What a day! The kind people who bottle CAPI sparkling mineral water invited me for a day out deep-sea fishing today. I had the best time meeting Pitzy Folk and his sidekicks. Chris Arnold from Noosa River Fishing was our captain for today and his assistant Lee kept our hooks baited, took fish off and were really kind to me when my skin tone began to change.
“Look at the horizon. See that point of land? Focus on that and you won’t throw up,” was Chris’s sage advice and it worked.
Before green, however, I did almost catch a fish. I say I almost did it because to be honest, Lee caught the fish before I ever had a chance for him to pass the rod to me.
We started out at 6am from the front door of the Sheraton Hotel and Resort in Noosa. To get up to Noosa and find my way, I was up at 4:45am and on the boat by 6:15. Getting past the sand bar at low tide took courage and all of us needed to be seated and holding on — but we made it just fine and headed out to the reef to fish.
Pitzy provided us with bacon and egg rolls, muffins, great coffee and their fantastic sparkling water. Just last week CAPI Sparkling mineral water was awarded the title of Best Australian Water by Melbourne’s Epicure. CAPI received accolades for its mineral water alongside the famous international brand Badoit-French. Can’t get much better than that.
On the way home from Noosa, I stopped at the local Dan Murphy’s and bought two bottles to photograph (and drink). It will soon be in all Coles and Woolies supermarkets. CAPI also have flavoured water and I bought a cranberry to test.
The water has natural carbonation so it’s bubbly but it has a refreshing mouth feel. You know what I mean when I say some fizzy water seems to crackle in your mouth? CAPI isn’t like that at all. It’s smooth and I would have drunk several bottles but I feared feeding the fish with my breakfast.
Not long ago I received an email about CAPI’s new commercials. I cracked up. This was before I knew anything about them. Since I absolutely love Cuba, here’s their Cuba commercial. They’ll have this and others on tv here in Australia very soon.
So back to fishing. As we were catching fish left right and center, a fast-moving cruiser came flying by and when its wake hit us we were going forward and back and side to side, seemingly all at the same time. My old nemesis vertigo kicked in and it was time to hold on to something. This was the end of my fishing but I was able to stop watching the horizon long enough to take some good fish shots.
This is Daniel Baum, sous chef of Sails Restaurant in Noosa. Isn’t this a great fishing photo?
Then there was French born Patrick Landelle, executive chef of Café Le Monde restaurant. It’s one of my favorite spots in Noosa and we dined there with John’s dad when he was up here recently. We loved it. It’s not always easy to find a table but when you do, it’s guaranteed to be a good time with great food. Just walking by the restaurant reminds you of the last time you were in Paris. It certainly does for me.
Finally, award-winning chef Ryan Squires, former co-owner of Esquire Restaurant in Brisbane (3 hats in the Good Food Guide for 2012 – now closed) was the fishing winner of the day with this huge jewfish. I wasn’t first in line to view this fish so apologies for the pole.
Here’s a photo of our host, the most gracious Pitzy Folk standing with Ryan Squires. He’s a mad keen fisherman who created CAPI Sparking mineral water and who also owns the Map Coffee business.
And here’s the other lady on the boat and her fish!
Don’t ask me the names of the fish because I’m not too clued in. I know what I can catch off the pontoon out back and none of these looked like that. 🙂 There was one shark, one creepy eel and several red or red striped fish. Don’t I sound like I’m ready to take people out fishing? no.
Thanks to the CAPI folk for a great start to the Noosa International Food and Wine show this weekend. Tomorrow it’s a Q & A lunch with Tetsuya Wakuda.