short illness. He started working with Dad on Tina as a deck hand at the beginning of the 1980's and gradually worked his way up to skipper in 2002 until his retirement in 2009. He will be sorely missed by all his friends and family.

This coming weekend is the Malindi Casino Competition which is normally very well supported and sponsored. We will have at least two boats participating in what promises to be a large entry. Lets hope that billfish will be around in abundance!

Have a good week and take care,

By Adrian Paul