I got to go on my not-quite-annual fishing trip last month.

We took off from the little town of Marsden this time, about an hour and a half drive north… the charter captain has relocated up there.

That picture is the dormant / defunct oil refinery at Marsden Point. It’s been much in the news with the Iran war / situation. It was NZ’s only refinery, shuttered by its private sector owners five or so years ago, because it was dirty, inefficient, and most importantly unprofitable.

But now that there’s been an oil price shock , the free market bozos in charge at the moment are trying to blame the previous left wing government for not intervening enough to keep the refinery open. The amount and brazenness of double-speak goes up every day.

It was a beautiful day, great to catch up with former colleagues.

The fishing itself was (again) somewhat anti-climactic. We drove around for maybe 45 minutes, found a likely spot thanks to the captain’s juju magic and a pretty sophisticated fish finding sonar system, and caught our limit in maybe an hour. Like, on the one hand a perfect outcome, but part of me wants to work a little harder.

While I was away, Lee arranged with the guy at the nearby tackle shop to fillet them for me… that was a super nice surprise.