The Watamu Fly540 Festival was fished last weekend, and despite the fishing being slow five teams found marlin the first day. Instedda, with Imran, Moosa and Ali al Harazi had a striped marlin and a sail, plus some small fish putting them ahead of Kipapa and Snark who shared second, both with a marlin and a sail. On the second day none of these leaders could find another marlin, while both Joint Venture and Sand Dollar had marlin, the latter a nice blue estimated at 100kgs which gave them the biggest fish prize.

But it was Snark who found a sailfish late on the way home the second day, to clinch the top spot with anglers Andy Atkins from UK and Adrian Paul for 928 points. Andy had struck the striped marlin the first day, but it fell off after a couple of jumps, but was so keen that it came back and swallowed another bait, and this time he made no mistake, tagging the fish after half an hour's fight.

Unreel, with only a sail the first day, added a striped marlin to put their team of Royan Taylor, Richie Moller, Russ Brumby and skipper Rob Hellier into second place overall, just one point ahead of Instedda in third, while Kipapa with Steve Wright, Paul Hutton and Mike Evans were only 2 1/2 points behind in fourth place.

Phil Revett, Brett Ayton and skipper Callum Looman came fifth in Tarka, with a marlin first day and small fish the next, while Joint Venture, with Roger Sylvester, Robin Nixon and owner Dave Sutton up from Dar es Salaam found nothing the second day to add to their first day marlin -   but this sufficed for sixth place.

Many thanks to Fly540 for their sponsorship and splendid prizes and a fun two days for all. Monday was a day of rest, but Tuesday dawn saw twenty-one boats on their way out for the 'Friends of Kenya' with main sponsors Aggreko. Deadline was 4pm the next day weigh-in at Hemingways, but only two boats fished the night shift. One of these, Bamara, with Dicky Evans, and the sponsors representatives James Shepherd and Robin James, tagged and released the only broadbill swordfish caught, as well as two striped marlin plus two sail to get fifth place overall for their hard work.

Outright winner was the team and former winners on Neptune, Rick Lemmonier, Don Lafferty and Andy de Mare, from Dubai, with the latter hooking a black marlin the first day after starting from Ngomeni and then a stripey next day in the Rips. With six sail the first day as well, they were well ahead of last year's winners, the White Mischief team of Nick Michaelides, Russ Brumby and Phil Geshwend, the latter two anglers both catching a black marlin on the second day. They spent the first day trying the deep drop daytime method for broadbill, but were out of luck there despite one hook-up, which if it hadn't come off could have won them top spot! But fishing comes with lots of 'came off' stories!

Third was the team of Brett Ayton and Juma Mbwana on White Dove, the latter angler tagging a blue marlin the first day and the former a stripey the second day, while Black Widow was placed fourth, with the same catch and score, but the earliest strike decides. Simba did well with Gai Cullen catching two sail on fly and Richard Baudry one, these scoring treble points for this far more difficult method of fishing. Fantastic prizes and lots of fun.